Advancing Fusion Energy

Welcome to “Science at Work,” a new podcast from Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina. I’m your host, Mike Ettlemyer. Science at work is a production of the Savannah River National Laboratory, SRNL, Office of Communications. We usually start the podcast by telling you that this year is quite special in lab history. It’s been 20 years since the U.S. Department of Energy designated SRNL as a national lab.

But you might not know that our legacy spans seven decades, back to the early 1950s and the Cold War. We’re trying to build understanding of what a national lab is and what it does so that the non-scientists among us — and I’m included in this — understand how SRNL puts science to work to protect our environment, serve our national defense, secure our clean energy future and reduce emerging nuclear threats.

And one of the best ways to do this, as we have found, is to speak with the scientists, engineers and other professionals who are at the heart of who we are, what we do and why it matters. Today, we’ll speak with Holly Flynn, a senior scientist in hydrogen processing here at SRNL. Holly is a key researcher and technical lead for the lab’s work in fusion modeling.

Last year, she was selected as a Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Research Program awardee — that’s a mouthful — and will receive $2.5 million over five years to fund research associated with Fusion Energy. Sounds like really exciting stuff!

Holly’s research is important to understand as we hear more and more in the mainstream news and other sources about fusion technology and the benefits of what has been called an abundant energy source.

And so, Holly will help us understand what her research is about and how it will help advance fusion technology in the U.S. Holly was also one of eight early career scientists who competed in our first research SLAM, which meant giving a TEDx style talk about her work in three minutes or less. Let me tell you, that is not easy. We’re talking about scientific concepts and principles.

Thanks for joining us, Holly. It’s great to have you here.

Holly: Thanks for having me.

Mike: I’ve been really looking forward to this because fusion is such a big topic — and energy research, it seems to have great potential. And we’ve made great strides in fusion, but there is so much to understand about it.

And I’m hoping… I’m sure you can help us with that understanding. Maybe you could start off by telling us about your role at SRNL and what your research is about.

Holly: Yeah, definitely. I’d love to. And I’ll do my best informing you on fusion as [much as] possible. Okay. There’s definitely a lot of other researchers here that have different aspects of fusion that they handle. But me personally here at SRNL, I focus on the fuel cycle modeling. And when I say we’re talking about processing components. You know, what’s going to get the fuel back to the system so you can keep things running up and going. And so, our target has been in the past, like, doing basic reduce models, but also using this software called Aspen, which is heavily used in the oil and gas industry. It’s very well supported, but has a lot of stuff built into it that enables us to do like component models, built into it — allows us to understand throughput. So that’s like the gas flowing through or other kinds of like forms of gases or maybe liquids, flow rates, those kinds of things. And seeing how that impacts, the system as a whole.

And the unique thing about this for SRNL is that we, have a lot, decades of tritium research, research and development and subject matter experts. And the very first fuel that’s going to be used in a commercial reactor. I don’t think there’s any way around it. There are other options. But just how the science works out, you’re going to start off with deuterium, tritium.

Well, tritium needs to be treated a little special. It needs some handholding and, you know, proper equipment and proper processing. And that’s where we kind of come in as SRNL. We have that history and capabilities to understand that and put those components together. And we don’t have like a large-scale facility where all those components are integrated.

So that’s when, me and my team comes in and we say, well, we can model this, we can break this out in a virtual environment and build out this system that you can test virtually and understand how those components are going to work together again, an idea. And then as we build out these models and integrate more complex systems and inform experimenters and the actual like component integration, then that once they start putting that together, that data feeds us and then we feed them.

And so, it’s kind of like a nice little feedback system. And the really big overarching goal for the modeling side of things is to have this big integrated model that not just helps out with design and decisions, but helps out in every stage, including operations. And so that’s kind of like our big overarching goal is to have something that we can guide and inform companies we work with and other researchers and incorporate all this knowledge. But then when you turn that reactor on, those models are still there. Those models are still working. And our power force to help with control and optimization and understanding what happens with other components.

Mike: That sounds really, really interesting. What, if we take a step back. And so, you know, if people have been reading about fusion in the news and other national laboratories or other industries, and, you know, the fusion topic comes up, what’s important for them to understand about fusion? I know that might not be the easiest thing to answer in a sentence or two, but you know…

Holly: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think and I would even kind of step a little bit back and say one of the good things to know. So, there’s all kinds of parts of fusion.

