October 22, 1996

The DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences is hosting a retreat for selected members of the U. S. fusion community in Leesburg, VA Tuesday-Thursday, October 22-24. Fusion Power Associates President Steve Dean, who was invited by DOE to attend the retreat, cut short his attendance at the Gaseous Electronics Conference in Chicago to attend the retreat. However, when he returned to his office Monday night, he found a phone message from DOE fusion chief N. Anne Davies dis-inviting him and saying he should not show up at the retreat the next morning. It was Dean who suggested the retreat during his public testimony at the recent Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee meeting (FPN-17R). At that meeting, Dean criticized the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences for their "strawman" FY97 budget proposal (FPN-15), saying that it represented a program that would be badly out of balance. He stated that "Engineering sciences, technology development, systems analyses, and plasma sciences should all be considered essential elements in a balanced fusion effort." Dean also joined several industry leaders in signing an October 8 letter to Davies stating "The U.S. has invested over $8 billion (as spent) on fusion to date and has developed a knowledge base that makes it credible to construct a burning plasma experiment/engineering test reactor. This is the stage of fusion development at which the engineering sciences and technology development should fully participate alongside the plasma sciences in the fusion venture." DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences had proposed to "zero out" the technology programs and severely curtail other engineering-oriented activities such as materials research and systems studies. The letter was initiated by Dr. Samuel D. Harkness (Director, R&D Operations, Westinghouse, and Chairman of the Fusion Industry Council, U.S.) and also signed by Dr. William R. Ellis (VP and General Manager, Advanced Technology Center, Raytheon Engineers and Constructors and Chairman of the ITER Industry Council) and John W. Landis (Senior VP, retired, Stone & Webster Engineering Corp. and past Chairman of the Fusion Industry Council, U.S., and the ITER Industry Council).

During the first day of the retreat, attended by about 50 persons hand-picked by DOE, the participants heard presentations from Congressional, Office of Management and Budget, and Office of Science and Technology Policy staff and also met with fusion lobbyists. They also had a lengthy conference call with DOE Office of Energy Research Director Martha Krebs. They heard summaries of recent Fusion Energy Advisory Committee reports and then broke into smaller working groups. The task of the working groups was to discuss "What are the major issues facing the fusion program?" and to decide "Where we want the program to be in the next five years," and to recommend programmatic actions that would result in achieving those goals. The working groups are supposed to produce written "draft papers."

For more information, contact: Stephen O. Dean