Exclusive Interview with Shuttle Pilot Robert Crippen 50% of the first Columbia shuttle crew subscribes to FUSION

If you want to reach him or the other half million FUSION readers who are in command positions in the fields of science, technology, and business, advertise in FUSION magazine.

Call Tony Chaitkin at (212) 247-8820. He won't be able to get you space aboard the shuttle, but he can get you space in here.

FUSION advertising sales. 5th Floor 304 West 58th Street New York, N.Y. 10019

Advertise In FUSION We're making progress!

Literally. Because, as the Fusion Energy Foundation goes, so goes the na­ tion. Think about it. Our rapid growth in 1980 meant that the McCormack fusion bill became law and made possible America's renewed commitment to scientific progress.

But making progress costs money. The FEF and the United States face greater challenges in 1981. And as we grow and expand our activities, we can ensure that the new administration fulfills its mandate for economic growth. In 1979 alone, more than 22 million dollars was given to zero-growth groups by just six foundations. * Our fight requires this kind of funding—and more. You can help by giving generously to the FEF and supporting some of our special activities. • Become a corporate or lifetime member of the FEF ($1,000). • Sign up your friends and colleagues as members. • Sponsor bulk subscriptions to The Young Scientist in your area's schools. • Purchase the FEF slide show on fusion to educate your friends and community. 1980 was a year of progress for the FEF and the nation. With your continued support, we'll both do better in 1981. Contributions to the Fusion Energy Foundation are tax-deductible.

For more information, contact Harley Schlanger, FEF Membership Director, 888 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2404, New York, N.Y. 10019, (212) 265-3749.

* See Fusion, March-April, 1981, p. 37. Features Japan: Number 1 in Fusion? The secret of Japan's success as an industrial nation is revealed for the first time in this exclusive report. The fusion program proposed in March 1981 by Japan's top scientists is the most aggressive in the world for developing fusion energy: It will put a demonstration power reactor on line by 1993. The Japanese are convinced that fusion is the key to their nation's survival— no matter what is the fate of the U.S. fusion budget. As one Japanese fusion scientist put it, "If the United States won't do it, we will."

Japan's Ambitious Fusion Program: 'If the U.S. Won't Do It, We Will' Marsha Freeman

Japan's Frontier Industry Strategy: JAtHI japan's JT-60 tokamak is a reactor- An Unbeatable Plan for Economic Growth scale machine designed to achieve Richard Katz breakeven plasma conditions. Here is a mock-up of the JT-60 with some of Japan's Fight for Nuclear Power the project's staff. The huge tokamak is scheduled for operation in October The American Roots of Japan, Inc. 1984. Daniel Sneider News SPECIAL REPORT Will America Take Up the Challenge of the Shuttle? Exclusive—An Interview with Capt. Robert Crippen: Getting the U.S. Back into Space Houston FEF Meeting Celebrates Launch FUSION REPORT FPCC Quarterly Meeting: 'Moving Ahead with Uncertainty' Major Advance in Tokamak Impurities Los Alamos ZT-40 Pinch Enters Tokamak Range NATIONAL Environmentalists Target Watt: 'A Prodevelopment Extremist' Speeding Up the Leasing Process Interior Sec. Watt on the Best Strategic Minerals Policy WASHINGTON Little Progress on Fusion Budget Reagan Nominates Strong Team to NASA MHD Facility Dedicated An Interview with the OTA: 'Hamiltonianism Is Like Nazism' The OTA: For or Against Technology? INTERNATIONAL This issue's exclusive interview with 'Gray Matter'—France's Most Valuable Resource Capt. Crippen will be part of a 24- An Interview with Pierre Aigrain: page Fusion report "Conquering Science for Industrial Growth Space to Develop the World," avail­ SCIENCE UPDATE/MILITARY able from the FEF at $10 for 10 copies, Nuclear and Thermonuclear Directed Beam Weapons postpaid (minimum order). Dr. Friedwardt Winterberg SCIENCE UPDATE/BIOLOGY 2,4,5-T: More Evidence to Drop the Ban SCIENCE UPDATE/TECHNOLOGY Advance in Mass Spectrometry Will Aid Fusion Development FEF NEWS Anatomy of a Slander: FEF 'Bad' Because It's So Effective? Pa. Meeting Initiates Fight to Open TMI 1

Departments

EDITORIAL INSIDE ENERGY THE LIGHTNING ROD FEF NEWS LETTERS SCIENCE PRESS REVIEW NEWS BRIEFS DISPLAY ADS VIEWPOINT

Former congressman Mike McCormack addressing the FEF conference on fusion and national security May 13. From the Editor's Desk The presidential victory of French Socialist Party candidate Francois Mitterrand May 10 is an unexpected setback for the supporters of nuclear power and economic growth. Already there are reports that Mitterrand plans to stop construction on five nuclear plants. In this issue (page 51) Pierre Aigrain, former French secretary for research, presents the view of French science that prevailed under Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand's predecessor. Fusion will continue to cover the energy and science issues in France, and we are expanding the French-language newsletter, La Lettre de Fusion, as well as organizing activities in France. Other items of note: Don't miss the report on the DOE's Fusion Power Coordinating Committee (page 11); Interior Secretary Watt's testimony on strategic minerals (page 15); a Fusion interview with the not-so- impartial Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (page 50), Friedwardt Winterberg's latest comments on the X-ray laser (page 54), and a new column, Inside Energy, by William Engdahl (page 47). Coming up in September is a cover story on why the world needs more people—10 billion, according to Fusion editor-in-chief Dr. Steven Bardwell. Also, a full report on the FEF conference on fusion and national security May 13.

