Krebs on FY99 Energy Research Priorities, Fusion Funding
At the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) meeting on January 22, Director of Energy Research Martha Krebs discussed her FY 1999 priorities for the Office of Energy Research (OER) and gave some early indications of the budget request for fusion. It was unfortunate, she remarked, that FESAC met before President Clinton’s February 2 budget submission to Congress, and “just before I can be totally open” about the details of the request. She stated, however, that fusion funding was likely to remain basically level with the FY 1998 appropriation. (The conference report provided $232 million for fusion, but various reductions in the report decreased the amount to $229 million.)
Krebs identified the following list of OER priorities, which she said were not necessarily in order of importance: a Spallation Neutron Source, a Climate Change Technologies Initiative, a Science Facilities Utilization Initiative, the Next Generation Internet, a University Science Initiative, managing U.S. participation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collaboration, Fusion and the ITER transition, and the Genome Project. She added that it was time to revisit the strategic plan for the Office of Energy Research, to “find ways to chart a path forward.”
Overall, Krebs reported, the Energy Research budget request would represent “a very substantial increase,” driven largely by increased funding for the Spallation Source. She explained that funding for this facility, which the science community has been recommending for nearly 20 years, would be provided on top of funding for the core OER programs. Noting that the Spallation Source would be the first major new Energy Research facility to be constructed since the termination of the Superconducting Super Collider and the one-third reduction to fusion funding, Krebs said, “This is a big deal from my point of view.” Another “big deal” for Krebs was U.S. participation in the LHC. She saw it as important for the future of the Spallation Source and other facilities for DOE to demonstrate to Congress that “we can effectively manage our part.”
The Global Change Technologies Initiative was another OER priority slated for a significant increase in FY 1999, Krebs said. The recently-released PCAST report on energy R&D (see FYI #7 ) “made it impossible not to look at fusion” as a critical element of climate technologies, she added.
Krebs stated that the fusion budget would remain “essentially constant” with FY 1998 funding. “We tried,” she reported, but could not “get it to the PCAST level.” (PCAST recommended at least $250 million for FY 1999, increasing to $320 million by FY 2002.) She also mentioned that fusion funding might be squeezed in future years.
Now that the fusion program has undergone restructuring to emphasize science over technology development, Krebs intends to “reach out to the science and energy communities” and “take another read on the direction the program is going.” She suggested initiating an independent review, possibly by the National Academy of Sciences. The program must keep in touch with energy markets and issues like electric power deregulation, she said, because “it ultimately should have an impact on energy options.”
She cautioned that there was “a lot of sensitivity” in Congress on how to continue participation in the ITER collaboration beyond the engineering design phase, scheduled to be completed this year. She thought FESAC’s recent Grunder panel report (see FYI #6 ) would help boost congressional support. “It’s clear to me,” she declared, that “international participation...is crucial” to leveraging past and future U.S. investments in fusion.
“One of the critical, critical recommendations of the Grunder panel’s report,” according to Krebs, was for the international partners to begin exploring lower-cost options. “I think we’ve come to a point where we’re ready to engage that issue with our partners,” she said. While conceding that the current design was “technically excellent” and met all the intended objectives, she pointed out that changes had taken place in the ability of the partners to finance the original design. She plans to suggest, at an ITER Council meeting in February, that an international working group be set up to examine reduced-price options. She added that a workshop would be held in the U.S. first to seek input before DOE offered any options to the ITER partners.
Anne Davies, Associate Director for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, added that she perceived a new flexibility in the international partners to look at broader options for ITER. She confirmed that DOE would hold a workshop on April 20-24 “to gather views from the fusion community” for suggestions to be put forward to the ITER working group. She indicated that DOE would push for establishment of the working group before the current ITER agreement expires. Davies reiterated that the budget request would be “essentially the same as this year.” She warned that “every aspect is going to be tight,” but thought that the budget would be well-received in Congress.
Davies announced that DOE would begin discussions about enhancing U.S. collaborations on currently-operating Japanese and European fusion facilities, as recommended by FESAC. Additionally, Davies told FESAC members that the following items were on DOE’s “fusion facilities roadmap:" an energy-producing plasma research facility; an accelerator-based neutron source; a spherical torus proof-of-performance facility; a spherical torus-based neutron source facility; two innovative concept proof-of-principle facilities; a steady-state, low turbulence tokamak facility; and an inertial fusion energy driver development facility.
President Clinton will submit his budget request to Congress next week, on February 2. Then the Appropriations Committees in Congress will hold hearings on the agencies’ requests and begin drafting their funding bills. In theory, the House and Senate will reconcile their versions of the funding bills and the president will sign them into law before the beginning of the 1999 fiscal year on October 1.
