Book Review by Stephen O. Dean

　 The Arab oil embargo (October 1973 – March 1974) caused many countries to seriously question their dependence on Middle East oil as a dominant energy source. In the United States, this took the form of rapidly increased funding for research and development of alternative energy options. At the United States Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. fusion program (then called Controlled Thermonuclear Research), under the direction of Robert L. Hirsch, was one of the beneficiaries. When Hirsch took the helm of the fusion program in early 1972, he wanted to move the fusion program from research into development and deployment as rapidly as possible. As Director of the largest of three divisions reporting to Hirsch, I prepared a "decision tree" dated October 1972, describing a plan that included operation of a "Physics Test Reactor" by 1984, an "Experimental Power Reactor" by 1991, and a fusion power "Demonstration Plant" by the year 2000.

When the oil crisis hit, fusion funding was increased from its FY 1973 level of $40M to $332M in FY 1978 to a high of $469M in FY 1984. The Physics Test Reactor, which we named the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), was authorized in the FY 1976 budget and began operations in 1983. A similar facility, the Joint European Torus (JET), began operations also about that time. While these physics test reactors were under construction, attention began to be given to the conceptual designs of the Experimental Power Reactor (EPR) and fusion power plants. In the mid-1970s, Stacey led a team at Argonne National Laboratory that produced conceptual designs of two EPRs. Other EPR designs were carried out by Mike Roberts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and by Charlie Baker at General Atomics. Stacey’s book traces the history of the international effort to design an EPR, starting in 1978 under the auspices of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). That EPR was given the name INTOR, an acronym for INternational TOkamak Reactor.

INTOR eventually merged into ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), now under construction in France as an international venture, but not scheduled for operation until 2019. Stacey’s book provides a compelling narrative on how the schedule for the EPR started to slip and is now 30 years later than the 1990 date hoped for in 1972.

Weston M. Stacey, more widely known as "Bill," is Callaway Regent’s Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. As leader of the U.S. INTOR team, and vice chair of the international group responsible for the INTOR effort (1978-1988), he is well qualified to write this account, and he does so in an authoritative, thorough, engaging and candid manner. He kept meticulous notes of his interactions with both the technical team and government officials. He pulls no punches in describing resistance on the part of some to the study and changes in the political landscape. National interests and policies frequently came in conflict with the desire of the INTOR team to move the project expeditiously from design and R&D to construction. Nevertheless, there is no denying that, without the INTOR work, collaboration on the design and construction of a fusion engineering test reactor would likely not have been a credible proposal to lay on the table when President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev agreed to collaborate on fusion during their Summit Meeting in Geneva in 1985.

The INTOR study was a collaborative effort among the United States, Japan, Soviet Union, and Europe, under the auspices of the IAEA. The chairman was Sigeru Mori from Japan, with Stacey as vice chair. But if there is a "hero" in this account, it is Evgenii Velikhov, head of the Soviet fusion program, who proposed the INTOR study to the IAEA in the first place; steadfastly expressed the support of the Soviet Union for INTOR construction, when the other Parties were giving mixed messages, or having financial crises, within their own government programs; and brought the collaboration to the attention of Secretary Gorbachev in advance of the 1985 Summit Meeting with President Reagan.

The goal of the INTOR study was "to assess the readiness of the world’s fusion programs to undertake the design and construction of the first experimental fusion energy reactor, to define the research and development that would be necessary to do so, to develop a design concept for such a device, and to identify and analyze critical technical issues that would have to be overcome." Stacey’s book describes both the detailed technical evolution of the design and the administrative and political issues that plagued the project. A major issue throughout was the ambivalence among the heads of the fusion programs in the various countries about whether their national program goals would be better served by focusing on construction of "national" EPRs, rather than an international project. This ambivalence was especially characteristic of the U. S. leadership, according to Stacey.

The INTOR Workshop was launched in November 1978. By October 1979, the team had come up with rough estimates of the cost of an EPR, ranging from about $1.5B (EU and US) to $2.3B (Japan). In a 650 page report, the group also concluded "that it is scientifically and technologically feasible to undertake the construction of INTOR initially, to operate about 1990, provided that the supporting R&D effort is expanded immediately to provide an adequate database within the next few years in a number of important areas." Though the leaders of the national fusion programs endorsed the findings, it was clear that they were not prepared to undertake commitment to an international construction project. The INTOR design continued to be refined until the ITER project was launched (also as a design study) in 1988.

The goals of the U.S. fusion program, to operate an EPR by 1990 and a demonstration power plant by 2000 continued to look possible throughout the 1970s, culminating in the passage in October 1980 by the U.S. Congress of the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980, which made these goals "national policy." Stacey’s book describes the major change in U.S. energy policy following the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president in November 1980. He notes Congressional testimony in the spring of 1982 describing the U. S. new fusion policy as "to develop the database for fusion" but "the demonstration of fusion as an energy source was the role of industry." This policy derailed the goals set in 1972 as codified in the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980. While ITER is now aimed at many of the original EPR goals as an international venture, a timetable for a demonstration power plant remains obscure. In 1988, the ITER venture began. Originally, at the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit Meeting, it appeared that the two had agreed on a relatively rapid process leading to construction. As it turned out, however, construction did not begin in earnest until 2009. Stacey’s history ends in 1988 with the handoff of the INTOR design work to the new ITER team. Many of the INTOR participants joined the ITER design team, including Ken Tomabechi (Japan), who became the first ITER design team director. The 20-year history of ITER preparations (1988-2009) appears in second hand reports in the trade press and elsewhere, but a candid insiders history, such as Stacey has provided for INTOR, remains to be written.

I highly recommend this book to all those involved in fusion research, administration and policy. It is well written, in an engaging style, while also being unusually candid and thorough. Well-done and thanks, Bill Stacey.

Stephen O. Dean
Fusion Power Associates