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U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science

Dr. Stephen Eckstrand Acting Director

Research Division

September 28, 2006

Overview of the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences

www.science.doe.gov/ofes

Fusion Power AssociatesAnnual Meeting and Symposium

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U.S. Fusion Energy Sciences Program Mission

Answer the key scientific questions and overcome enormous technical challenges to harness the power that fuels a star, thereby enabling a landmark scientific achievement--bringing fusion power to the U.S. electric grid by the middle of this century.

o Establish the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy through the study of burning plasmas.

o Develop a fundamental understanding of plasma behavior sufficient to provide a reliable predictive capability for fusion energy systems.

o Determine the most promising approaches and configurations to confining hot plasmas for practical fusion energy systems.

o Develop the new materials, components, and technologies necessary to make fusion energy a reality.

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OFES Management Transitions

o Anne Davies (Associate Director for Fusion), John Willis (Director of Research Division), Michael Roberts (Director of ITER and International Division), and Warren Marton (U.S. ITER Program Manager) have retired during the past 18 months.

o A new Associate Director is expected to be named soon.

o Dr. Jim Decker will remain Acting Associate Director until the new AD is officially on board. (Possibly December 2006)

o Erol Oktay, Gene Nardella, and Steve Eckstrand have shared (2 month rotation) the position of the Acting Director of Research Division since April 4, 2006.

o Erol Oktay has been the Acting Director of ITER and International Division since July 17.

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Ten Year Goals for Fusion Energy Sciences*

o Predictive Capability for Burning Plasma: Progress toward developing a predictive capability for key aspects of burning plasmas using advances in theory and simulation benchmarked against a comprehensive experimental database of stability, transport, wave-particle interaction, and edge effects (2015)

o Configuration Optimization: Progress toward demonstrating enhanced fundamental understanding of magnetic confinement and improved basis for future burning plasma experiments through research on magnetic confinement configuration optimization (2015)

o High Energy Density Plasma Physics: Progress toward developing the fundamental understanding and predictability of high energy density plasma physics (2015)

*FESAC is evaluating progress against these present goals, but these goals may be changed based on a long-range planning activity to be carried out under the leadership of the new Associate Director for Fusion Energy Sciences

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Letter to FESAC Concerning the Charge to Examine Program Evolution

o Original Charge February 27, 2006 – Examine program evolution over the coming decade– Identify goals, scope, deliverables, schedules, and time frames– Report due February 2007

o Letter From Dr. Orbach to FESAC Chair dated July 18, 2006– Imminent signing of ITER agreement will affect fusion research for many

years– “… it is extremely important that the new Associate Director for the

Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program have the opportunity to provide input on all … aspects of this activity…”

– “ … we need to have a planning horizon that coincides with a significant part of [the ITER lifetime]. Therefore, I would suggest that the planning horizon be 20-25 rather than the ten-year period as asked for in the original charge letter.”

– “With regard to the other aspects of this planning activity … I would like to wait until the new AD comes on board … before providing any other input. …I would strongly suggest that you delay any decision on the format of community input, such as a Snowmass-type meeting until further guidance is received,

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FY 2006 Has Been a Year of Remarkable Progress

o Major progress on ITER agreement

o Significant Scientific Progress

o Improving budget outlook as a result of the American Competitiveness Initiative

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Fusion Energy Sciences Priorities

o Fully support ITER design and construction

o Continue to develop burning plasma physics and technology and prepare for ITER operation

o Take advantage of opportunities for collaboration on unique international facilities

o Conduct research to define facilities beyond ITER

o Continue stewardship of plasma science

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ITER Progress in FY 2006 U.S. ITER Project Accomplishments

o Completion of appointments of key management staff of the USIPO including Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Managers responsible for the U.S. procurement allocations

o Revision of project documentation (preliminary cost, schedule ranges, acquisition strategy, etc.) in preparation for project cost reviews

o Planning, interaction and coordination with the International ITER Organization on all project activities including the upcoming international design review, nomination of potential seconded staff urgently needed by the ITER Organization, determination and discussion about fulfillment of the FY2006/FY2007 task assignments

o Planning for and aggressive participation in specific seven-partner international technical and operational Working Group meetings (Summer through Fall).

o Completed first cash contributions made to the ITER organization on August 31, 2006, transferring $528,918 dollars or 409,000 euros.

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Today’s Fusion Tokamaks Are Making Important Contributions to ITER

Joint ITPA experiments on DIII-D, C-MOD, NSTX, the European tokamaks JET and ASDEX-UG, and the Japanese tokamak JT-60U are investigating the scaling of energy confinement time with plasma pressure in ITER relevant plasmas.

DIII-D completed system upgrades and modifications in 2006 and began research in ITER-relevant low rotation regimes using balanced (co- and counter-current) neutral beam injection. Demonstrated that the threshold for rotational stabilization of the RWM using this method of slowing rotation is much lower than previously attained with magnetic braking techniques.

Alcator C-Mod successfully demonstrated real-time disruption detection and mitigation at ITER-level densities with adaptive firing of its high-pressure gas jet system by computerized control. Dangerous halo currents were reduced by about half, and nearly all of the disrupting plasma’s energy was converted to relatively benign radiation.

NSTX scientists used a set of six non-axisymmetric feedback coils and improved equilibrium coils to carry out studies of error field reduction, plasma rotation control, and active resistive wall mode control in high performance plasmas. They were able to control the resistive wall mode successfully at high normalized pressure at ITER relevant rotation for a plasma skin time.

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Simulations with Gyrokinetic codes investigated the fundamental physics of turbulent transport in fusion plasmas and discovered important new effects such as turbulence spreading, highlighting the non-local nature of plasma transport

FY 2006 Theory & Computation Highlights

The Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) achieved an unprecedented 7.2 teraflop sustained performance using 4096 processors and over 13 billion particles on the Earth Simulator Computer.

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Education at the Fusion Science CentersThe Center for Extreme States of Matter and Fast Ignition Physics 2005 summer school in high energy density physics at the University of California at Berkeley• 96 undergraduate and graduate

students, post docs, and research scientists attended a wide range of lectures on high energy density plasma physics

Two dimensional PIC simulation of electron generation and transport in fast ignition.

Artist’s conception of black hole accretion flow

Multiscale plasma simulations (developed and used for magnetic confinement fusion research) also being used to predict turbulence and heating in black hole accretion disks

The Center for Multiscale Plasma Dynamics and The Center for Magnetic Self-Organization 2006 winter school on the Physics of Magnetic Reconnection at UCLA• Over 50 graduate students and post-docs

attended six days of lectures• Second winter school on Plasma

Turbulence and Transport: Commonalities between Lab, Space and Astrophysics in January 2007

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(FY 2007 $ in Millions)Fusion Energy Sciences Funding

Fiscal Years

9/12/06

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2007Cong

2006July

Equipment

Operating

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FY 2008 Fusion Energy SciencesOMB Budget Request

154.2

121.6

43.2

319.0

FY 2007Cong

Science

Facility Operations

Enabling R&D

OFES Total

DIII-DC-ModNSTXNCSX

ITERNon-ITER

56.722.835.116.6

60.0259.0

148.4

104.5

27.8

280.7

FY 2006July

54.921.834.217.8

24.6256.1

($ Millions)

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Fusion Energy Sciences($ in thousands)

FY 2007Cong

FY 2006July AFP

56,66222,83135,11816,597

60,000258,950

54,89221,77234,22017,770

24,609256,074

DIII-DAlcator C-ModNSTXNCSX

ITER (Preparations, OPC & MIE)Non-ITER

318,950280,683Total Fusion Energy Sciences

43,18227,798Enabling R&D Total

12,9452,5504,687

23,000

14,7872,5297,0333,449

Engineering Research Plasma Technologies (MFE) Advanced Design & Analysis (MFE)Materials Research (MFE)Enabling R&D for ITER (OPC)

121,555104,460Facility Operations Total

32,36213,94118,42215,900

12/15/12/03,930

37,000

30,78013,28218,68117,019

7/14/113,5385,294

15,866

DIII-DAlcator C-ModNSTXNCSXFacility Ops times in weeksGPP, GPE, OtherITER PreparationsITER MIE TEC Cost

154,213148,425Science Total

13,94114,189General Plasma Science

6,970 4,221Advanced Computing/SciDAC

24,853 23,900Theory

56,30259,598Subtotal Alternates Research

16,69619,99011,9496,970

697

15,53921,39015,4736,445

751

NSTX ResearchExperimental Plasma ResearchHEDPMST ResearchNCSX Research

53,10045,564Subtotal Tokamaks

24,3008,8905,0643,8543,7307,262

24,1128,4904,9513,7634,248

0

DIII-D ResearchC-MOD ResearchInternational CollaborationsDiagnosticsOtherSBIR/STTR (science)

Science

Facility Operation

Enabling R&DFY 2007

CongFY 2006July AFP

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FY 2007 Fusion Budget

o Committee recommendation for fusion energy sciences is $318,950,000, the same as the budget request.

o Committee is pleased that the Department requested sufficient funding for ITER “without doing so at the expense of domestic fusion research activities or at the expense of other office of science programs.”

House Mark

o Committee recommends $307,001,000 for Fusion Energy Sciences and “recommends that a new office be created to consolidate and support research in high energy density physics.”

o Committee shifted $11,949,000 provided for High Energy Density Science to the new office within the Department of Energy.

Senate Mark

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FES FY 2007 Congressional Budget

$319.0 M

Tokamak$88.4

ITER$60.0

Alternates$90.6

Enabling R&D$20.2

Theory$23.9

SciDAC $7.0

GPS$14.0

Other $14.9

FES FY 2006 July Fin Plan Distribution

$280.7 M

Tokamak $85.4

ITER $24.6Alternates

$95.3

Enabling R&D$24.3

Theory $24.9

SciDAC $4.2

GPS $14.2

Other$7.8

Fusion Energy Sciences Budget($ in Millions)

17*NSF/NIST/NAS/AF/Undesignated funds

Institution Types

FY 2007 Request$319.0M

Fusion Energy Sciences Funding Distribution

Universities23.2%

Industry19.3%

Other*2.4%

Laboratory55.0%

Functions

Science46.1%

FacilityOperations+

26.5%

Technology6.3%

SBIR/STTR2.3%

+Includes NCSX Project

ITER Direct18.8%

01/31/06

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ITER MIE Funding for FY07

Total of $60.0M in FY07

Distribution of Funding

Design/R&D/Mgmt $47.5M

• Magnet• First wall shields• Cooling water systems• Roughing pump• Pellet injector• Exhaust Processing• ICH transmission line• ECH transmission line• Diagnostics• Project management

Hardware Commitments $1.5M

• Toroidal field coil conductor• Diagnostic Components

Cash to IO $5.0M

ITER Organization (IO) Employees and Secondees $6.0M

6

5

1.5

47.5

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ITER Funding Profile Budget (dollars in thousands – in as spent dollars)

*The estimated TPC is based on project completion in 2014. The international ITER Organization recently announced a schedule indicating a 2015 project completion and first plasma in 2016. The international and domestic project schedule will be more firm at CD-2, and the estimate remains preliminary until the baseline is established at CD-2.

Fiscal Year Total Estimated Costs Other Project Costs Total Project Costs

2006 15,866 3,449 19,3152007 37,000 23,000 60,0002008 149,500 10,500 160,0002009 208,500 6,000 214,5002010 208,500 821 209,3212011 181,964 0 181,9642012 130,000 0 130,0002013 116,900 0 116,9002014 30,000 0 30,000

TOTAL 1,078,230 43,770 1,122,000*

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FY 2007 Performance Targets

o In FY 2007, FES will measure and identify magnetic modes on NSTX that are driven by energetic ions traveling faster than the speed of magnetic perturbations (Alfvén speed); such modes are expected in burning plasmas such as ITER.

Science

Facility Operations

o In FY 2007, improve the simulation resolution of linear stability properties of Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmodes driven by energetic particles and neutral beams in ITER by increasing the number of toroidal modes used to 15.

o Average achieved operational time of major national fusion facilities as a percentage of total planned operational time is greater than 90%.

o Cost-weighted mean percent variance from established cost and schedule baselines for major construction, upgrade, or equipment procurement projects kept to less than 10%.