News on ITER, Brookhaven National Laboratory
ITER: The current agreement among the U.S., Russia, Japan and the European Community on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) ends on July 21. The purpose of the collaboration is to further the quest for fusion energy by designing and building an international facility that will demonstrate a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Because the cost (at least $8 billion) of building the reactor as originally planned is considered too high, the participants agreed to delay, for three years, any decision on going ahead with construction. During this time, they have been working on an agreement to extend the Engineering Design Activity (EDA) in order to consider lower-cost options. The Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) and the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) both, within the last year, encouraged DOE to continue its international participation on ITER or some lower-cost, more modest alternative (see FYIs #6 , 7 ).
But now, in appropriations report language and in an exchange of correspondence, Congress is asking DOE to reevaluate its participation. The Senate Appropriations Committee report on energy and water funding (see FYI #88 ) recommended “that the Department, prior to committing to any future magnetic fusion program or facilities, conduct a broader review to determine which fusion technology or technologies the United States should pursue to achieve ignition and/or a fusion energy device.” Even more emphatically, the House report stated, “The Committee is concerned about the recent announcement that the Department has already proposed to enter into a new agreement to start engineering and design of a newly-conceived, less costly reactor: ITER-Lite”.... The Committee objects to the proposed extension of the EDA and has not provided any additional funds for ITER, ITER-Lite or the Joint Central Team. The Department may use prior year funds for closeout costs related to ITER.” (See FYI #94 ).
The chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Joseph McDade (R-PA), sent a June 11 letter to Energy Secretary Federico Pena, asking him to determine whether the extension of ITER EDA “is a prudent course of action for the Department.” The letter requests that Pena “refrain from rushing into a new international agreement before there has been sufficient dialogue with our partners and Congress.”
Pena’s response, dated June 19, states in part, “We believe that continued collaboration with our ITER partners and support of our core ITER team represent the most cost effective path to participation in a future large scale fusion experiment of great value to the U.S. program.” He reminds the chairman that Congress, in cutting the fusion budget by one-third in FY 1996, instructed DOE to seek guidance from FESAC on restructuring the program. “I believe that we are in basic agreement on the strategy for advancing fusion science and technology,” Pena writes. “We view continuation of the ITER agreement, together with substantial reduction of an ITER financing commitment, as central to that strategy...” Noting the impending termination of the current ITER agreement, Pena asks for McDade’s “concurrence in signing the agreement extension.”
In a June 25 letter, House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), too, expresses his concern with DOE’s intention to sign an extension of the ITER agreement. “A delay in signing an extension of the ITER collaboration agreement would seem prudent,” the letter says, “in light of the both House and Senate report language...” Sensenbrenner continues, “Departmental action to extend the ITER collaborative agreement in contradiction to clear instructions by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees during such a critical stage of the FY 1999 appropriations process could have adverse consequences for not only the Fusion Energy Sciences Program, but also for other important science and energy research and development programs. Consequently, I would strongly urge the Department to refrain from entering into any such agreement until Congressional concurrence can be obtained.”
Also on June 25, the ITER Council met in Tokyo. It noted the progress made “toward conclusion of the agreement extending the ITER EDA” and “encouraged those Parties that have not yet signed to complete procedures leading to signature of the agreement as rapidly as possible.” The Council agreed that “an extended EDA agreement is the most cost-effective framework available to the Parties to continue international cooperation in fusion.”
BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY: Sensenbrenner has agreed to a DOE request to reprogram $2.5 million from other programs to Brookhaven National Laboratory. The funds would be transferred primarily to stabilize the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, which was shut down in 1968. The reprogrammed funds would include $0.7 million from DOE’s science programs. Sensenbrenner has conditioned his approval on the assurance that the transfer would “result in no adverse effects on any other DOE laboratories and will not impact on ongoing DOE activities since the required funds can be provided from recovered prior year obligations made available as old contracts are closed out.”
In other Brookhaven news, George Malosh has been named the new Brookhaven Group Manager. As the senior DOE official at the laboratory, he will be responsible for oversight of the lab’s operations and its contractor, BSA. Malosh most recently served as director of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization’s Nuclear Technology Division.
