The report cautions that the DOE-advertised cost of the ITER project "may not fully reflect the costs of U.S. participation" since the estimate "has not been independently verified, as DOE guidance directs, because the reactor design is not complete." The report also concludes that the Department's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) "does not have a human capital strategy to address expected future workforce shortages." The report saves its harshest comments, however, for the Department's treatment of inertial fusion energy (IFE) and innovative alternate magnetic confinement programs.

With respect to inertial fusion, the report notes that the Department carries out three distinct inertial fusion efforts: one in DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)"relating to nuclear weapons," one in OFES "aimed at exploring the basic science for energy applications," and a congressionally-mandated program, managed by NNSA, "to develop technology needed for energy." The report says, "DOE has not assigned to either NNSA or OFES clear roles in developing inertial fusion energy." GAO says "there is no research plan that identifies key scientific and technological questions that need to be addressed to achieve inertial fusion energy or the cost, time frames, and detailed research and development tasks needed by each agency to solve those scientific and technological issues to further advance inertial fusion energy." "A lack of a coordinated research plan and clear responsibility among these programs for developing inertial fusion energy may delay the progress of inertial fusion energy as a promising alternative to magnetic fusion," the report says, adding, "Without a coordination research plan and clear responsibility for developing inertial fusion energy, DOE may not see progress in developing inertial fusion energy as a promising alternative to magnetic fusion."

In an appendix, the GAO report provides a "rebuttal" letter, dated October 10, 2007, from Raymond J. Fonck, head of OFES in which he denies the existence of the congressionally-mandated program, saying, "The report makes a fundamental assumption that an explicit program to develop inertial fusion as an energy source exists but is not coordinated. This is not agreed to by the Department, and no such program exists." Fonck says "The joint (OFES-NNSA) program on HEDLP (High Energy Density Laboratory Physics) will address underlying scientific issues that will be relevant to future considerations of inertial fusion energy." But GAO says, "While high-energy density physics explores a number of fundamental scientific issues related to inertial fusion energy, it does not address all of the scientific issues that would advance inertial fusion energy." GAO says that "DOE noted that, in 2003, its advisory committee developed a plan that identified critical milestones, research and development tasks, and budget needs to build an inertial fusion demonstration power plant within 35 years. However DOE decided not to implement this plan because fundamental scientific issues had not yet been resolved and there was no agreement between OFES and NNSA on which agency had the responsibility of developing inertial fusion as an energy source." "When DOE rejected its advisory committee's plan, it did not develop an alternative," the GAO report says. "A plan that identifies key scientific and technological questions as well as the cost, time frames, and detailed research and development tasks would help OFES and NNSA better coordinate three separately funded inertial fusion research programs that have different scientific and technological objectives," the report says.

With respect to alternative magnetic fusion approaches, the GAO report says "DOE may find it difficult to manage competing funding priorities to advance both ITER-related research and alternative magnetic approaches." The report says "DOE officials told GAO they are focusing limited resources on ITER-related research. As a result, as funding for ITER-related research has increased, the share of funding for the most innovative alternative magnetic fusion research activities decreased from 19 percent of the fusion research budget in fiscal year 2002 to 13 percent in fiscal year 2007. According to DOE officials, this level of funding is sufficient to meet research objectives." The GAO says, "However, university scientists involved in fusion research told us that this decrease in funding has led to a decline in research opportunities for innovative concepts, which could lead to simpler, less costly, or faster path to fusion energy, and reduced opportunities to attract students to the fusion sciences and train them to fulfill future workforce needs."

The full report is posted on the GAO web site at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0830.pdf and is also posted at http://fire.pppl.gov