Marjorie Mazel Hecht Managing Editor Editorial

Development and Extremism

In the mid-1970s, when most governments were discussing energy conser­ vation as a way of dealing with the oil embargo, Japan's scientists, business leaders, and politicians decided that fusion was the "energy of the 21st century" and, therefore, that Japan should develop it. Just as Japan in the 1960s and 1970s had pioneered in textiles, shipbuilding, automobiles, steel, and electronics, and had termed the 1980s "the decade of technology," concentrating on computers and industrial robots, so Japan saw the 1990s as the fusion technology decade. This March, based on their evaluations of fusion research worldwide, leading Japanese scientists proposed a program to develop fusion as quickly as possible, putting an Experimental Power Reactor on line as early as 1993. It is a proposal the Japanese government is certain to adopt, according to Japanese scientific sources; and it is equally certain to leave the United States trailing behind in fusion.

An American Tradition The Japanese have taken the American tradition of progress seriously. Although few Americans today know it, the leaders of the Meiji revolution in the late 1800s built the foundations of modern Japan on the economic model of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Carey. Unlike today's nonsensical "free enterprise" philosophy, the American System adopted by the Japanese was dirigist—the government stimulated the establishment of industry and infra­ structure that were too big for individual companies to handle at the pace necessary for national development. Today's Japanese leaders continue to build on that foundation, moving the economy forward with "frontier industries" as the cutting edge. And unlike their American counterparts who have become obsessed with the fraudulent cost-accountant mentality of cutting today's budget—no matter what happens tomorrow—the Japanese are thinking now of what must be done to ensure growth and prosperity in the 21st century. Japan, for example, spends 50 percent more per capita on fusion research than the United States.

August 1981 gan). But when I reached for my com­ power be replaced by wood-burn­ pass, a sepulchral voice at my shoul­ ing," my guide pointed out. "See der intoned, what a jolly time they're having." "Abandon all things artificial, ye "But who are those opposing them who enter here." with their weeping and wailing," I Who, then, should I see beside me inquired. as I peered through the drear light, "Ah," said the pinch-cheeked par­ but the gaunt form of old Parson son with a sigh of satisfaction, "those M , who informed me that he are the legions of the Save the Green­ was to be my guide through this Pure woods Society, whose tears fall con­ Wilderness. stantly on the trees and twigs so that Not long after setting out, as the the others may not start their fires." My dear friends, wood deepened, we encountered Soon thereafter we came to the A most strange tale has reached me, two groups of shades, one hissing and banks of a great marsh, clogged and of a bizarre journey undertaken by an spitting at the other, which answered swollen with a pale sludge and reek­ acquaintance of mine, who, until his with a horrid weeping and groaning. ing with the foulest odor imaginable. recent trip, proclaimed himself a de­ As I drew closer, I noted that the Here we observed another band of vout conservationist and argued a hissing noises were caused as the first shades slogging their way through the constant opposition to human inter­ shades rapidly rubbed two sticks to­ peculiar whitish ooze. Blades of tall ference with nature. Here is his ac­ gether in a vain attempt to start a fire, grass stabbed and slashed at their bare count. for no sooner did the wood begin to legs with the searing agony of a thou­ I believe I was dreaming when I catch and smoke than the spark sand razors, so that it seemed the suddenly awoke to find myself in the would sputter and die. poor souls positively grinned with re­ middle of a Dark Wood, where the "These are the souls of those who lief whenever a chance step caused main trail was unmarked (so he be­ urged that oil and gas and nuclear them to sink to the waist in the sticky, vile-smelling soup. The consequences of going slow on a program like fusion are not just the At the center of the marsh, the loss of a few years in the development of an energy source that will be cheap, point toward which all appeared to clean, and virtually unlimited. "Going slow" on development will be measured be converging, we beheld a giant gray in dead bodies—the number of people, particularly in the Third World, who and white bird, flapping its wings but will die because the advanced sector chose not to export the advanced mired in the dismal swamp and un­ technology to provide the energy to grow the food required to feed them at able to fly. From its nether regions we above-starvation levels. saw streaming gallons of the whitish goo so unpleasant to the touch and The Question of Extremism offensive to the nostrils. This brings us to the question of extremism. Interior Secretary James Watt "Here we are at the Guano National has been branded "a prodevelopment extremist" by environmentalist groups Wetlands Preserve," observed Parson like the Sierra Club because he sees the development of the nation's resources M , rubbing his hands with glee. as essential to the continuance of progress. "These virtuous souls objected to the In the same way, former French President Giscard was castigated by U.S. draining of a swamp to build an air­ officials and nominally conservative think tankers—who went so far as to port, and named a seagull as endan- support his opposition—because they thought Giscard was going too fast with gered-species plaintiff in a class action nuclear power, especially exports to the Third World. Giscard had promised suit against the developers. For their 8 to 10 nuclear reactors to Africa and a full nuclear fuel cycle to Mexico as reward, they shall spend eternity with part of his plans, along with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, to Big Bird here." rebuild the world economy. Hardly had we passed away from If Francois Mitterrand, the newly elected Socialist President of France, the marsh—myself having refused reverses Giscard's aggressive nuclear development policies, the consequences with some abruptness my guide's in­ will be mass starvation and death. This not only means immediate deaths in vitation to "get your feet wet"—than the developing nations; there will be casualties in a France whose living we found ourselves on the edge of a standards will drop as the economy becomes more labor intensive and less boundless desert, on which the Sun capital intensive. There will also be another kind of casualty—the destruction beat down with the force of hammer of human minds and morality that inevitably accompanies social policies that on anvil. To my astonishment, I wit­ disconnect societies from the idea of progress. nessed hundreds of souls broiling un­ On the world scale, not to develop industry, resources, and new technolo­ derneath it like so many wieners on gies and not to explore the universe is to follow the depopulation scenario of a rotisserie, the resemblance even ex­ the Global 2000 Report, now praised not only by the environmentalist groups tending to a mechanism 'that gave but by many figures in the U.S. government. On a national scale for the United them a quarter turn every few sec­ States, or France, or Japan to give up a policy of growth and development onds so that their blistering should would be suicide. And suicide is about the most extreme solution to a solvable proceed with perfect evenness. problem that we can think of. Continued on page 6 And to my unspeakable horror, it Lightning Rod appeared very much as if a burning Continued from page 5 fuse were attached to the "business "Isn't this a bit far to travel for a end" of this infernal machine. tan?" I asked with a flippancy of "My God, parson! What have you phrase which could not disguise the got me into?" I shrieked. trembling in my voice. "It's the Population Bomb," he re­ "These sun-worshippers had the plied. Government Funding high principle to oppose at all times At that instant, a deafening explo­ and places the construction of dams, sion filled my ears. . . . and I found And the canals, irrigation ditches—in fact, any­ myself dazed but unhurt, slumped in National Interest thing wet from a backyard pool to an front of the television set where I had artificial lake," the parson replied. apparently dozed off. To the Editor: "They showed a remarkable consist­ That very day, however, I tore up We are asked as members [of the ency, for which they receive this even my Sierra Club membership card and FEF] to demonstrate our opposition to treatment in the solar cooker as re­ canceled my subscription to Natural cuts in government funds favoring compense." History, and now when I spot a patch nuclear energy and science education By this time I was near to pleading of green on one of my walks through projects. with my guide if there were not some the city, I make sure it stays on the I think that our opposition may shortcut back to civilization we might other side of the street from my per­ make matters worse by irritating Mr. employ. As if he read my thoughts, son. Stockman and his committee. The he asked if perhaps I might accept a So ends my friend's cautionary tale. cuts amount to 15 to 20 percent of mode of transportation which "helps Your obt. svt., the funds, which is fair compared everybody get where they're all going to some other programs which are faster." scheduled to be eliminated alto­ No sooner had I given my eager gether. assent, then I found myself strapped I am surprised, furthermore, to hear into a device that looked something < that our association, an opponent of like this: _-— ^_ ^ socialism and government interven­ tion in private affairs, speaks for gov­ ernment funding. Onofrio L. Olivieri President Rotomec America, Inc. South Windsor, Conn.

To the Editor: I was very displeased with your stand regarding "Stockman's cuts threaten national disaster." You can­ not have regulation and not have reg­ ulation. If you are going to have big government you will have regulation of all phases of life. The major prob­ lem, in my opinion, today with our nuclear energy progress is that we have kept the free market from de­ veloping the cheapest and cleanest source of energy—nuclear. . . . As much as I am in favor of scientific effort of all types, I believe that the private sector is more equipped to select the projects and to fund them through corporate and other resources. I do not think in general the government should be making all these decisions. Therefore, I implore you to recog­ nize that your short-term reaction to the loss of such funds is 180 degrees Continued on page 61 News Briefs

FRANCE'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM AFTER GISCARD: DOWNHILL? The unexpected victory of Socialist Party leader Francois Mitterrand in the French presidential election May 10 has placed a question mark over the future of France's nuclear energy program, the most ambitious in the world. Mitterrand has said that the program—which was the centerpiece of the independent economic and foreign policy of the government of former president Giscard d'Estaing—"is too costly and uncertain." While campaigning, Mitterrand called for a moratorium on new nuclear plants after those under construction are completed. He has proposed holding a nationwide referen­ dum on nuclear power in France, but would have to change the constitution to do so, because the French constitution does not allow for referenda on questions of government policy. Mitterrand also opposes France's fast breeder program. His election oc­ curred just after the main support base for the 1,200-megawatt SuperPhenix fast breeder was set in position at Creys Malville. As of this spring the Super­ Phenix was on schedule for a 1984 completion. Now, however, its future is uncertain. Mitterrand, who was elected with the support of France's ecology move­ ment, has promised to revamp France's energy priorities: The new priorities are conservation, coal, and new energy sources such as solar, which Mitterrand predicts will be a "major element of the 21st century." After Mitterrand's election, a source at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York predicted another change in French policy: compliance with the nuclear nonprolifera- tion concept drafted by former secretary of state Cyrus Vance, a council France's SuperPhenix fast breeder re­ member, and no more sales of nuclear reactors abroad. actor under construction at Creys Malville. 'TMI' INCIDENT HITS JAPAN Japan is suffering a minor "Three Mile Island" nuclear scare, after a small amount of radioactive waste leaked into the surrounding grounds and waters of a nuclear reactor operated by the Japan Atomic Power Company. The amount of radioactivity released is under dispute and is claimed to have been as low as 15 millirems per day over several days or as high as a total of 150 millirems. In neither case is this a significant amount. One normal chest X-ray, (or example, is about 50 millirems. According to Japanese press accounts, on March 8 a worker "carelessly forgot to turn off a valve" for 3 hours in the waste treatment section of the plant. Fifty-four workers then cleaned up the overflow with mops and buckets and reportedly dumped the waste down a manhole drain, allowing the waste to flow into surrounding sea waters. Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was not informed of the March 8 incident by Japan Atomic Power, but found out during routine tests of radioactivity levels in the surrounding grounds and waters. This negligence greatly alarmed MITI, as did the fact that the illegal dumping of waste into the rain water drain led to the contamination of fishing waters. MITI regulations specifically require careful isolation of the drain leading to the sea to avoid this possibility. MITI has temporarily suspended fishing in the area and intends to prosecute the plant managers and company executives. As with the Three Mile Island incident in the United States, circumstances point to the possibility of sabotage. The incident took place just after the government had approved the first nuclear plant licenses in Japan since TMI. Second, the accident started when a worker carelessly forgot to turn off a valve—the same pattern as in the U.S. incident. Third, Japan has extremely lax security procedures for hiring workers in nuclear plants. Particularly in the clean-up operations, workers are often local fishermen who are hired on a temporary basis—"nuclear gypsies," as they are called. It is not yet known whether the worker who did not turn off the valve was a nuclear gypsy or An antinuclear rally in Tokyo in April possibly an environmentalist. However, the Japanese Socialist Party, which 1979. The demonstrators' signs drew opposes MITI's strong pronuclear orientation, has called for the immediate attention to the recent TMI incident shutdown of all nuclear plants until their safety can be confirmed. in the United States. SENATE RESTORES SOME NASA CUTS The Senate Commerce Committee voted May 6 to add $100.7 million to the $6.1 billion budget proposed for NASA in fiscal year 1982. This addition does not come near to restoring the budget to the original $6.7 billion level requested by the Carter administration. However, like the budget authoriza­ tion voted up on the House side in April, the Senate budget restores funding to the most critical parts of the program that were axed by Office of Management and Budget Director Stockman. Of the $100.7 million add-on, $55 million will go to NASA's aeronautics research programs and the remaining $45 million to its space programs, including the Upper Atmospheric Research Program, materials testing in space, and the Spacelab that will be put into orbit by the Shuttle. This is still an austerity budget for NASA, but the language in the committee's report leaves open the possibility for a fifth Shuttle orbiter, the resumption of the international Solar Polar Mission, and the funding of other important NASA space programs—when and if the current budget cutting fever subsides.

