July 24, 1998

FPN98-22 reported on Record of Decisions approved by the ITER Council at its July 21 - 23 meeting in Vienna. In addition to the Record of Decisions, the Delegations approved the following Record of Meeting:

1. "As anticipated in previous Council actions,the Director has received from the EU Delegation Italian site characteristics (and information on possible Canadian site characteristics); and from the JA Delegation, information on possible Japanese site characteristics.

2. "The US Delegation expressed its interest in enhancing the level of formality of SWG (Special Working Group) Task #2 work on lower cost, reduced scope options. The Delegations reaffirmed the importance of these studies on broader concepts. After an exchange of views, including both clarifications and concerns, the Delegations asked the CPs (Contact Persons) to work together, keeping all Delegations informed, to draft text for consideration as a possible future document addressing this matter.

3. "The Delegations noted, in accordance with IC-14 ROD 1.2 (Record of Decision of ITER Council Meeting 14, see FPN98-22) that, for the current period: a) the Director was advising the Parties of staff required to maintain activities at the three Joint Work Sites (JWSs); b) each Delegation will take necessary actions to provide appropriate continuity of staff assignments at the JWSs; c) the EU, JA and US Delegations expressed their intentions that appropriate arrangements would continue at the JWSs."

The Special Working Group (SWG) was set up by the ITER Council last February "to propose technical guidelines for possible changes to the current detailed technical objectives and overall technical margins, with a view to establishing option(s) of minimum cost, while still satisfying the overall programmatic objective of the ITER EDA Agreement." A report by the SWG on so-called Task #1 was accepted by the Council at its June 25 meeting in Tokyo. Under Task #1, the SWG advised the Council that "the direct capital cost of ITER can be reduced significantly by targeting the less demanding performance" and stated that "these less demanding performance objectives will satisfy the overall programmatic objectives of the ITER EDA Agreement even though these performance objectives are necessarily less than those that could be achieved with the present design." As a result, the ITER Council urged the ITER Director (See FPN98-20) "to continue efforts with high priority" to design a reduced cost version of ITER "aimed at a target of approximately 50% of the direct capital cost of the present design with reduced technical objectives."

Under Task #2, the SWG is to "provide information on broader concepts as basis for its rationale for proposed guidelines, and articulate likely impacts on the development path towards fusion energy." Under this Task, the US SWG members are interested in exploring ideas discussed at a recent workshop held in Madison, Wisconsin (See FPN98-12).

Note: Fusion Power Associates Fusion Program Notes are archived at http://aries.ucsd.edu/fpa/