The DOE Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Task Force on Fusion Energy (FPN99-10, 14, and 15) held its second meeting April 29-30 at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The next meeting is scheduled to be held at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory May 26-27. The meetings are open to the public and public testimony is accepted either at the meeting or in writing. Information on the Task Force is posted on the web (//vm1.hqadmin.doe.gov/seab/new.html/) or can be had by contacting Richard Burrow (richard.burrow@hq.doe.gov, (202)586-7092).

The meeting at Princeton began with briefings by Robert Conn (UCSD) on Energy Forecasts for the 21st Century and by J.D. Mahlmann (Princeton University) on Global Environmental Issue Forecasts. Conn, speaking for himself and John Holdren (Harvard), told the Task Force that in a "Business as Usual Middle Course" projection, world energy use would grow from 125,000 Terawatt-hours in 1990 to 372,000 in 2050 and to 631,000 in 2100. He said that today the fuels used to produce this energy are Oil (34%), Natural Gas (20%), Coal (24%), Nuclear (6%),Hydropower (2%), Biomass and Other (13%). He gave several possible future scenarios. He said that a shift in the mix away from fossil fuels was necessary by 2030 for a variety of reasons, including economic supply and global carbon emissions. He said that most of the scenarios suggest that some form of nuclear energy, in significant quantities, would be essential in the latter half of the century.

Mahlmann summarized the results of global climate change models, saying that the global-mean surface air temperature has warmed by about 0.8 degrees Centigrade over the past century and that the models predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would produce a further warming "somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Centigrade (2.7 to 8.1 degrees Farenheit)." He said it was generally agreed that this doubling was "almost guaranteed" to be reached shortly after mid-century and that currently we are on a track to quadrupling by the middle of the following century. He said that a warming of northern hemisphere continents by 5-15 degrees Farenheit would result in a "slow, but inexorable sea level rise of 5-25 feet" and "major increases in summer heat index by 10-25 degrees Farenheit."

Both Conn and Mahlmann felt that reducing carbon emissions should receive much higher priority from policymakers.

The SEAB Task Force then had presentations on Environmental, Safety and Economic Studies of Fusion from Conn (on Magnetic Fusion Energy, "MFE") and G. Kulcinski, University of Wisconsin (on Inertial Fusion Energy "IFE"). Conn described a series of power plant studies performed by the ARIES design team, headed by Farrokh Najmabadi (UCSD). Conn said that a tokamak design called ARIES-RS had achieved "an attractive vision for fusion based on reasonable extrapolation in physics and technology," including "competitive cost of electricity, steady-state operation, low level waste, public and worker safety and high availability." He presented a graph showing systematic reductions in the projected cost of electricity from studies over the past two decades. He said that "continued improvements can reasonably be expected." He said that two key future requirements were "a reduced cost development path and lower capital investment in plants." As an example he cited the spherical torus (ST) concept, which he said offered some unique design features such as single piece maintenance. He said that "modest ST machines can produce significant fusion power, leading to a low cost development pathway for fusion."

Kulcinski told the Task Force that "the level of research on IFE power plants has historically been much lower (by a factor of about 10) than for MFE power plants. He said that "in spite of the lower level of investment there have been over 50 individual IFE power plants analyzed since 1972." He said that "IFE has potential advantages that could shorten the fusion energy development time and cost, with a more attractive product." Specifically, he cited that "modularity of drivers allows one to validate a full driver and will facilitate future power plant upgrades to higher output in stages." He also noted that "small confinement systems (targets) allow new targets to be innovated and tested relatively quickly." He said that "separation of driver, fusion chamber, and target injection systems allows significant development in parallel and will aid accessibility for future plant maintenance." He described the various IFE concepts and set "criteria" for an "attractive IFE energy source," including (a) target gain - driver efficiency product greater than 7, (b) driver cost less than $1 billion, (c) targets costing less than 30 cents each, and (d) driver prototype test facility costing less than $150 million.