HOUSE COMMITTEE VOTES TO KILL CLINCH RIVER BREEDER The House Committee on Science and Technology passed an amendment to the Department of Energy's fiscal year 1982 budget May 7 that would terminate the Clinch River fast breeder reactor project. The 21 to 19 vote was the result of an alliance of Democrats who are long-standing foes of the breeder project and austerity-minded Republicans. In previous years, the Republicans on the committee had voted overwhelmingly for the breeder, but this time there were eight desertions to the antibreeder camp. The committee vote, although a foreboding setback, does not inflict final defeat on the embattled U.S. breeder project. The probreeder forces on the House Science and Technology Committee now have the options of convinc­ ing the committee to reconsider its vote or of bypassing the committee and attaching an amendment to the budget on the floor of the House. The Senate, meanwhile, is expected to fully fund the project. After the House committee vote, Senate majority leader Howard Baker (R- Tenn.) commented, "This is the first vote. But it is not the final word on this project. During the four years of the Carter administration, it was an endless

Breeder Reactor Corp. battle to keep enough funds in the budget just to keep the Clinch River The second intermediate heat ex­ breeder project alive. With the commitment by President Reagan to complete changer being delivered to the Clinch this project, I am confident that we will be able to restore a funding level that River breeder reactor site, September will clearly demonstrate this administration's goal of moving ahead with the 1980. breeder reactor process."

CDIF GENERATES ITS FIRST MHD ELECTRIC POWER On May 4, the Component Development and Integration Facility (CDIF) in Montana, the only fully integrated test facility in the United States using magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) energy conversion, produced its first amount of electrical energy. The facility was dedicated less than a month earlier on April 24 (see Washington news). Four hundred kilowatts of electricity were generated on this second test run. The CDIF is designed to produce 50 megawatts of power when fully operational. The MHD process converts the gases from combusted fuel directly to electricity without using steam turbines.

MEXICO PREPARES TO DOUBLE SCIENTIFIC TRAINING BY 1986 Mexican Undersecretary for Education Elisco Mendoza Berrueto announced April 15 that a new government plan for higher education will more than double the number of students engaged in higher education studies in Mexico over the next five years. There are currently 800,000 students enrolled in higher education, he reported. Under the new plan now being drawn up, the number will rise to more than 2 million by 1986. "It is urgent to correct errors and make serious efforts to reach an acceptable level of scientific and technological research," Berrueto said. SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST ENVIRONMENTALISTS The U.S. Supreme Court decided two cases April 28 that promise to significantly reduce the number and impact of environmentalist lawsuits that have crippled the U.S. economy for more than a decade. In California v. Sierra Club, the Court ruled unanimously that private citizens and organizations have no standing to sue under a federal law protecting rivers and wetlands; only the federal government has statutory authority to enforce the law. At issue in this case was one of the largest water-diversion projects in the country, the 42-mile Peripheral Canal planned to siphon water from northern California for use in the chronically water-short southern part of the state. This project has been held up for more than a decade by the Sierra Club and its allies, who sued the state of California under the federal Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act, charging that the canal would pollute northern California's fresh water with salt water. The Court's decision not only will permit the project to go forward, but will stymie a favorite environmentalist tactic—the Atommash in the Soviet Union, the filing of legal actions by assorted private individuals and organizations and world's first mass production facility class action suits on behalf of anything that walks, flies, swims, or crawls. for nuclear reactors. In a separate water-pollution case, the Supreme Court decided that the state of Illinois could not impose more restrictive clean-up measures upon the city of Milwaukee than those of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

ATOMMASH PRODUCES WORLD'S FIRST MASS ASSEMBLY REACTOR The first pressurized water nuclear reactor rolled off the assembly line at the new Atommash manufacturing plant in the Soviet Union this spring. Atommash is the world's first mass assembly plant for floating nuclear reactors. A total of seven 1,000-megawatt PWRs are scheduled to be produced in the plant's first year of operation. A similar facility planned for the United States, Westing- house's Offshore Power System, has been in mothballs since 1978, when the administration of New jersey Governor Brendan Byrne denied state utilities the rate pass-on they would need to amortize the project.

