FPN03-68

FESAC to Review Fusion Priorities

October 29, 2003

The recent National Academies Burning Plasma Assessment Committee (FPN03-57) recommended a "prioritized balancing of the (fusion) program" in view of the likelihood of the construction of ITER. In a letter October 23, 2003 to DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) chair Richard Hazeltine, DOE Office of Science Director Ray Orbach asks FESAC's help in responding to this recommendation, with a report due July 2004. Hazeltine has asked Dr. Charles Baker, University of California at San Diego, to chair a FESAC panel to address this task.

Orbach asks FESAC "to identify the major science and technology issues that need to be addressed, recommend how to organize campaigns to address those issues, and recommend the priority order for these campaigns." He asks FESAC to "look at the program through 2014.

Orbach says three funding scenarios should be considered: (1) the current level of $257M, increasing for inflation; (2) the levels authorized in the FY2003 Energy Bill, of $335M in FY2004, increasing to $393 in FY2008; and (3) a level "between today's funding and that in the Energy Bill. He says "It should be assumed that funding for ITER construction is provided in addition to these funds." Although the amount of U.S. contribution to ITER construction has yet to be negotiated, it is widely reported likely to be in the neighborhood of $500M over ten years.

In selecting these cases, Orbach appears to have rejected the funding levels projected in the recently completed FESAC study deemed necessary to put fusion power on the grid in approximately 35 years. That plan required increasing the fusion budget to $393M in FY2005, to $569M by FY2008, and to $897M by FY2013.

FESAC will discuss the charge at its November 17-18 meeting in Gaithersburg, Maryland (FPN03-59).

The complete text of the letter is posted at http://fire.pppl.gov