FPN07-42

FESAC Panel Makes Progress Report

July 23, 2007

A panel of the U. S. Department of Energy Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC), charged with identifying "the issues arising in a path to Demo, with ITER as a central part of that effort," made a progress report to FESAC at its July 16-17 meeting. The panel is chaired by Martin Greenwald of MIT.

Greenwald told the FESAC that the panel's assumption is that ITER is "a success" and that "our focus is/will be on informing near-term decisions for next major steps in the program." He said the panel is "not considering inertial fusion energy" and "only thinking about alternates to the tokamak with short-term potential for impacting the development path." He said that these omissions were left out due to the wording of the charge from DOE and "nothing is implied about their importance relative to what we are considering."

Greenwald said the panel sees its job to be "to identify issues that must be addressed to create a knowledge base for Demo; to prioritize these issues; to inventory available means in current and planned programs to see what these programs will actually do; to identify critical paths and gaps; and to identify opportunities to fill these gaps."

Greenwald said the panel had "defined the set of themes and issues; had reviewed existing and planned programs/facilities; had adopted a formal process for prioritization; and had adopted a process for gap analysis." He said the panel has grouped the issues into three themes; (1) Predictable, high-performance steady-state burning plasmas, (2) The plasma material interface, and (3) Harnessing fusion power.

Fourteen issues have been identified and grouped under these headings:

  1. Measurement
  2. Integration of steady-state, high-performance burning plasmas
  3. Development of validated predictive models of plasmas
  4. Avoiding off-normal events
  5. Heating, current drive, rotation, fueling
  6. Magnets
  7. Plasma wall interactions
  8. Plasma Facing Components
  9. Antennas, diagnostics and other internal components
  10. Fuel cycle
  11. Power extraction
  12. Materials for breeding and structural components
  13. Safety

Greenwald said the panel's "criteria for prioritization" were:

  1. Importance
  2. Urgency
  3. Uncertainty
  4. Generality
  5. Opportunity for U. S. Leadership

The panel held an open meeting to receive community input on June 25 at General Atomics in San Diego and will hold a second such meeting on August 7 at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Persons wishing to attend the August 7 meeting should advise dgates@pppl.gov and, if planning to make a presentation, should advise Martin Greenwald (g@psfc.mit.edu) and upload a comment on the panel's web site; http://www.psfc.mit.edu/~g/spp.html