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UNIVERSITY FUSION ASSOCIATION

http://depts.washington.edu/ufa


E-mail Newsletter
January 2008
sent by S. Knowlton, UFA President

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Items:

1.  December Congressional action on FY08 budget
2.  Fusion Day Feb. 21
3.  OFES presentation at December FPA meeting
4.  Next IAEA meeting

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1.  Most if not all of you are aware of the budget cuts contained in 
the Congressional Omnibus bill passed in the last days before 
Congress recessed for Xmas.  Despite what appeared to be broad 
support for the COMPETES bill passed in the summer following up the 
American Competitiveness Initiative/ Innovation Agenda activity, 
appropriation levels in the Omnibus bill did not match the funding 
increases planned for in the NSF, NIST, and DOE Science Office 
budgets.  The cause is attributed to Congress and the White House 
being unable to compromise on an overall $22B difference in funding 
requests in the items covered in the bill. You can read a recent news 
item about it in the attached article from the Jan. 4 issue of 
Science.  Lots of news and detailed commentary can also be found on 
the FIRE website http://fire.pppl.gov


	The final appropriated levels for FY08 are only marginally 
higher than in the previous year, and this is a problem for Fusion 
Energy Sciences because we had been counting on the increase to 
support our contribution to ITER that ramps up over the next few 
years while continuing our active domestic fusion energy research 
activities in support of the burning plasma program and our other 
priorities.

The summary budget numbers are:

OFES budget	Omnibus bill	President's FY08 budget (Feb 2007)

Facility Ops	$ 93,504,000		$ 87,504,000
Science		$162,910,000		$159,529,000
Enabling R&D	$ 22,042,000		$ 20,783,000
ITER		$ 0			$149,500,000
Enabling R&D	$ 10,724,000		$10,500,000
for ITER

High energy physics is in a similar pickle.

	Regarding ITER itself, the US will still stay involved.  DOE 
has indicated that it will continue to support the US ITER Project 
Office and the US people (secondees) working directly for the ITER 
Organization.  It is also planning to continue US engagement in a 
number of the various ITER organizational and advisory committees, 
according to a recent letter from Under Secretary of Science Ray 
Orbach to the ITER Director General.  Beyond that, cash contributions 
to the ITER Organization are deferred, and US procurement of 
long-lead items and most US R&D activity will be delayed.

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2.  Congressional Fusion Day will take place on Feb. 21 this year. 
This will be several weeks after the President releases the federal 
FY09 budget request, and there will be more information provided to 
you in the near future.

An explanatory message from GA congressional liaison Mark Haynes is 
pasted below:

>Washington Fusion Day will be Thursday, February 21st this year.   That day
>falls on the heels of the Feb. 19 - 20th FESAC meeting so that many of you
>will be in the Washington area already.
>
>As in the past, Fusion Day will begin with a breakfast at the Tortilla Coast
>restaurant on Capitol Hill.  From there, everyone fans out to meet with
>their respective Congressional delegations.   We are not planning to have an
>evening reception this year.
>
>Because of the recent action taken on ITER funding, it is critically
>important for as many people as possible to participate in Fusion Day.
>Therefore, please plan to attend and please let us know ASAP of your plans.
>
>IMPORTANT, PLEASE NOTE:  Despite what has happened, it is extremely
>important that our community work to keep the atmosphere surrounding the cut
>to ITER "uncharged".  Hence, in setting up your Congressional meetings for
>Fusion Day or in any contacts with Congress or the Administration, please be
>extremely careful not to point fingers or lay blame.  This will not be
>helpful.  Instead, it's sufficient to calmly point out that the cut to ITER
>is a major problem for both the U.S. Fusion program and for our nation's
>credibility as a partner in international science projects.  If this is
>going to be fixed, we will need the help of all of our friends in Congress
>and the Administration.
>
>As we get closer to Fusion Day, we will send out more details.  Meanwhile,
>if you have any questions about setting up meetings, please contact any of
>us.  So, please mark your calendars and plan to attend.   Thank you.
>
>Chris Carter (Princeton U.) (202) 220-1365
>Mark Haynes (General Atomics) (202) 496-8209
>Christie Schomer (U of California) (202) 494-1905
>Mary Toler (Battelle)  (202) 646-7863

I strongly encourage all members to consider visiting DC to talk to 
their congressional delegation.
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3.  I attended the 2007 annual Fusion Power Associates meeting at Oak 
Ridge (Dec. 4-5) on behalf of the UFA.  Copies of the presentations 
can be found at the URL http://fire.pppl.gov/fpa_annual_meet.html?A>.

	I am attaching a copy of the presentation made by Associate 
Director Ray Fonck to update attendees on the OFES view of program 
issues.  The office is continuing to develop ideas for reorganization 
of the office (reported on in an earlier UFA newsletter) and for 
multi-year strategic program planning. It is well worth reviewing 
these slides. As for concrete actions in the not-too-distant future, 
OFES intends to issue 3 new charges to FESAC:

(1) develop plans for OFES involvement in High Energy Density 
Laboratory Plasma (HEDLP) and Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) sciences 
in collaboration with NNSA;

(2) identify the role and opportunities for investigations of 
alternate (non-tokamak) magnetic configurations in the near, medium, 
and long-term US fusion program plans; and

(3) identify the approach for scientific investigation of fusion 
materials and fusion engineering.

	Also, OFES intends to hold two workshops to:

(1) develop a research roadmap for plasma sciences as a follow-up to 
the recent NRC plasma science decadal survey 
(http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11960); and

(2) plan tokamak campaigns and generally new initiatives in the ITER 
era as a follow-up to FESAC's Greenwald panel report (available at 
http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/fesac.shtml)

Further info on some of these items can be found in Fonck's slides.

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4. Dr. Stephen Eckstrand of OFES has sent around a letter (attached) 
with information about the US IAEA paper selection process.  Contact 
him (Steve.Eckstrand@science.doe.gov, 301-903-5546) for further info.