NEWS - Physics Today
Physics Today
Letter by RJ Burke - "Practical, near-term fusion power"
June 2010, Page 59 -60
http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=PHTOAD&Volume=63&Issue=6#LETTERS
(scroll down to the letter, click on the box selecting the letter and then on .pdf to load the page)
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8 October2010 Physics Today ©2010 American Institute of Physics, S-0031-9228-1010-220-8
Letter by C. Martin Strickley - "Heavy Ion Fusion in the US"
Past Director Office of
Laser Fusion at the Energy Research
and Development Administration
(ERDA) in 1976
I was the directorof the Office of
Laser Fusion at the Energy Research
and Development Administration
(ERDA) in 1976, as mentioned by
Robert Burke in his letter (PHYSICS
TODAY, June 2010, page 59). The partic-
ipants in the first workshop on what be-
came known as heavy-ion fusion (HIF)
were an exceptional group from the fu-
sion and accelerator communities.
Their conclusions warranted high con-
fidence. Accordingly, I stated in my re-
marks at the close of the meeting that
the heavy-ion approach to inertial fu-
sion faced “no showstoppers.” From
that time on, I have believed that HIF is
the approach to take for fusion energy.
Support for HIF for energy produc-
tion in ERDA and its successor, the De-
partment of Energy (DOE), was excel-
lent in fiscal years 1977–79 as the
monies needed to demonstrate the con-
cept and to define a heavy-ion demon-
stration experiment (HIDE) were
small—only $0.7 million in FY 1979.
Costs were shared between the Office
of Laser Fusion and the Office of High
Energy and Nuclear Physics. John
Deutch, then director of energy re-
search, told me “to keep HIDE in the
budget at any cost.”
The pressure to decrease HIF fund-
ing was great, for three reasons. First,
laser fusion was viewed primarily as a
military program, which made HIF, a
non-weapons-lab program, a lower pri-
ority behind the mainline laser and
light-ion programs. Second, the costs to
achieve a scientific feasibility demon-
stration using the powerful lasers at
Lawrence Livermore National Labora-
tory were large and rising. And third,
Los Alamos and Sandia national labora-
tories, privately owned KMS Fusion
(largely funded by the DOE laser fusion
program), and the University of
Rochester lobbied for ever greater fund-
ing for their inertial fusion programs.
Members of the HIF community did not
apply similar pressure.
I sought a $7.0 million budget add-
on for HIF for FY 1979, but the House
Appropriations Committee did not ap-
propriate it, due to strong negative
input from the House Armed Services
Committee.
I was removed from my job as direc-
tor in mid-FY 1979 for attempting to
fund classified efforts in US industry,
including Westinghouse’s attempt to
develop automated pellet fabrication
techniques. The Lawrence Livermore
management interpreted my actions as
a serious threat to the lab’s future. In
parallel, budget pressures continued to
increase, so money for constructing
HIDE was scrubbed from the FY 1980
budget. As a result, the country has lost
30 years of progress that could have
been made toward fusion energy. It is
sad that magnetic fusion has gotten no
further than it has, and yet we know
that inertially confined fusion (ICF) is
possible since we can create nuclear
explosions.
In an interview with PHYSICSTODAY
(September 2009, page 26), DOE under-
secretary for science Steven Koonin ex-
pressed admiration for Glenn Seaborg’s
approach during the Manhattan Project
of “a shutting off of dead-ends ... on
the spot.” DOE would do well to restore
that attitude. I wanted to cut the pro-
gram that was developing a carbon
dioxide laser, well known to be funda-
mentally hampered for driving pellet
implosions by its long wavelength.
Only years later was CO2laser develop-
ment dropped.
The upcoming National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) review of ICF for power
production will be a key step forward if
HIF receives due consideration. That
may be somewhat difficult, for three
reasons. First, DOE may already have
established its preference for driver se-
lection; Undersecretary Koonin said, “I
would keep an eye on NIF [the National
Ignition Facility] as perhaps offering an
alternative route to fusion energy.” Sec-
ond, the experience I outline above
shows the potential for interference
from political and other nontechnical
obstacles. And third, since virtually all
inertial fusion funding for almost five
decades has gone to laser and light-ion
development, the NAS review will
need to probe well below the surface to
establish the advantages of HIF.
To be competitive, technologies,
much like racehorses, need proper care
and feeding. If the NAS review is to
reach solid conclusions, serious options
must be adequately funded beforehand
in order to fully inform the NAS panel.
Since leadership in the HIF technology
has shifted to Europe and Russia, the
NAS may need to tap the information
available from those countries. The
tremendous stakes involved should
easily justify such an unusual step.
Finally, it is heartening that in the bill
to reauthorize the America COMPETES
Act, Congress has included language
specifically calling on DOE to develop
a plan to incorporate the NAS review’s
recommendations.
C. Martin Stickley
([email protected])
Winter Park, Florida