Traditionally when you talk about fusion, you talk about plasma physics and what’s going on, the reaction of, you know, slamming light nuclei together and fusing them together and getting a ton of energy out. And how to combine that on Earth. Because you’re essentially saying, let’s confine the sun, and you’re having to handle these extreme conditions and find out those materials.

But we’ve expanded that out because now we’re really interested in commercializing it. You know, before is about the physics and using physics, right. And confining that system. Now we want to start producing energy. And I think that’s the thing to really know is that we’re opening this area up. There’s new curricula being built out. There’s new areas of opportunity where we’re talking about materials and technology and how to put all that together.

And hopefully in something that’s really been a huge topic is workforce development. And I think that’s really the information you want to get out there is, you know, we’re looking to build this workforce up and have these individuals that can, you know, run these big powerhouses. And I think, you know, there’s all kinds of things we can get into the weeds with fusion.

But I think that’s what I would say, that needs to be known because we’ve had these big, you know, decrees of a decade-old vision where we want fusion within, like, decades time. You know, it’s coming up. It’s not like 60 years in the past. It’s, you know, a couple decades in the future. And those are the things I think are the important stuff.

Mike: That’s really interesting. I keep using that word. Interesting. This is, again, this is a fascinating topic for me, because when I see an article in the paper about, it was one of the other national laboratories, I can’t remember which one right now, but something maybe last December or something.

And it was about a fusion breakthrough. But then later in the article, it’s talking about, well, that this other thing won’t be for another 30 years. So, you wonder, wow, this sounds amazing. But yeah. Oh wait, we’ve got a long way to go. So just a comment.

Holly: I think that’s a great comment. And it’s one that came up, if you don’t mind is talking about it when that news came out. So, what you’re talking about is a National Ignition Facility out at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Mike: Yeah, right.

Holly: They have big, huge lasers that are firing at a target, and it’s called an inertial confinement fusion. So, it’s a little bit different than us confining things through magnets. So, there’s kind of like two basic confinement types. And then out of those breed other kind of hybrids and modifications that people are exploring. But they have these 90 plus lasers or, you know, it’s like 100 anyways, 90 plus. Lasers are firing in the target and they have to be so accurate. But they showed that the laser power in, was lower than the fusion power out. And so that was like a big deal. They call it like Q scientific.

It just means you’re positive, your net positive energy.

Mike: Sounds like a good thing.

Holly: Yeah, the reason why we’re still kind of 30 years out, which –it’s a great thing. It’s the first demonstration of that kind of, you know, net positive energy. The reason why we’re still kind of 30 years out is that those lasers probably I think it’s like three, 300 megajoules of energy is how much they use, which are very different than the 2.5 megajoules you got out of the fusion thing.

So, it’s the localized experience of the power in to the power out, whereas the technology and the actual engineering components used up so much energy. And so, you have to tackle that problem now. You’ve hit a big milestone. Real big milestone not to like degrade it at all. But there’s other milestones we still have to capture now and really hit on.

And one of those is the energy that your actual facility and plant eats up or uses. It needs to be less than what you put out from fusion.

So that’s why it’s still like 30 years out.

And so those are the questions we’re trying to answer.

Mike: That is really cool. So, I’m interested in your background in terms of, you know, where you went to school, what you studied, and, well, I’ll save this for later. So, where did you go to school? What did you study?

Holly: Yeah. So, I did some kind of funky little thing when I got out of grad or high school, I decided I wanted to be an FBI agent. So, I didn’t want to go into science. I wanted to do international relations, and I wanted to go to Washington, D.C.

So, I packed up and left and went to D.C. for two years, where I interned with the Senate and did all this really fun stuff politically. Learned a lot of things and then I was in there interning. And they had these tech liaisons that were not in the office, but that talk to you. So, somebody from these laboratories talked to this tech liaison, and then he communicated that throughout the office to the senator and incorporated those into all that fun bill making stuff.

And I was like, oh, I don’t want to be this person. I want to be the person in the laboratory, you know? So, I packed up my bags after two years and went to University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I grew up in Tennessee, middle Tennessee. And so, I did nuclear engineering as my undergrad. And then I got into this program called the Bredesen Center.

It’s a fellowship program. Put in place, it’s named after one of our governors, that allows you to be a university student. But you work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Mike: Nice.

Holly: And so that’s how you get your PhD. It’s interdisciplinary. So, I was in the plasma physics side of the house, but my friends were in microbiology, all across the fields in energy. Like batteries and things like that. It was really cool, and I loved it. And getting to work at the laboratory was really fun. A research scientist out there was my advisor. So that’s kind of how that dynamic played out. And it was cool. Maybe the first couple years, three years, I think it had been going on.

So, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. Different. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything because, you know, people are like, oh, well, your degrees in energy science and engineering, what does that mean? Just means I was in an interdisciplinary program and got to engage with a lot of different individuals and work with the laboratory scientists, which I thought was pretty cool.

Mike: That is very cool. So, what brought you to SRNL?

Holly: Yeah, it’s all kind of tied together. It’s just like a nice little story that flows together. So, I actually met Dave Babineau, who’s my — I know this isn’t going to mean anything [except] to me — level three manager, and I met him at a conference that I was helping out with in Knoxville.

And this is around when I was writing my dissertation. COVID was going on, or about to start going on. It was like one of the last conferences I went to for that period. And he was there, and my research advisor was there. I had a little bit of background in materials, nuclear materials, like fission materials.

He’s like, I really want you to meet Dave. And so, Dave and I chat and Dave’s like, you know, you should apply to a postdoc position. And he’s like, just keep me up to date with it. So, I applied to a postdoc position, wasn’t the only place I interviewed with and stuff. So, there was another place down in Auburn where, I got to continue what I was researching, and I actually really loved what I was researching.

So I really, really thought about it. But I wanted it to be a bit more hands on. And they [SRNL] were also giving me more freedom. Which isn’t always the case when you’re a PhD. student, because they kind of want you to focus on your stuff and get through, and that’s what you’re supposed to do. And get your degree.

And so they offered me a lot more freedom to be computational. Try a bunch of different stuff. I got into artificial intelligence and machine learning, played with sensors, which I’ve come to really enjoy playing with the different data and all this other fun stuff. And so just that appeal. And then they gave me an offer and I was like, yeah, you know, it’s close to Tennessee.

It had some other personal reasons I wanted to stay close.

And came down here and started working. And I’ve been here for a little over four years now. No longer postdoc, full staff now.

Mike: Well, that’s great. We’re glad to have you here with us. And so, let’s see, can you tell us how your research might impact our listeners? You probably started to do that already with some information about, you know, what do we really need to know about fusion, right?

Holly: Yeah, I think it’s along the same lines. Impact wise, I think it’s that we’re wanting to commercialize fusion a lot. And so, this is not just like the workforce development I was talking about, but also engaging the public in what we’re doing. So fusion is a nuclear energy. So, there’s a lot of lessons learned. We can learn from our sister energy, which is fission. There’s a whole lot we can learn about, especially with communicating with the community and being clear and open on what that means, because even though it’s a clean energy or cleaner energy than fission. There’s still things we have to, to be aware of and we have to take care of. Like we talked about tritium. It’s a radioactive isotope.

Mike: Yes.

Holly: Reducing that exposure to the environment and personnel or people as well as the personnel who are working on it is very important. It’s very important to us. And we’re wanting to make sure that it’s open.

We’re not trying to, you know, keep things under the rug or anything — not saying that anybody has.

Mike: Yeah.

Holly: It’s just, you know, I think that’s really important, that community engagement and talking to people and letting them know what’s going on, how we’re approaching these things. Opportunities to engage the community and just being, you know, clear like we were talking about earlier in the podcast.

Mike: While being very clear that it is, that there’s a lot of opportunity there as an energy source. And it’s a clean energy.

And that’s something that people, I think, understand or want to understand better. How do we get to clean energy versus other types. Right?

Holly: Exactly. Yeah. And I think those are just really important conversations. SRNL is really good about engaging the community. We have the Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness that a lot of people are part of.

So, we go to schools and have those kits and, demo things in, you know, I think, I think keeping that going and expanding that is really important.

Mike: Yes, absolutely.

You’re listening to Science at Work, a new podcast from Savannah River National Laboratory. We’re speaking with Holly Flynn, a senior scientist with a PhD. in energy science and engineering who works in hydrogen processing and fusion research at SRNL.

