Fusion Energy Sciences
Associate Director of the Office of Science for Fusion Energy Sciences
SC-50/Germantown Building
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20585-1290
http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/
General Goal 4, Energy Security: Enhance energy security by developing technologies that foster a diverse supply of affordable and environmentally sound energy, improving energy efficiency, providing for reliable delivery of energy, exploring advanced technologies that make a fundamental change in our mix of energy options, and guarding against energy emergencies.
General Goal 5, World Class Scientific Research Capacity: Provide world-class scientific research capacity needed to: ensure the success of Department missions in national and energy security; advance the frontiers of knowledge in physical sciences and areas of biological, medical, environmental, and computational sciences, or provide world-class research facilities for the Nation’s science enterprise.
Fusion is the energy source that powers the sun and stars. Fusion energy science is a sub-field of plasma science that studies the fundamental processes taking place in plasmas where the temperature and density approach the conditions needed to allow the nuclei of low-mass elements, such as hydrogen and helium isotopes, to join together or fuse. The resulting reaction gives off tremendous amounts of energy.
When fusion power becomes a commercial reality, current national concerns over imported oil, rising gasoline prices, smokestack pollution, and other problems associated with our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels will largely disappear. We will have achieved energy independence. Fusion power plants will provide economical and abundant energy without greenhouse gas emissions, while creating manageable waste and little risk to public safety and health.
Mission: The mission of the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program is to provide the national basic research effort to advance plasma science, fusion science, and fusion technology—the knowledge base needed for an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source.
Program Goal 04.24.00.00/05.24.00.00: Answer the key scientific questions and overcome enormous technical challenges to harness the power that fuels our sun.
At the core of this science program, and underpinning all of our objectives, is a fundamental quest for knowledge. Our program history provides a compelling story of how this knowledge has shaped the world around us, and the future appears even more promising as we focus on such questions as:
Can we successfully control burning plasma that shares the characteristic intensity and power of the sun?
How can we use nanoscale science to construct radically new materials that will withstand the temperatures and forces needed for commercial fusion power?
To what extent can we use scientific simulation to model the behavior of the fusion fuel that is found at the center of the sun -- or in the confines of a functioning commercial prototype?
Below are the main objectives for Fusion Energy Sciences. Complementing this stand-alone Program Plan, and providing additional details of our program objectives are the Office of Science Strategic Plan (February 2004), the Facilities for the Future of Science: A Twenty Year Outlook (November 2003), as well as the most recent Office of Science budget.
Objectives:
Burning Plasma: Demonstrate with burning plasmas the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy.
Fundamental Understanding: Develop a fundamental understanding of plasma behavior sufficient to provide a reliable predictive capability for fusion energy systems.
Configuration Optimization: Determine the most promising approaches and configurations to confining hot plasmas for practical fusion energy systems.
Materials, Components, and Technologies: Develop the new materials, components, and technologies necessary to make fusion energy a reality.
An accompanying timeline (Road Maps) provides a roadmap for these objectives, including our planned future facilities, performance targets, and the primary connections and program interdependencies. Two important caveats, described below, must be observed when viewing the timeline.
The Objectives, Performance Targets and schedules identified on the timeline are for planning purposes only and do not constitute financial or contractual commitments by the Federal government. More often than not, there are significant discrepancies between planning levels and subsequent, enacted budgets. It is reasonable to anticipate that resources may not be available to fully support every performance target, including but not limited to the schedule for performance. Subsequent annual updates of this plan will reflect and adjust for those fiscal constraints based on the latest available information.
Additionally, there are many more connections (lines) and interdependencies (footnotes in red) than are displayed on the actual timelines. The very nature of science is multi-disciplinary and interdependent. Consequently, those relationships that are depicted are only illustrative, although they are believed to be largely representative of the primary relationships.
The FES program conducts frequent and comprehensive evaluations of every component of the program. Progress against established plans is evaluated by periodic internal and external performance reviews. These reviews provide an opportunity to verify and validate performance. Quarterly, semiannual, and annual reviews consistent with specific program management plans are held to ensure technical progress, cost and schedule adherence, and responsiveness to program requirements.
All on-going programs undergo regular (every three to five years) peer review and merit evaluation based on procedures set down in 10 CFR 605 for the extramural grant program, and under a similar process for the laboratory programs and collaborative use of our facilities. Results of these evaluations are used to modify program management as appropriate. Additionally, all new programs are also selected through peer review and merit evaluation.
All construction projects, such as the National Compact Stellarator Experiment, are reviewed semiannually by the Office of Science’s Construction Management Support Division to determine how well they are performing on a technical, cost and schedule basis against their DOE approved performance baseline.
The Department of Energy uses a variety of external advisory entities to provide input that is used in making informed decisions on programmatic priorities and allocation of resources. The Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) is a standing committee that provides independent advice to the Director of the Office of Science on complex scientific and technological issues that arise in the planning, implementation, and management of the fusion energy sciences program. The Director of the Office of Science charges the Committee to provide advice and recommendations on various issues of concern to the fusion energy sciences program.
Another review mechanism involves charging FESAC to establish a Committee of Visitors (COV) to review program management practices every three to four years on a rotating basis for the following program elements: (1) theory and computation; (2) confinement innovation and basic plasma science; and (3) tokamak research and enabling technologies . The first COV review, held on November 13-14, 2003, addressed the theory and computation program. The Committee’s report on the findings and recommendations were submitted to the Director of Office of Science in March 2004.
