The President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has issued a report stating, "It is in our fundamental National Interest to greatly strengthen international cooperation in energy innovation." The report, entitled "Powerful Partnerships," was prepared by a PCAST Panel on International Cooperation in Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment, chaired by Prof. John P. Holdren of Harvard University. The full report,and also a color brochure summary, can be accessed at //fire.pppl.gov/.

The report says that "continuing our current energy trajectory would be problem-plagued and potentially disastrous." It says, "Unless innovation to increase energy end-use efficiency and to improve energy supply technologies is both rapid and global, world energy demand is likely to soar in the next century to four times today's level, entailing higher consumer costs for energy, greater oil-import dependence, worse local and regional air pollution, more pronounced climate disruption from greenhouse gases, and bigger nuclear energy risks than today." The panel recommends that the U.S. "strengthen capacities for energy technology innovation . . . promote technologies to limit energy demand . . . promote technologies for a cleaner energy supply . . . (and) improve management of the Federal energy portfolio . . . ."

The report predicts that between 1990 and 2050 the U.S. will have to invest between 5 and 10 trillion dollars in energy supply technologies, while developing countries will have to invest between 15 and 25 trillion dollars. The report recommends a doubling in the Federal investment in energy R&D between now and 2005.

With respect to fusion, the report recommends "pursuit of a new international agreement on fusion R&D that commits the parties to a broad range of collaborations on all aspects of fusion energy development, while selectively enhancing U.S. participation in existing fusion experiments abroad and inviting increased foreign participation in new and continuing smaller fusion experiments in the United States." It notes, "The DOE's nuclear fusion program has had a history of international cooperation, dating back to the 1960's, but most recently has been centered around the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Proposed by the USSR in 1985, ITER was subsequently developed as a collaboration among Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States through conceptual design (1988-1990) and engineering design (1992-1998). Congress directed DOE to end U.S. participation in ITER in FY 1999, and future U.S. options are currently being explored." The panel notes further that "Japan has consistently been one of the leading supporters of fusion research through its participation in the ITER project . . . ."

The panel concludes, "Because fusion is a long-term energy option for which R&D costs are large, international collaborative R&D is an attractive approach for sustaining the fusion option. Any new agreement should not be restricted to construction of a single device, although U.S. participation in construction of a scaled-down ITER along the lines now being explored by the parties to the ITER agreement would not be ruled out. Increased U.S. participation in selected existing fusion experiments abroad was recommended in the 1997 PCAST report. The DOE should continue to make a vigorous case to Congress for restoration of recent fusion budget cuts to a degree sufficient to pay for the U.S. share in these international collaborations while protecting a robust domestic program in fusion science."

The report can also be accessed at the PCAST web site: