Fusion for energy transition: science challenges and future directions

Professor Piero Martin will review the major scientific challenges to be addressed to achieve the production of electricity from fusion and will describe the main directions of the international efforts. A description of the technical features and of the science program of the new DTT Italian experiment will be provided.

Controlled thermonuclear magnetic fusion of light nuclei will be a player in a future mix of sustainable energy sources. A worldwide scientific and technology program is in place to achieve energy production through fusion, through the ITER program. Italy is a major player in that program and is presently building the Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT), a new advanced experiment that will address key scientific problems for fusion.

Piero Martin is full professor of experimental physics at the University of Padova, Italy and Fellow of the American Physical Society.

From November 2023 he will be member of the Centro Interdisciplinare “B. Segre” of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, where he will perform a project on fusion energy.

He has a long experience in management of international research groups.

Currently he is Chief Physicist of the Divertor Tokamak test facility (DTT- Home (dtt-project.it)), a new large European experiment for the research on thermonuclear fusion as a source of clean energy under construction in the ENEA laboratory (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Environment – Home (enea.it)) in Frascati, Italy.

From 2014 to 2016 he was the leader of the EUROfusion Medium Size Tokamak (MST1) task force, managing the scientific activity of more than 300 scientists who worked to the program. EUROfusion is the ‘European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy’ and manages European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom.

He is author and co-author of 140 papers in international journals and of more than 50 invited talks. He has a significant activity in science popularization. He is author of award-winning books. His last book, “The 7 measures of the world”, published by Laterza in 2021, has been translated in seven languages, and his published in English by Yale University Press.