FPN02-05

US Fusion Budgets

February 15, 2002

US President George W. Bush has sent his Fiscal Year 2003 budget request to Congress. The President asked for $257.3 million for the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, compared to $247.5 M appropriated in FY 2002 and $242.0 appropriated in FY 2001. The President also asked for $451.8 M for inertial confinement fusion in DOE's weapons budget as part of the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program. This compares to $505.4 M in FY 2002 and $428.5 M in FY 2001. The largest fraction of the latter program is for construction of the laser-based National Ignition Facility (NIF), which would be fully funded at $214 M in FY 2003, compared to $245 M in FY 2002 and $197.3 M in FY 2001. As in the past, the DOE did not request continuation of funding for the congressionally-mandated high average power laser (HAPL) program, which received $24 M in FY 2002 and $24.8 M in FY 2001. The DOE also did not request funds to continue the congressionally-mandated effort on fast ignition, which was funded at $5.5 M in FY 2002.

In addition to the $9.8 M increase to the OFES fusion budget, that effort will have available to it an additional $19.6 M for new work due to the completion of decommisioning of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) facility at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The OFES will use that $29.4 M of additional funding to increase operating time on its three major experimental facilities (DIII-D at General Atomics, Alcator C-Mod at MIT, and NSTX at Princeton) to near maximum capacity. These facilities have been underutilized for years due to budget shortfalls. The OFES will also allocated $11 M to begin fabrication of a new National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) at Princeton. No mention of a possible return of the US to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project is made in the budget request. This possibility is currently under consideration by the Secretary of Energy (FPN02-04) but presumably would require additional funds. OFES funding for inertial fusion energy and non-toroidal alternate concepts would be kept level or slightly reduced in the request.

The budget submission indicates that, within the weapons inertial confinement fusion program, "reductions have been made in program funded activities in NIF diagnostics, cryogenics and other areas that will delay the NIF experimental program, including some ignition related work." These preparations for operations programs would be funded at $34.4 M in FY 2003, compared to $41.5 M in FY 2002.