The DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) met September 8-9 to finalize its recommendations on fusion program priorities and balance. After making several relatively minor changes to its draft report (FPN99-38), the FESAC adopted the report and presented it to the Director of the DOE Office of Science, Dr. Martha Krebs. Dr. Krebs praised the FESAC for making some "hard choices" and especially expressed her admiration to the many scientists in the Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) and Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) communities for working effectively together over the past year.

A key recommendation of the FESAC is that, even at the present $222 million level of funding, some $5 million should be shifted from MFE into IFE, with a resulting distribution of $207 M for MFE and $15 M for IFE. However, the FESAC told Krebs,there are "exciting opportunities to move forward in both MFE and IFE approaches," and therefore "we urge the Department to move towards our $300 million budget case in a timely manner." In the $300 million case, FESAC recommended $250 M for MFE and $50 M for IFE. FESAC also considered an intermediate case of $260 M, with $230 M going to MFE and $30 M going to IFE. FESAC had previously issued, in June, a document, "Opportunities in the Fusion Energy Sciences Program." The FESAC said that "the achievement of a more integrated national program in MFE and IFE (should be) a major programmatic and policy goal in the years ahead."

With respect to the MFE program, the FESAC urged the acceptance of the following four goals or "thrusts" as a way of implementing the existing higher-level goals of the fusion program:

"(1) Advance fundamental understanding of plasma, the fourth state of matter, and enhance predictive capabilities, through comparison of well-diagnosed experiments, theory and simulation.

"(2) Resolve outstanding scientific issues and establish reduced-cost paths to more attractive fusion energy systems, by investigating a broad range of innovative magnetic confinement configurations

"(3) Advance understanding and innovation in high-performance plasmas, optimizing for projected power-plant requirements; and participate in a burning plasma experiment.

"(4) Develop enabling technologies to advance fusion science; pursue innovative technologies and materials to improve the vision for fusion energy; and apply systems analysis to optimize fusion development."

The FESAC said the MFE program "is currently reasonably well balanced among its programmatic subelements," saying that the program "properly emphasizes steady-state, externally-controlled configurations, such as the advanced tokamak and spherical torus." However, they said, "To maintain a proper balance, care must be taken to also maintain an emphasis on pulsed and/or self-organized concepts.

The FESAC made four MFE recommendations, corresponding to the four goals:

"(1) Strengthen theory and computation as very cost effective means to advance fusion and plasma science, taking advantage of advances in computation science and technology. Strengthen activities in general plasma science and encourage research on near-term applications of plasma science and technology.

"(2) Pursue an aggressive portfolio of confinement concepts through increased effort in the Proof of Principle area, and through strengthening of the Concept Exploration program.

"(3) Focus the moderate-pulse advanced tokamak program, including U.S. collaboration on leading international facilities, and to a lesser degree the spherical torus program, towards a 5-year assessment point; and prepare for participation in a burning plasma experiment.

"(4) Revitalize the technology program to provide for continued innovation in this area because of its overall importance to the success of fusion science and fusion energy and applications. Utilize systems studies to identify attractive fusion energy concepts and affordable development paths."

The FESAC said that "Approximately two-thirds of additional resources relative to the Administration's proposed FY2000 budget should be divided about equally between support for goals (2) and (3). However, it is also high priority to increase support for achieving goals (1) and (4), with somewhat greater emphasis on (4), especially under small budget increases."

With respect to the IFE program, the FESAC said that "the two central objectives of inertial fusion energy research are (1) advance the fundamental understanding and predictability of high energy density plasmas,and (2) develop the science and technology of attractive rep-rated IFE power systems leveraging from the single shot work in the (DOE Defense Inertial Confinement Fusion) Program."

The FESAC noted that "at the present time, two approaches are the most advanced and have the greatest potential of meeting near term IFE requirements: One approach utilizes the indirect drive targets, heavy ion drivers, and chambers with first walls protected from neutrons by a thick liquid layer. The other approach utilizes direct drive targets, either a krypton fluoride (KrF) or diode-pumped solid-state laser, and a dry wall chamber." However, they say, "It is important to emphasize that there are other possible combinations of drivers and chambers, as well as other approaches including z-pinches, fast ignition targets, and light ions." The FESAC states that "The recommended IFE program of $50 M per year ($300 M case) would prepare three driver candidates for an IRE (Integrated Research Experiment) stage, develop the necessary chamber and target technology and pursue some limited efforts at the concept exploration level. At a funding of $30 M ($260 M case), the emphasis would be on the heavy-ion driver option and associated chamber/target technology, while maintaining reduced efforts on advanced laser options." At lower levels, the FESAC "recommends mounting an adequate, albeit delayed program to develop the ion beam option, while reducing the funding for the laser option."

The FESAC also reviewed the priorities to be attached to three new MFE "Proof of Prinicple" (PoP) proposals that had received technical reviews earlier: the Reversed Field Pinch (RFP) (University of Wisconsin), the Compact Stellarator (CS) (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory) and the Magnetized Target Fusion concept (MTF)(Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory). The FESAC said, "The RFP is ready for PoP designation but a more focused sequential approach should be implemented." They said "The CS is not ready at this time for PoP designation because of one important technical concern." However, they said they believed that "this concern will likely be addressed in the near future." With respect to MTF they said it "is not ready at this time for PoP designation." However, they recommended "a three-year continuation of the MTF concept exploration program at approximately the present level of effort to produce and translate the required target plasma for the experiment."

As indicated in FPN99-38, copies of the draft panel report (which is virtually unchanged in final) can be accessed at: