Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS In the course of its domestic workshops and its two overseas trips, the committee covered a wide range of topics concerned with inter- national cooperation in the development of controlled, magnetically confined fusion. The study considered "cooperation," in the general sense of acting with others for mutual benefit on either a small or a large scale and "collaboration," in a somewhat more specific sense of working actively together as approximately equal partners in sizeable enterprises. The various meetings identified three qualitatively different paths to fusion energy that lie open to the United States. The first is to support in a domestic program the full range of research, development, and prototype plant construction efforts that are needed to optimize the chances for successful fusion power generation, seeking all-out competitive advantage with respect to other world programs, simple parity with them, or somewhere in between. The second path is to carry out that sort of full-range program using increased international collaboration, which shares the financial costs and risks among several partners. The third is to accept a less-than-optimum domestic program, carried out at whatever level is affordable, accepting some likelihood that the United States would forfeit a greater or lesser degree of equality with other programs and, at the extreme, might have to purchase the technology from others sometime in the future. The middle path seems to the committee to be the preferable and practical choice. As a result, the United States would not, as on the first path, be mounting a more costly program than the competitive circumstances suggest. Nor would the country, as on the third path, be conducting a program more limited than it need accept. The committee believes, that, in time, potential partners will reach similar conclusions for themselves. 63
64 Accordingly, the committee expresses its view as an overall conclusion of the study: o For the United States in the years ahead, a program including increased international collaboration is preferable to a predominantly domestic program, which would have to command substantial additional resources for the competitive pursuit of fusion energy development or run the risk of forfeiture of equality with other world programs. This conclusion is supported by several of the more specific ones presented below. The relevant conclusions concern the potential of greater benefits and lower costs (No. l), the existence of an open window in time that implies feasibility (No. 2), the judgement that difficulties of implementation are either workable or bearable (No. 5), and the sound foundation provided by past cooperation (No. 6). SPECIFIC CONCLUSIONS 1. On balance, there are substantial potential benefits of large-scale international collaboration in the development of fusion energy. The benefits to be gained include a sharing of long-term, cumulative costs, diversification of risks, and a pooling of scientific and technical resources so as to enhance the needed results. In addition, both economic and political merit in cooperative efforts has been seen by participants in the Western Economic Summit meetings since l982. The factors at risk are mainly those associated with the prestige of the national programs, long-run commercial competitiveness that would follow from national program strength, and the undesired transfer of new technology. It should be possible either to contain these risks, by planning the nature of the collaboration, or to offset them, by realizing other benefits of the collaboration itself. The European Community itself is a current example of the net advantages of international collaboration. ***** 2. A window in time for large-scale international collaboration is now open. The United States, the European Community, and Japan have major programs in magnetically confined fusion that are, currently, similar enough in status and objectives to provide a technical and programmatic basis for future major collaboration. On the basis of
65 current planning and commitment either the European Community or Japan could achieve, at some date, a perceived position that would make international collaboration in a bilateral or trilateral mode less attractive to them than it is today. The Japanese have greater motivation to pursue fusion energy because of lack of indigenous energy resources; they are committed to make fusion a success as an energy source. The Japanese will consider collaboration, but only if it fits their independent program. The Western Europeans have already demonstrated collaboration at the international level through the European Community. The European Community attaches less urgency to its fusion program as a result of its anticipation of the fast breeder fission reactor. However, the European Community collaboration in fusion has overcome early obstacles and has generated a firm plan and stable support. All our recent discussions revealed a desire for equal participation in planning, science, engineering, and management. At a more senior level, the people that we visited understood clearly the budgetary pressures for greater cooperation as well as the pressures of national interest. We found a receptivity to the idea of large-scale international collaboration at both the program leadership and political levels. If one considers that each of the three major programsâin the United States, the European Community, and Japanâmay well include an engineering reactor and a demonstration reactor (although the latter is not considered in the United States to be a government responsibility) as prerequisites to commercialization, there are also ample technical opportunities for large-scale international collaboration. Finally, proprietary concerns are largely absent now because the programs are mostly conducted by the public sector in recognition of the long time before commercial application is likely. ***** 3. Large-scale international collaboration can be achieved, but not quickly. Because both European Community and Japanese planning is detailed and resources are rather firmly committed for the next few years, large-scale collaboration does not appear possible before the late l980s. Moreover, results from the Joint European Torus and the JT-60 tokamak in Japan, as well as from the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, will also become available during this period; and important program choices are awaiting this information. Furthermore, any major collaboration must meet the requirements of the separate programs of the parties and so must be preceded by a joint planning effort.