NRC LICENSE DELAYS WILL COST U.S. UTILITIES $15.5 BILLION U.S. utilities, which currently have 10 new nuclear power reactors at or near completion, estimate that continuing delays in obtaining licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will cost them $15.5 billion in substitute energy costs. This estimate was given in congressional testimony in March prepared at the request of Rep. Tom Bevill (D-Ala.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. The 10 plants, all scheduled for full operation by 1983, are located in California, Texas, New York, Penn­ sylvania, Ohio, Louisiana, and the Carolinas.

FATE OF WEST GERMAN FAST BREEDER UNCERTAIN West Germany's Ministry of Research and Technology approved $200 million in interim funding this spring for the 300-megawatt Kalkar fast breeder reactor project. This commitment will enable Schnell-Brueter-Kernkraftwerks (SKB), the operator, to place new equipment orders and continue construction on the facility for approximately six months. However, industry sources are stressing that the fate of the breeder project is by no means settled. The Belgian and Dutch governments, which together have been contributing about 30 percent of the project's costs, are demanding a ceiling on their contribution, although they have not specified the amount. SKB estimates that the total project will now cost $2.5 billion, three times the original 1973 estimate.

LOUSEWORT LAURELS TO PRINCE CHARLES This month's Lousewort Laurels award goes to its first royal recipient, England's Prince Charles. Among his many homilies to Americans on his recent trip here, the Prince offered this gem of advice: "We have to learn that the modern way of growing great is growing small, so that man can operate in smaller units."

August 1981 ith 46 years experience in and not at becoming involved with W water resources, I have wit­ policy issues. nessed many accomplishments. But America Needs a The second phase, the policy over the past several years, I have phase, should be developed by an seen our water resources develop­ Total Water Program interagency arrangement. There is ment going steadily downhill. In no doubt that the federal govern­ order to reverse this trend of de­ ment will continue to participate in clining water resource develop­ one way or another in water re­ ment, we must prepare a total water sources investment. It naturally fol­ program. lows that the agencies that plan, No matter how you view it, the construct, and operate the projects ever-changing pattern of life in our should be members of the group— nation is accompanied by one con­ like Army, Interior, Agriculture, and stant reminder: We require water EPA. This organization should be for many uses, and the uses for headed by an independent chair­ water are increasing. man appointed by the President As in the past, we cannot expect by B. Joseph Tofani and confirmed by the Senate, who to forecast the shifting priorities in would obtain input from states and water use with a great deal of ac­ local governments and regional, in­ curacy, but we can predict that There was no benefit to cost anal­ terstate, and private organizations. water demand and water use will ysis here, just total programs with It should also have an advisory continue. These uses are bound to goals and objectives. Why not take group representing the states or re­ generate conflicts. However, such a page from these legislative acts— gions. conflicts are to be expected and acts that did not develop programs The responsibilities of the organ­ must be resolved in order to in a piecemeal fashion but by a total ization would be to review the achieve a proper balance in meet­ program approach, which has been basin programs, set priorities, rec­ ing our water requirements and very effective. ommend who should build the other requirements as well. Instead of the piecemeal ap­ projects and who should pay—in Taking a page from our history, proach to water policy, it would be short, to make the necessary poli­ we must avoid the mistakes of the more logical to develop a water cies for a total water program. In past, such as the piecemeal solu­ program and an agency to imple­ no way should this organization be­ tions that have been the trademarks ment the policies that such an come involved in the operation of of settling every water crisis from agency would generate. I believe the federal, state, local, or private the battles in the West over water the best approach in the manage­ agencies. holes to the devastating floods of ment process is to designate one The agency would act as an over­ the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. agency and assign to it the respon­ all coordinating body. All its pro­ We must not only consider future sibility for developing a water pro­ grams, policies, guidelines, and needs; we must continue to im­ gram for each of our river basins. priorities should receive the ap- prove and provide for existing This should start with an agency Continued on page 22 water needs. We cannot rely solely that is given nationwide capability on conservation, defined by some to conduct river basin studies, uti­ as less demand and less use. lizing input from other federal, We must adopt true conservation, state, local, and private agencies. A which is wise use. wealth of material and national Through the years, in carrying out water assessments is available as water programs, too much empha­ starting points. sis has been placed on numbers. Within this framework, I suggest We failed to establish a program, a a two-phase solution. First, develop goal, or an objective. Instead, we a program for individual river bas­ justified each individual project by ins, since each basin has different so-called benefit to cost analysis. requirements. I recommend the Then came the legislative products Corps of Engineers, which devel­ of the 1960s and 1970s—NEPA, clean oped a water program many years water, wild rivers, scenic rivers, ago and has the nationwide capa­ trails, fish and wildlife, endangered bility, to do it again. The responsi­ species, and many others, all ac­ bility of the Corps would be aimed An aerial view of Shasta Dam and companied by new ground rules. solely at developing the program Lake on the Sacramento River. Fusion Report

FPCC Quarterly Meeting: 'Moving Ahead with Uncertainty'

Not only is the new administration's options,", including the nuclear fast For the past year, the Alcator has policy toward fusion uncertain, there breeder reactor. shown a disturbing leveling off in pre­ is even "an uncertainty as to who the "We have to work hard for the next dicted confinement of the fusion people are who will be overseeing decade," Kintner said, "to settle the plasma, Parker said. It had been pre­ the program," Edwin E. Kintner told questions of the technology, costs, dicted that the time the plasma could the April 14 meeting of the Depart­ and environmental effects of fusion be confined would increase in a linear ment of Energy's Fusion Power Co­ vis a vis all the others. Fusion is the relationship to the increase in the ordinating Committee (FPCC) at the last known energy source for man­ plasma's magnetic field strength and Massachusetts Institute of Technol­ kind." density. However, at the point that ogy. The first day of the open meeting the key fusion parameter—the density The FPCC is an advisory body to was spent reviewing the results and of the fusion fuel multiplied by the Office of Fusion Energy Director Kint­ progress in the fusion experiments at time that the plasma is confined—has 14 ner, and its membership includes the the MIT laboratory. After a summary edged toward the region of 10 par­ heads of each magnetic fusion pro­ of MIT's energy and fusion facilities ticles per square centimeter per sec­ gram, industry representatives, and by Dr. Ron Davidson, head of MIT's ond, the experimental results have consultants. plasma physics program, the most re­ refused to progress further. Kintner noted that in this uncertain cent results on MIT's Alcator-C toka- A Physics Challenge situation, one of the major questions mak device were reviewed by Dr. Ron Various experiments have been being raised about fusion was "its Parker, who directs the Alcator pro­ performed to make sure that impuri­ desirability versus a panoply of energy gram. ties in the plasma from the wall of the

The Alcator-C tokamak fusion experiment at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The past year's experimental results have raised new questions about the relationship between energy confinement and density.