Change control and off-ramps:
Science changes rapidly and breakthroughs in knowledge by our science programs, other agencies, industry and the international science community create a constant state of flux. Although there are long-term research themes and lengthy horizons for new cutting-edge tools, basic research must be constantly revisited in a context of new discoveries and the most promising current opportunities.
Additionally, basic research is, by its nature, unpredictable. Results that appear to mark a failed experiment are often much more significant to progress in the field than a “successful” result. This is the reason that expert review will be used to assess progress toward our objectives. It is critical that all evaluations take this unique aspect of research into account so that success will be judged as advancing the field rather than meeting the specifics of an objective or target.
Underpinning the Office of Science change control process and our off-ramps are a strong dependence on our program advisory committees, for us the FESAC. Our program and our advisory committee are driven by the following three major criteria for evaluating change and possible off-ramps: Quality, Relevance, and Performance. These criteria are also the criteria that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) applies to basic research.
As part of the Office of Science Strategic Planning process, our advisory committee is consulted on the actual Objectives for the program. A broader array of stakeholders from government, industry, and academia are also consulted. Such input helps form the basis for a new focus or direction at this more aggregate level, and the current objectives for this program were the result of a recently completed cycle and preparation of a new Office of Science Strategic Plan. The objectives from the Strategic Plan form the basis for this Program Plan.
Key Targets were also developed in consultation with FESAC as part of OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) process. Progress reviews for these key targets will be conducted by FESAC every three years. These reviews will allow us to assess progress so that the program can continue, redirect or discontinue the efforts that support those targets.
Ultimately, all decisions on focus, emphasis, resources, and possible shifts are vetted at the appropriate levels within our program - from the researchers to the program managers, and often to the level of the Associate Director. Depending on the scope of the issue and the venue, the Director of the Office of Science may be involved. For major off-ramps, the Director of the Office of Science is always involved and assumes final responsibility.
International collaboration, which has been a hallmark of fusion research over its half a century of history, is a key external factor in fusion. It ranges from small scale personnel exchanges to coordinated joint experiments among major facilities, and to a large project like ITER. The science and the technology of fusion have progressed to the point that the next major research step is the exploration of the physics of a self-sustained plasma reaction in a burning plasma physics experiment. The proposed international burning plasma experiment called ITER is the focal point of burning plasma fusion research around the world, and the Administration has decided to join the negotiations to conduct this experiment. In light of this decision, many elements of the fusion program that are broadly applicable to burning plasmas will now be directed more specifically toward the needs of ITER. These elements represent areas of fusion research in which the United States has particular strengths relative to the rest of the world, such as theory, modeling, and tokamak experimental physics. Longer range technology activities have been phased out or redirected to support preparations for the realization of the burning plasma device and associated experiments. The U.S. funding commitment to ITER will increase significantly in the future as the project moves to construction and eventually to science operations.
Scientists from the United States participate in leading edge scientific experiments on fusion facilities abroad, and conduct comparative studies to enhance the scientific understanding they obtain from domestic facilities. These include the world’s highest performance tokamaks (JET in England and JT-60 in Japan), a stellarator (the Large Helical Device in Japan), a superconducting tokamak (Tore Supra in France), compact toroid experiments for magnetic configuration optimization in Japan, and several smaller devices. In addition, the United States is collaborating with South Korea on the design of diagnostics for the long-pulse, superconducting, advanced tokamak (KSTAR), and with China on the EAST, another new superconducting tokamak for steady state physics and technology studies. In addition to these experiments, scientists from the United States are also participating in the experiments on fast ignition in Japan and Britain. These collaborations provide a valuable link with the 80 percent of the world’s fusion research that is conducted outside the United States.
The United States is an active participant in the International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) that facilitates identification of high priority research for burning plasmas in general, and for ITER specifically, through workshops and assigned tasks. ITPA further identifies coordinated experiments on the international tokamak programs and coordinates implementation of these experiments through the International Energy Agency Implementing Agreements on tokamaks. In FY 2004, the United States began participating in the ITER Transitional Arrangements activities preparing the project for construction beginning in 2006.
The FES program has many connections with other organizations, and is dependent on their planning needs, identified challenges, information, scientific data sharing, and more. Some of the key external factors for the FES program, include: the SC-wide SciDAC effort (collaboration with the Office of Advanced Scientific Research), international collaborations such as ITER, and overcoming materials challenges through nanoscience (collaboration with related programs of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences), and high energy density physics. High energy density physics is a rapidly emerging field that is currently under consideration for a coordinated national initiative that involves several Federal Agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Astronautics Administration, and the National Institute of Science and Technology and other parts of the Office of Science (HEP, NP, BES).
External factors that affect the programs and performance include: (1) mission needs as described by the DOE and SC mission statements and strategic plans; (2) evolving scientific opportunities, which sometimes emerge in a way that revolutionizes disciplines; (3) results of external program reviews and international benchmarking activities of entire fields or subfields, such as those performed by the National Academy of Sciences; and (4) strategic and programmatic decisions made by other (non-DOE) Federal agencies and by international entities.