After lunch on April 29, the Task Force began with presentations from Richard Hazeltine (U. Texas) on Linkages to Other Fields of Scientific Research and from Steve Dean (Fusion Power Associates) on Spinoffs and Non-Electric Applications. Hazeltine told the Task Force that "the scientific foundation of most fusion research is plasma physics" and that plasma physics had linkages to many other fields, including kinetic theory, fluid dynamics, electrodynamics, nonlinear dynamics, particle physics, chaos, materials science, atomic physics, strong-field physics, accelerators and beams, computer science, space physics, astrophysics and turbulence. He gave a variety of examples.

Dean told the Task Force that "Plasmas are important to many fields of science and technology" and that "fusion research has overlapping areas of interest with other areas such as plasma processing, space and astrophysics." He also noted that "Fusion research has been a major sponsor of plasma graduate education over many decades and hence has been responsible for the training of many of the scientists and engineers working in other fields that use plasma knowledge." He quoted a statement from a 1991 National Research Council report, "Plasma Processing of Materials," that "Plasma processing is a technology that is of vital importance to several of the largest industries in the world, including the electronics, aerospace, automotive,steel, biomedical and toxic waste management industries." He quoted Prof. Frank Chen (UCLA) as saying, "To put some five million transistors on a Pentium chip, the individual elements have to be below 0.5 microns in size and moving toward 0.15 microns. Such resolution cannot be acieved without a plasma." Dean described areas of current industrial interest at various fusion laboratories and universities, including (a) microelectronics and flat panel displays, (b) materials and manufacturing, (c) environmental applications, (d) biomedical applications, and (e) plasma propulsion. He also noted that several applications, other than central station electric power, had received some study in the past, including (a) hydrogen production, (b) destruction of toxic waste, (c) transmutation of radioactive waste, and (d) production of useful isotopes, including medical isotopes, tritium and fissile fuel. In summary, Dean said that "Plasma and fusion research is providing many societal benefits today and many opportunities exist to strengthen and expand these connections and contributions." He suggested that the Task Force make a recommendation to achieve the latter.

Mike Roberts, DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, then decribed the role of international collaborations in the fusion effort. He said that "Our program must and can team effectively with programs abroad to achieve our fusion program goals." He said that "Collaboration makes good Science." He briefly described some of the key international facilities and programs, including the current status of the ITER project.

The Task Force then heard two scientific presentations. Gerald Navratil (Columbia) described "stability and sustainment issues common to all magnetic concepts," and Ronald Stambaugh (General Atomics) described the current state of our understanding of "energy containment and losses of fusion plasmas."

On the second day of the meeting, which ended at noon, the Task Force heard presentations from Tony Taylor (General Atomics) on "tokamak accomplishments and prospects for advanced tokamaks," from Michael Zarnstorff (PPPL) on "externally controlled concepts: spherical torus and compact stellarator," and from Richard Siemon (LANL) on "self-organizing concepts." Charles Baker (UCSD) then described the U.S. fusion technology program.

PPPL Director, Rob Goldston, wound up the meeting by discussing "magnetic fusion development levels and budget requirements." Goldston said, a "top down" set of budget recommendations had been developed that would require an increment of $40 million over the FY 2000 budget as submitted by the President. This increment would be sought over 2 years, at roughly $20 million per year. He said that a "bottom up" analysis exceeded these levels by about 30%. He suggested the need for "peer review to recommend priorities." Goldston said that the recommended budget increments "will provide needed scientific breadth and allow the U.S. to prepare for a decision to pursue fusion energy more aggressively in 2003-04, when we will have more information on global warming and on other energy technologies, and clarification of MFE burning plasma options.

The vugraphs from many of the presentations can be accessed on the web at //www.fusionscience.org/seab.99april/

Prior Fusion Program Notes are archived on the web and can be accessed by going to http://fusionpower.org and then clicking on Fusion Program Notes.