Princeton University has been managing the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) for 57 years. This year, for the first time, the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the lab, put its management out for bid.
Princeton University won the bid on the five-year contract, which pays about $390 million a year, and provides nearly all of PPPL’s funding.
“We are very pleased that the Department of Energy has selected Princeton University to continue to manage the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory,” Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said in a prepared statement. “It is more important than ever that we continue to make progress toward developing fusion as a safe, clean and sustainable source of energy.”
The director of the lab, Stewart Prager, will oversee management of the lab under the new contract. “As a DOE national laboratory, PPPL enjoys the responsibility and opportunity to help define a fusion program for the U.S. that will rapidly advance us toward fusion energy, and return our country to the world forefront in this quest,” said Prager, who was appointed by Princeton as the lab’s director last fall and who will now assume his position at the lab.
Prager added, “At PPPL, we will also advance the fundamental understanding of the plasma state of matter, and apply that knowledge even beyond fusion, from plasmas used in industrial processes to plasmas in the universe.”
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, James Forrestal Campus, Box 451, Princeton 08543-0451; 609-243-2000; fax, 609-243-2751. Stewart Prager, director. www.pppl.gov.
