Prof. J. Callen, Chair
Dear Prof. Callen:
In its report to DOE of January 27, 1996, the Fusion Energy Advisory Committee (FEAC) recommended that a review of Alternative Concepts be carried out as part of making the transition to a Fusion Energy Sciences Program. In the letter of March 25, 1996, the DOE asked FEAC to organize and conduct such a review (charge letter is attached) and specifically to address the following: (1) Review the present status of alternative concept development in light of the international fusion program and (2) Produce an overall plan for a U.S. alternative concepts development program including experiments, theory, and modeling/computation and systems studies, that is well integrated into the international alternative concepts program. The DOE asked that the recommendation be delivered to DOE by mid July. In addition, the DOE asked for a report on the status of the spherical-tokamak concept in April.
In response, the Standing Subcommittee on Scientific Issues of Fusion Energy (SciCom) established an "Alternative Concept" Panel including members from universities, national laboratories, and the international community. (The membership of the panel is attached.) To date, the panel has met twice. We met at Washington, D.C. on March 26 and 27 andhad presentations from U.S. scientists on spherical tokamaks (the agenda of the Washington meeting is attached). More recently, we met at Chicago on April 23 and 24 and had presentations on stellarators, reversed-field pinches, spheromaks, and field-reverse configurations. We are planning to meet in June at San Diego and have invited presentations on other alternate concepts. The panel has made significant progress to date.
This letter transmits our summary findings in regards to spherical tokamak research. The detailed scientific findings as well as programmatic role of spherical tokamak research in the context of the U.S. alternate concept research program will be provided in our finalreport to be sent to you in July.
Sincerely Yours,
Farrokh Najmabadi, Chair
FEAC-SciCom Panel on Alternate Concept
on Behalf of the Panel Members