The bill would provide $458 million for the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, as requested by the President, which is $57 million above the FY 2013 appropriation (not accounting for "sequestration" reductions) and $48 million below that in the House bill. The bill would also provide $528 million for inertial confinement fusion, which is $133 million above the President's request and $14 million above that in the House bill.
The following report language accompanies the bill:
FUSION ENERGY SCIENCES
The Committee recommends $458,324,000 as requested for Fusion Energy Sciences. Within these funds, the Committee recommends no less than $75,000,000 for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to maintain core expertise in plasma theory and simulation, general plasma science, and tokamak research. The Committee also recommends no less than $77,000,000 for the DIII-D fusion reactor, which includes $10,264,000 for upgrades to the reactor, $16,000,000 to support critical scientific staff, and $904,000 to support university students and post-docs. The Committee provides no funding for the Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor at MIT. The Committee commends the Office of Science for making a difficult choice to shut down the facility to fund higher priority activities within the fusion energy sciences program.
The Committee also recommends $14,773,000 for High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas, which includes $6,575,000 as requested for experiments on the Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC and $8,198,000 for academic grants to study the behavior of matter and radiation at extreme temperatures and pressures to match funding available at NNSA for this joint program. The Committee also recommends $2,500,000 for heavy ion fusion science research at the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment-II at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to take advantage of an $11,000,000 Recovery Act upgrade to the facility.
The Committee also recommends $12,000,000 for the Fusion Simulation program to provide experimentally validated predictive simulation capabilities that are critical for ITER and other current and planned toroidal fusion devices. The Committee is concerned that the fusion energy program is not taking full advantage of high performance computing to address scientific and technical challenges on the path to fusion energy. Given current and future budget constraints, the Committee views this initiative as critical to maintain U.S. world leadership in fusion energy sciences in a cost-effective manner. The Committee directs the Office of Science to develop a plan on the use of these simulation capabilities based on the results of a 2-year planning effort recently funded by the Department.
The Committee is concerned by the lack of a strategic vision, which includes research and future facility needs, to advance the domestic fusion energy sciences program. The Committee directs the Secretary to submit a 10-year plan, not later than 12 months after enactment of this act, on the Department's proposed research and development activities in magnetic fusion. The report shall (1) identify specific areas of fusion energy research and enabling technology development in which the United States can and should establish or solidify a lead in the global fusion energy development effort and (2) identify priorities for facility construction and facility decommissioning.
The Committee recommends $183,502,000 for the U.S. contribution to ITER. No funding shall be made available for the U.S. contribution until the Secretary submits to this Committee a baseline cost, schedule, and scope estimate consistent with project manage- ment principles in DOE Order 413.3B of the U.S. contribution needed for completing all construction activities.
The Committee is concerned by the rising costs of the ITER project and the impact to the domestic program. The cost range for the U.S. contribution for construction activities was between $1,450,000,000 and $2,200,000,000. The most recent estimate is $2,400,000,000 and this estimate only fulfills U.S. obligations for first plasma, rather than all construction activities. The Committee is further concerned that the latest cost estimate does not properly account for the technical risk of building the most complicated engineering facility in the world. The most recent cost range was developed when the design for ITER was less than 40 percent complete. The Committee also directs the Office of Science to include a project data sheet with details of all project costs until the completion of the project for ITER in the fiscal year 2015 budget submission. The Committee understands that the Department provides funding for ITER as a Major Item of Equipment rather than a line item construction project, which would be consistent with DOE Order 413.3B. However, the Committee feels that a multi-billion dollar project, especially of this scale and complexity, should be treated as a construction project and follow DOE Order 413.3B guidance.
Inertial Confinement Fusion Ignition and High-Yield Campaign
The Committee recommends $528,376,000, an increase of $127,333,000 above the request, for the inertial confinement fusion ignition and high-yield campaign. The increase reflects a movement of $113,333,000 for the National Ignition Facility [NIF] operations in the Site Stewardship Site Operations account to the Facility Operations and Target Production account in this campaign to improve transparency of NIF operating costs. The Committee recommends that no funds within Site Operations and Maintenance shall be used for NIF. Within the funds for inertial confinement fusion, $329,000,000, $66,950,000, $54,000,000, and $6,000,000 shall be used for inertial confinement fusion activities at the NIF, the University of Rochester's Omega facility, Sandia National Laboratory's Z facility, and the Naval Research Laboratory, respectively. Within the $329,000,000 available for NIF, $30,000,000 is for the Advanced Radiographic Capability.
The Committee supports NNSA's approach as laid out in the December 2012 Path Forward Report to Congress on the use of the National Ignition Facility, which involves more focused experiments to understand fundamental physics and improve the predictability of simulation codes for indirect drive ignition while also sup- porting polar drive and magnetically driven ignition experiments as alternative approaches to ignition. However, the Committee is concerned that NNSA has not developed clear metrics to measure NIF's progress in achieving ignition and supporting stockpile stewardship. This Committee's support for the National Ignition Facility will continue to be contingent on the unique contributions the facility makes to advance fundamental understanding of weapons physics. The Committee directs NNSA to provide the Committee within 60 days of enactment of this Act a 3-year plan that lays out significant milestones NIF plans to achieve on the path to ignition and critical experiments needed to support the stockpile stewardship program.
The Committee is also concerned by the operating costs of NIF, which is currently the most expensive experimental facility at the Department of Energy and NNSA. The Committee has seen little effort by NNSA to find operating efficiencies without significantly reducing the shot rate or laser energies. The Committee directs NNSA to submit to the Committee within 120 days of enactment of this Act a plan to increase the shot rate at NIF over the next 3 years with a budget of $329,000,000 over the next 3 years. Consistent with NNSA's other inertial confinement fusion facilities, the conferees direct that no less than 50 percent of the facility time on the NIF shall be dedicated to non-ignition stockpile stewardship experiments. The conferees further direct that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory follow the advice of the High Energy Density Planning and Facility Coordination Council, which is made up of nuclear weapons physics experts from all three NNSA laboratories, to determine which non-ignition stockpile stewardship experiments shall be conducted on NIF that meet the highest priorities of the stockpile stewardship program.