August 1, 1996

Here are a few miscellaneous items that may be of interest:

1. Re: FPN-7, the escalation factor used by ITER to convert 1989 US$ to 1995 US$ is 1.2415

2. Re: FPN-2 and FPN-3, reports from the ITER Council meeting are that the announcement by the science ministers of France and Germany regarding ITER siting also took European officials, including those at the EU, by surprise also. There is an article on this in the July 26 issue of "Science" magazine that quotes Cannobio as saying, "It is clear that this is a German initiative. Reuttgers ... has coerced France into this." The most likely plan is to allow this to be quietly revisited during the course of the European Fusion Review that is ongoing now and scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

3. The U.S. Senate has passed the Energy and Water appropriation. No surprises for fusion. Budgets as reported in FPN-1. The Senate had about $1 billion more to work with than the House for its Energy and Water appropriation. Thus the difficulty in conference is tied to whether the House leadership will allocate more money to this particular appropriation bill. Congress recesses (possibly tomorrow) until September 4, so Conference is not expected until some time in September.

4. The new Committee for the Review of Inertial Confinement Fusion is having an organizational meetin today and tomorrow (August 1-2) and another meeting at LLNL on August 12-13. They have a broad charter under a DOE contract to the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering National Research Council. Chair is Steve Koonin (CalTech). Other prominent fusion people on the 13 (at the moment) person committee are Ron Davidson (PPPL) and Marshall Rosenbluth (UCSD). If you want to keep advised of the comings and goings of this committee, I suggest you establish an email relationship with DOE,s Dave Crandall (david.crandall@dp.doe.gov).

For more information, contact: Stephen O. Dean