66 Therefore, while major collaboration may offer investment savings, as well as less risk and a superior program, such results can be expected only after a suitable lead time has elapsed for putting the mechanisms into place. ***** 4. International collaboration will require stable international commitments. There are a number of nontechnical factors that could inhibit large-scale international collaboration unless overcome. The United States is perceived as being an "unreliable partner" based on previous experiences in space sciences, synthetic fuels, and, to some extent, fusion itself. There are also perceptions of the United States as not having a firm commitment to develop fusion, nor of having a sound development plan. U.S. policy considerations that go beyond fusion may constrain the options for collaboration. The annual funding appropriation process makes a multiyear project appear as a high-risk venture. By contrast, the European Community operates with a five-year budget and program plan revised every third year. Futhermore, U.S. fusion policy is perceived to change much more frequently than that of either the European Community or Japan. U.S. directionsâenunciated by the Magnetic Fusion Engineering Act of l980, the more recent Comprehensive Program Management Plan of l983, and the Energy Research Advisory Board recommendations of l983-l984, together with current debate, which appears not yet to have coalesced into policyâall of these are observed closely by our potential partners and result in confusion abroad. Past programs outside the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Energy have exacerbated this perception of the United States. There are, however, successful precedents for stable international commitments: the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, and the Joint European Torus (JET) Joint Undertaking. We believe the Joint European Torus experience, especially, provides an illuminating example. Since substantial benefits from international collaboration would materialize only from a relationship that was sustained over the long term, some form of agreement will be required that gives all partners a high degree of confidence that each will carry out its commitment without creating a burden on the others by withdrawal of participation and support. ***** 5. There is a host of considerations that must be resolved in implementation, but these appear workable.
67 In pursuing international collaboration as the preferred course of action, the many complexities that are inherent must be recognized and dealt with. Failure to consider the following in a timely fashion can lead to real difficulty: a. The fragile balance between independence and interdependence. b. A procedure for site selection for major future devices. c. The impact of perceived commercial value, as exemplified by current restricted access to fast breeder reactor engineering technology. d. Ownership or sharing of intellectual property. e. Policy with respect to licensing technology to nonparticipants. f. Equitable participation by industry, including consideration of differing tax and subsidy policies. g. The question of technology transfer in instances where national security is considered to be involved. h. Acceptance of international standards, particularly for safety and radiation. i. The impact on established domestic institutions, such as the national laboratories; some changes in roles and missions seem inevitable. The committee believes, however, that none of these factors represents an insurmountable obstacle. Satisfactory management arrangements internal to the undertaking can probably be devised, and limitations external to it can probably be borne. Each issue may be addressed when it arises. ***** 6. Past cooperation provides a sound basis for future efforts. It was clear from the courtesies extended, from the hours of talent invested in the discussions with the committee, and from the open and frank exchange of views that past international relationships in the fusion community have been excellent. A high degree of mutual trust and respect prevails among leaders of the several programs. Furthermore, there is a precedent of generally successful international cooperation on a modest scale in fusion. These precedents include long-standing information and personnel exchanges, the bilateral agreement between Japan and the United States, the trilateral agreements under the International Energy Agency, and the workshops on the International Tokamak Reactor. We believe that this background provides reason to be optimistic about the possibility of successful achievement of the general goals established at the recent Economic Summit meetings of Heads of State.
68 RECOMMENDATIONS Having concluded that large-scale international collaboration is the preferable course* the committee makes two recommendations to proceed: l. The first priority should be the establishment of a clear set of policies and objectives and a considered program plan for future U.S. fusion activities. Concrete near-term and intermediate objectives and a schedule for their attainment should be established by the U.S. Department of Energy and displayed to the Administration and the Congress for review and concurrence. Such information is a prerequisite for substantive discussions with potential partners as well as the basis for long-range international commitments. Improved means should be devised for satisfying Congressional oversight and budget control and at the same time providing improved program stability. As a minimum, multiple year contracts and carefully controlled off-budget financing could help. Inasmuch as large devices are prime candidates for international collaboration, the United States should promptly formulate its position with respect to next-generation tokamak experiments relative to the Next European Torus in the European Community and the Fusion Experimental Reactor in Japan. If the positions overlap, the United States, as part of the recommendation made below, should explore collaboration with the European Community and Japan in all phases of planning, constructing, and operating a next-step tokamak. ***** 2. Having carried out the preceding recommendation, the United States should take the lead in consulting with prospective partners to initiate a joint planning effort aimed at large-scale collaboration. The inevitable lead time associated with large-scale collaboration calls for initiatives to be started earlier rather than later. Initial assumptions should recognize that the program of the United States, as well as those of the European Community and Japan, must start from a self-sufficient base. The planning effort should identify first those areas where the national and regional plans have coincident interests. Successful cooperation on a smaller scale will lend confidence to larger undertakings. Steps that would lead to interdependence must, as a practical matter, come later. These steps may produce a reasonable compatibility of goals for major experimental fusion devices in the period following the completion of various firmly committed, near-term projects.
69 This activity should be endorsed at political levels and steered by the fusion program leaders in the respective countries, who should meet periodically to reconcile their programs. Subsidary planning groups, involving technical leaders, should meet periodically to plan cooperative activities. This activity must be a continuing one. The involvement of the technical level is important both to the planning of sound objectives for the project and to the development of a cooperative spirit for its pursuit. It seems self-evident that the United States should not advocate in these meetings what it cannot deliver. Although the United States, the European Community, or Japan might well take the lead in proposing increased collaboration, the committee believes that, because the United States is currently reexamining its program, the initiatives could be taken with greater ease from this side. There is, here, an opportunity to provide leadership in a uniquely important technology development of global significance as a potential power source, provided that recognition is given to the concept that leadership is possible in a partnership if we are willing to share it.