Fusion Report August 1981 FUSION 11 vacuum vessel are not causing the For example, Dr. Harry Dreicer American Universities in Washington fusion plasma to cool off, but the from the Los Alamos National Scien­ with two cabinet members and the plasma has been found to be rela­ tific Laboratory in New Mexico re­ head of the National Science Foun­ tively "pure." ported on the preliminary results ob­ dation. He reported that during din­ An important clue to the nature of tained on a new reversed field pinch ner "OMB director David Stockman the problem, however, has been a device at LASL, which began plasma gave a one-hour discourse on the measured difference of an order of discharge Feb. 18. Dr. Tahiro Ohkawa budget-making process for 1982-84. magnitude between the ion and elec­ from General Atomic Co. in San The AAU members were very tron temperatures as the density has Diego then reported that General gloomy." increased. This loss of thermal energy Atomic's new reversed field pinch ex­ "There was unanimity among uni­ in a reactor has led some scientists to periment also began operations in versity presidents," Gray said, "that question the accuracy of measure­ February and that it looked as if the this would gradually disassemble the ment both of the ion and electron machine would be as successful as the ability of America to meet the de­ temperatures. established ZT-40 device at Los Ala­ mand for engineers and scientists." Parker reported that new diagnostic mos. —Marsha Freeman instruments are under development One of the most intriguing discus­ to more accurately measure the ion sions was by the new director of the and electron temperatures. But he Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, ASDEX Runs Clean asked the scientists present from Dr. Harold Furth. Furth has been around the country to help solve a thinking about the possibility of com­ Major Advance in problem that might otherwise prevent bining the best aspects of the tradi­ Tokamak Impurities the high magnetic field Alcator tok- tional tokamak and the older stellar- mak from reaching the near break­ ator idea. Although pioneered in the Fusion scientists at the Max Planck even density and confinement time United States in the 1960s, the stellar- Institute for Plasma Physics in Garch- required to go forward with the next ator is not under current develop­ ing, West Germany, have achieved a generation tokamak experiments. ment here. major advance in controlling the im­ Density Scaling A stellarator is a donut-shaped fu­ purities that plague efficient mag­ Some of the participants at the sion device, which, unlike the toka­ netic-confinement plasmas with their FPCC meeting were confident that mak, does not have an electrical cur­ ASDEX (Axial Symmetrical Divertor existing theories could account for rent flowing in the plasma. All the Experiment) tokamak, according to the seemingly anomalous energy con­ magnetic fields that contain the stel- sources in the U.S. fusion community. finement results from recent experi­ larator's fusion fuel are outside the The ASDEX has successfully produced ments. Several researchers at the MIT vacuum vessel, and the plasma is con­ a virtually pure hydrogen plasma with Alcator laboratory have indicated that tained by nonsymmetric helical mag­ an effective Z of 1; that is, no impur­ the scaling relationship between en­ net windings. ities. ergy confinement and density has not Furth suggested that it might be The problem of impurities is a ma­ been violated, but that this relation­ possible to develop a combined tok­ jor one for magnetic-confinement fu­ ship was more complicated than it amak and torsitron (a type of stellar­ sion, since these heavier elements appeared in the usual, empirical form. ator) called a tokatron. Using a drawn from the walls of the tokamak In fact, these researchers point out series of hand-drawn sketches, Furth cause rapid cooling and thus energy that the theoretical form of the scaling sparked the curiosity of the FPCC sci­ loss through electromagnetic radia­ law has always shown a sensitive de­ entists with this unusual combination. tion. The ASDEX was built to produce pendence on the density and current Impressed with the progress in the the purest plasma possible using po- profile within the plasma (not just the experimental results, the new ideas loidal divertor fields. The magnetic average density), and this profile de­ generated by a "better understanding divertor is a sort of "hole" in the pendence goes a long way toward of the physics of fusion," and the magnetic bottle that contains the resolving the anomaly. According to challenging questions raised in the plasma, which diverts part of the these researchers, the profile depen­ MIT program, fusion director Kintner plasma out of the tokamak so that the dence of the scaling law gives re­ told the open FPCC session that in impurities can be removed. The first searchers a much wider range for ex­ the near future "we need a machine experiments in May 1980 showed a perimentation and more flexibility in that produces enough fusion energy clear decrease in plasma radiation the design of tokamak reactors. to answer all of the questions." with an exceptionally long plasma dis­ The most exciting reports given The Stockman Budget charge time of 3 seconds, using ohmic during the meeting were those on During the second day of the meetr heating alone. new experiments coming on line and ing, Dr. Paul Gray, president of MIT, Now that the ASDEX has been up­ new ideas that expand the dimensions gave a brief welcoming speech to the graded with neutral beam heaters and of the experimental work in magnetic FPCC. Gray said he had just come 8 megawatts of heating, the initial fusion research. from a meeting of the Association of results seem to be completely sue- cessful. ASDEX has now operated with its divertor removing the impurities, and a special predischarge cleaning procedure has also been used suc­ cessfully. This involves putting a thin film of titanium on the reactor cham­ ber wall, "titanium gettering." The Impurities Problem The single most important techno­ logical barrier to building a successful prototype fusion reactor like the Fu­ sion Engineering Device or the United Nations' Intor is the problem of im­ purities. Thus the ASDEX results, if confirmed, will be of great impor­ tance in fulfilling the mandate of the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980, "to achieve at the earliest practicable time, but not later than Experimental work in magnetic fusion made significant progress over the the year 1990, operation of a magnetic last year. Shown here, the ZT-40 device at LANSL. fusion egineering device based on the best available confinement concept." ASDEX's effective Z of 1 means that Los Alamos ZT-40 Pinch the plasma is of completely ionized hydrogen. The Z of any atomic ele­ Enters Tokamak Range ment is equal to the number of pro­ tons it has in its nucleus, which is also The Los Alamos National Laboratory's ZT-40, a reversed-field toroidal the atomic number of that element. zeta pinch, continues to make substantial progress, according to a report When hydrogen, for example, with by Dr. Joseph DiMarco of the Los Alamos Controlled Fusion Division, atomic number 1, or 1 proton, is which was presented to the Fusion Power Coordinating Committee stripped of its electrons, it has a pos­ meeting in Boston this April. itive electrical charge proportional to The discharge times of the ZT-40 have now been increased to 8 itsZ. milliseconds. If this proves to be an accurate measure of energy con­ Impurities cool the fusion plasmas finement time, the ZT-40 will enter the range of operation of tokamaks, through radiation, thus decreasing although with much lower magnetic field strength. the chances for commercial feasibil­ These results go far beyond the early-1960s results of the British Zeta, ity. The effect of the impurities is which were not understood at the time. measured in terms of Z, the effective As reported in the June issue of Fusion (page 18), the magnetic ionic charge of the plasma. The rate structure in a zeta pinch is initially unstable in the form of a twist in the at which a plasma radiates away elec­ plasma, a kink, that moves around the torus. As the kink reacts with the tromagnetic energy is proportional to walls of the vacuum chamber electromagnetically, it causes the outer the square of Z, or the effective Z. shell of the confining magnetic field to reverse directions. The kink If just 1 atom of iron from the walls disappears, setting up a stable magnetic configuration. of the tokamak is added for every 500 The field-reversed nature of the ZT-40 is its most significant feature, hydrogen atoms in the plasma, the allowing the device to explore those plasma regimes that may permit rate at which the plasma loses energy the design of stand-alone plasma field-reversed configurations, where will more than double. This is because the need for external magnetic coils is substantially reduced. This could iron has a Z of 26, and the square of lead to very economical magnetic fusion reactors, since a large portion 26 is 676. The square of 1 is 1 for pure of the total cost of a magnetic fusion reactor involves the cost of the hydrogen, but adding iron's square of magnetic system used. 676 to this figure and then dividing by The ZT-40 success is creating great interest among all fusion theory the 501 atoms, increases the effective and experiment groups since many aspects of this machine's operation Z of the overall plasma from 1 to are applicable to alternative types of magnetic confinement devices. almost 2. This why even minute quan­ Los Alamos scientists also report that the British HBTX A1 reversed tities of impurities have such a dev­ field toroidal zeta-pinch experiment has just been brought on line, and astating effect on the attempt to keep results of the first run are expected soon. The HBTX A1, which is at the the plasma hot enough to sustain a Culham Laboratory, is slightly larger than ZT-40. net fusion reaction.