Holly, what can you tell us about the future of this area of research? I mean, we’ve been kind of talking about some of that, but what would you say is next?

Holly: Ooh. What’s next? Yeah, I think this is going to go on for quite a bit of time, in my opinion. But, you know, next doesn’t exactly have to mean in a different area.

It could be in your same area. You’re just tackling a different question. And I think one of the big things is, we’ve had several workshops. So, these places where a bunch of the scientists or individual, not even just scientists like Nuclear Regulatory Commission, individuals who are invested and partake in this whole process of fusion and commercializing fusion.

And we find these workshops where we discuss, you know, what are the key research topics and objectives we need to tackle to make this happen? You know, almost planning out a path to commercial fusion. And I think that’s it. You just make new objectives, and you keep pushing that until you reach your goals.

Mike: Keep pushing forward.

Holly: Yeah. You just keep pushing forward. And a lot of stuff has come out of that. So, we’re working on a fire center proposal, which is a big fusion proposal that, the Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences has released for different leads. So, it’s like university and company and laboratory led and engaged. And you’re tasked with working with multiple individuals. Because even though SRNL is really good about tritium science, there’s a lot of other facilities and laboratories that have other expertise that you can capitalize on. And when you work together, you’re able to make something more cohesive and comprehensive that will drive us toward answering those big research questions. And I think that’s the thing, you know.

For me personally, so, my main work is tritium accountancy. It’s important to know where your tritium is, where it’s going. And especially these big plants it’s going to be a continuous system. So, you got it flowing, you’ve got it go disappearing. You know, not disappearing. I shouldn’t say that. You’ve got it burning up. You’re losing it. But then you’re also adding it on top of that. So being able to keep up with that and know where it is. And I really, just started this project and using artificial intelligence and machine learning to really capitalize on how to do this with sensors.

So, it’s kind of sensor fusion. So, you’re just taking a bunch of sensors and you’re fusing their information together and you’re, teaching, like a program how to keep up with the tritium in the system. But I’d love to keep, even if it’s not like in fusion, I’d love to continue that kind of work. That would be something I’d be very into, even if it’s in fusion accountancy or something along those lines or control dynamics in other systems. That stuff is awesome, I love that.

Mike: It sounds pretty awesome. So, it sounds like that project may continue for, you know, a while.

Holly: Yeah, it’s going to continue for four more years for sure. Yeah.

Mike: Great. Wow. That’s really cool. So, you know, in addition to getting to know you and your work at SRNL, I think we’d like to get to know you as the individual.

And there’s a lot of ways to tackle that. But I would say, what is — or I would ask, rather, what is one thing that we should know about you that influences the person you are and maybe the approach that you have to your work?

Holly: Yeah, I think this is like a double-edged sword, as you can see with my comments, they’re a little long winded. I’m very excitable, so I get really excited. It doesn’t, you know, always rub people the right way, but I feel like the right people, it rubs the right way.

Mike: So, I think it works perfectly in this situation because you’re passionate about your work.

Holly: Yeah, I think well, you know, my husband always tells me — he’s like, don’t feel bad about being excited about stuff. He’s like people who don’t like that, he’s like, that’s crazy. Like, well, we’ll see. But yeah. So, I’m extremely excitable. So, I like to talk about things and then I can sometimes go a little overboard with talking too much.

But yeah, I think that’s it. And what comes out of that is I really like to go to — it’s almost like building a little Lego set with me — you know, I want to know. I want to work on the foundation. I want to understand what I’m working with and then build up from there. And I think that’s where, you know, that’s one of the benefits of my excitableness comes from is starting with a simple system, because I think a lot of people just want to go straight to the end and be like, I just want the result.

And I’m just like, I really want to know exactly what I’m doing. You know, maybe not exactly, but start with a simple system. Get that going, build out. You know, also working with people. I love it. Building out a team environment, where we just, you know, collab in the cube and talk about things and they have ideas, and they get to run with them.

Seeing that happen has been really awesome. Just from this program and this, you know, working out this modeling stuff. So, yeah, all that fun stuff.

Mike: That’s a great answer. That’s a great answer. Well, Holly, thanks for being with us today and sharing your expertise. It’s really important for us to know about. And thank you all for listening to our podcast, Science at Work is a production of the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina.