U.S. GAO Report Criticizes ITER; Implied Polywell Reference?

Discuss funding sources for polywell research, including the non-profit EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation, as well as any other relevant research efforts.

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TallDave
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U.S. GAO Report Criticizes ITER; Implied Polywell Reference?

Post by TallDave »

This is interesting:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0830.pdf
Over 9 years, DOE estimates it will spend $1.12 billion to help build ITER, but this is only a preliminary estimate and may not fully reflect the costs of U.S. participation. This preliminary estimate has not been independently validated, as DOE guidance directs, because the reactor design is not complete. Moreover, the $1.12 billion for ITER construction does not include an additional $1.2 billion the United States is expected to contribute to operate and decommission the facility. In addition, the ITER Organization, which manages the construction and operation of ITER, faces a number of management challenges to build ITER on time and on budget that also may affect U.S. costs. For example, the ITER Organization must develop quality assurance standards, test the reliability and integrity of components built in different countries, and assemble them with a high level of precision. Many of these challenges stem from the difficulty of coordinating international efforts and the need for consensus before making critical management decisions.
GAO has identified several challenges DOE faces in managing alternative fusion research activities. First, NNSA and the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), which manage the inertial fusion program within DOE, have not effectively coordinated their research activities to develop inertial fusion as an energy source. For example, they do not have a coordinated research plan that identifies key scientific and technological issues that must be addressed to advance inertial fusion energy and how their research activities would meet those goals. Second, DOE may find it difficult to manage competing funding priorities to advance both ITER-related research and alternative magnetic fusion approaches. DOE officials told GAO they are focusing limited resources on ITER-related research activities. As a result, as funding for ITER-related research has increased, the share of funding for the most innovative alternative magnetic fusion research activities decreased from 19 percent of the fusion research budget in fiscal year 2002 to 13 percent in fiscal year 2007. According to DOE officials, this level of funding is sufficient to meet research objectives. However, university scientists involved in fusion research told us that this decrease in funding has led to a decline in research opportunities for innovative concepts, which could lead to a simpler, less costly, or faster path to fusion energy, and reduced opportunities to attract students to the fusion sciences and train them to fulfill future workforce needs. Finally, while the demand for scientists and engineers to run experiments at ITER and inertial fusion facilities is growing, OFES does not have a human capital strategy to address expected future workforce shortages. These shortages are likely to grow as a large part of the fusion workforce retires over the next 10 years.
Emphasis added.

We know that Polywell has some interest from university scientists...

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/inertial_e ... fineme.htm

scareduck
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Post by scareduck »

There are a lot of smart people who would come aboard, I'm sure, the UW folks among them, if WB-7 goes well.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Another relevant excerpt :
Although a tokamak has been the most successful magnetic fusion device, it is still uncertain whether the device will lead to a commercially viable fusion energy device. To reduce the risk of investing in only one device, OFES funds scientific research on alternative types of magnetic devices, in addition to inertial fusion research activities. However, a decrease in research funding for these alternatives may limit DOE’s ability to find a simpler, less costly, or faster path to fusion energy.
Research on alternative types of magnetic devices is critical to the fusion energy program, according to officials from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reported that many outstanding scientific and technical issues had to be resolved before an economically attractive fusion power plant could be designed. These innovative research experiments could address many issues that ITER will not be able to address in a cost-effective manner and lead to a simpler, less costly, or faster path to fusion energy. Moreover, because these innovative and cutting-edge research activities are primarily located at U.S. universities, this program attracts students to fusion sciences and serves as an important recruitment and training tool for scientists and engineers.
Sustained funding is critical to these research activities, according to DOE’s fusion energy advisory committee. Specifically, the ability to investigate critical scientific and engineering issues requires sufficient overall funding to build and operate advanced-stage experiments without eliminating the opportunity for new ideas and innovations resulting from smaller, more focused experiments. However, alternative magnetic fusion research competes for funding with ITER- and tokamak-related research. Since the U.S. commitment to ITER, DOE has focused more of its
Decreases in Funding for Innovative Magnetic Fusion Devices May Delay Progress Toward a Fusion Energy Device
Page 23 GAO-08-30 Fusion Energy
resources on ITER- and tokamak-related research. DOE officials told us that given limited resources, their priority is to fund ITER- and tokamak-related research. According to DOE officials, OFES determines the appropriate level of funding between tokamak-related research and innovative concepts based on scientific and technological priorities identified by DOE’s fusion energy advisory committee. The level of funding is, among other things, tied to the complexity of the experiment and the operating costs of the device. Based on these assessments, DOE officials told us they believe the current level of funding for innovative magnetic devices is sufficient to sustain the best-performing devices.
However, in fiscal year 2006, OFES spent about $21 million to fund 25 small-scale experiments at 11 universities, 4 national laboratories, and 2 private companies to test 7 types of magnetic fusion devices with different shapes and magnetic currents. This level of funding represents a decline over the past 6 fiscal years—from $26 million in fiscal year 2002 to $20 million in fiscal year 2007. University scientists involved in innovative fusion research told us that this decrease in funding was not consistent with a 1999 DOE fusion energy science advisory committee study that recommended OFES increase funding for innovative magnetic research activities. OFES relies on this advisory committee to establish priorities for the fusion program and to provide a basis for the allocation of funding.
However, since that report, the share of funding for innovative research activities has decreased even as funding for fusion research has increased. The share of funding has dropped from 19 percent of the fusion research budget in fiscal year 2002 to 13 percent in fiscal year 2007. In addition, while OFES’s 5-year budget plan shows an increase in funding for fusion research activities in fiscal years 2008 through 2011, most of this funding will be used for ITER- and tokamak-related research activities at the major facilities. DOE officials also told us there are planned increases in funding for innovative devices, but only to maintain the same level of research. According to university scientists, a number of innovative approaches are ready to advance to the next stage of development that would test the feasibility of producing fusion energy or conduct more sophisticated experiments, but DOE has no plans to advance any of these approaches because it may require an increase in funding to conduct more sophisticated experiments. DOE’s fusion energy advisory committee has not assessed the appropriate level of funding between ITER- and tokamak-related activities and innovative concepts since 1999, before the U.S. joined ITER and it became a priority.
Page 24 GAO-08-30 Fusion Energy
Scientists from a number of universities told us that this decline in funding has led to a decline in research opportunities for innovative concepts. For example, university scientists told us that in the last 3 years, they reduced the number of experiments they performed on their devices and they could not upgrade the devices to validate theories and computer simulations. In addition, the decrease in funding reduced opportunities to attract students to the fusion sciences and train them to fulfill future workforce needs.
This really sounds like they're beating the tokamak mafia over the head. Perhaps most auspicious is the recommendation section:
OFES to charge DOE’s fusion energy advisory committee with independently assessing whether current funding levels between ITER- and tokamak-related research and innovative magnetic fusion research strike the right balance to meet research objectives and advance both areas of research, and, if the current share of funding is not adequate, to recommend appropriate changes.
The GAO seems to be in our corner.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

A commenter at my blog was told that more money would not speed up the Tokamak program.

This is a big clue that they have no idea about what they are doing.

I can imagine 10 ways, at least, more funding would help the BFR (Bussard Fusion Reactor) program.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Roger
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Post by Roger »

MSimon wrote: I can imagine 10 ways, at least, more funding would help the BFR (Bussard Fusion Reactor) program.
1)30cm WB-8 dodec
2)30cm WB-7x cube
3)30cm WB-8x dodec
4)70cm WB-8x dodec
5)70cm WB-7x cube

Theres 5 right off the bat. That gets to scaling law and Pb-11, as well as the truncated dodec.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.

scareduck
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Post by scareduck »

MSimon wrote:A commenter at my blog was told that more money would not speed up the Tokamak program.

This is a big clue that they have no idea about what they are doing.
Or that the project involves so many people that the problem of n-way communication multiplies the organizational problems. In software projects, at least, it is true that more cooks can actually slow things down, and I imagine that what the tokamak boys are interested in doing qualifies as basic research, which has similar knowledge dissemination constraints.

It's fair to say that the fundamental problems with tokamak fusion won't go away easily.
Last edited by scareduck on Thu Feb 14, 2008 8:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

scareduck wrote:
MSimon wrote:A commenter at my blog was told that more money would not speed up the Tokamak program.

This is a big clue that they have no idea about what they are doing.
Or that the project involves so many people that the problem of n-way communication multiplies the organizational problems. In software projects, at least, it is true that more cooks can actually slow things down, and I imagine that what the tokamak boys are interested in doing qualifies as basic research..
I'm a big fan of Brooks too.

What annoys me about the tokamak guys is their program is always the same: build the next one 3X larger and we will get the answers we need.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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