Fusion Report Environmentalists Target Watt: 'A Prodevelopment Extremist'

A coalition of environmentalist groups led by the Sierra Club launched a national campaign this spring to oust Interior Secretary James G. Watt, and hopes to collect 1 million signatures demanding his resignation. With no identifiable legislative goal, and given the assassination attempt on President Reagan, the "oust Watt" campaign could well create the cli­ mate in which the prodevelopment Interior Secretary himself becomes an assassination target, sources in the in­ telligence community have warned. A second flank in the campaign against Watt is the "Seaweed Rebel­ lion" in California, which is protesting Watt's efforts to expedite the long- stalled leasing of promising oil and gas tracts off the coast. Citing the plight of California sea otters and other coastal marine life—which need not be uprooted by the stepped-up oil development—environmentalist groups and California Governor Jerry Brown filed twin suits in late April charging that Watt "has taken an un­ balanced and unsupported view" of the national interest in recommend­ ing some 34 tracts for leasing. Other lawmakers lining up with the environmentalists are California Sen­ Interior Secretary lames Watt (right) and Energy Secretary James Edwards ator Alan Cranston and Representa­ respond to questions at the press conference at which they announced an tive Phillip Burton, both Democrats, accelerated five-year leasing program for offshore oil and gas. who claim that Watt has declared "unconditional war" on their state's natural resources. In his first speech National Resources Defense Council, tions also had major input into the as secretary, Watt emphasized that he the Audubon Society, the Environ- drafting and promotion of the Global in fact advocates the "orderly devel­ mental Policy Center, and Environ- 2000 Report, whose recommenda- opment" of energy resources and mental Action. tions on world population control and greater access to public parks and Like the Sierra Club, these groups resource conservation hinge on the wilderness. are all heavily funded with tax- premise of finite, dwindling re- Behind the 'Oust Watt'ers' deductible grants from the Rockefel- sources. Watt's stance—that there are A look at the roster of environmen­ ler, Ford, and Atlantic Richfield foun- plenty of resources there, if we will talist groups protesting Watt suggests dations, on whose boards sit members only develop them—pulls the rug out that the motives behind their cam­ of top ranking Eastern Establishment from under the arguments of the paign are other than preserving un­ institutions like the New York Council Global 2000 crowd, touched nature. The "oust Watt" co­ on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral The Sierra Club's chief criticism of alition includes the Wilderness Commission, and the U.S. Association Secretary Watt, in fact, is that he is Society, the Friends of the Earth, the for the Club of Rome. These institu- "a prodevelopment extremist."

14 FUSION preparedness in the face of a national emergency. As such, the type and size Interior Secretary Watt on of stockpile goals reflect a measure of the security of foreign sources. How­ The Best Strategic Minerals Policy ever, while the whole of the emer­ gency process available under the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Secretary of the Interior James G. before you today, you asked me to Piling Act of 1979 and the amended Watt testified before the Science, describe the [Interior] Department's Defense Production Act of 1950 is Technology, and Space Subcommit­ state of readiness and the steps we intrinsically part of a strategic minerals tee of the Senate Commerce Com­ are prepared to take to meet our policy, it is not minerals policy in the mittee March 2 on America's growing domestic and defense needs if con­ sense of a sustained national effort to dependence on foreign sources for fronted with a foreign interruption of strengthen this very base of our pro­ minerals vital to national security—so- strategic minerals and materials. In ductive capacity. In fact, the emer­ called strategic minerals. Excerpts the case of an interruption of imme­ gency process is necessary in part be­ from the testimony appear below. diate consequence, there are in place cause we have no minerals policy. . . . Hearings on this issue and govern­ appropriate mechanisms to mitigate The Department of the Interior, ment act/on are mandated by the Na­ the short-term impacts and to provide through the secretary and through tional Materials and Mineral Policy, for appropriate subsequent actions. I the assistant secretary for energy and Research and Development Act of have attached to my statement an minerals, must be, as the 1970 Act 1980. Many State Department officials abbreviated list of possible actions intended, the "amicus" for the min­ have used the strategic minerals issue that, depending upon the seriousness erals industry in the court of federal to motivate a U.S. foreign policy of of the situation, could be undertaken. policymaking—not as a representative imposing the perspective of the This response capability, including of private mining interests per se, but Global 2000 Report internationally— stockpile allocation, relates to defense Continued on page 59 population control and conservation of all resources—or one of risking U.S. involvement in proxy wars over Africa's supplies of the strategic re­ Speeding Up the Leasing Process sources. Watt, on the other hand, Since his confirmation as Secretary of the Interior, James Watt has argued that the best strategic minerals taken some decisive actions to extirpate the Carter administration's policy is to develop America's unde­ legacy of environmentalism and zero growth. veloped mineral-rich lands, as well as In a joint press conference April 10, Watt and Energy Secretary James the vast, untapped resources that lie Edwards announced they were taking action to accelerate the process of in deep seabeds. leasing offshore oil and gas tracts. This move will increase the number * * * of proposed Outer Continental Shelf lease sales over 1982-86 from 36 to 42, adding approximately 70 percent of the total acreage available for ... In the past 10 years, minerals exploration in Alaska, California, and Gulf of Mexico areas. The U.S. exploration in America has declined. Geological Survey estimates that one of the areas—the Beaufort Sea off New mine development in this nation Alaska—may contain some 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 27 has declined. Smelting and refining of trillion feet of natural gas. American ores on American soil has Watt is considering legislation that would promptly open up for declined. We are importing from for­ multiple use lands that have been determined to be unsuitable for eign nations the most critical element wilderness designation under section 603 of the Federal Land Policy and of our civilization, the universal build­ Management Act of 1976. ing blocks of an industrial economy— He is also reviewing the burdensome regulations blocking strip mining. strategically important minerals. Perhaps most politically significant, Watt was instrumental in prevent­ The National Materials and Min­ ing the team of Carter administration holdovers from returning to the erals Policy, Research and Develop­ Law of the Sea Treaty negotiations at the United Nations in March. As ment Act of 1980 is clearly a congres­ Watt stressed in congressional testimony March 2 (see accompanying sional reaffirmation of its 10 year old article), the exploration and development of the world's deep seabeads predecessor. It is an effort to end the are crucial to both international economic prosperity and security. What troubling decline of America's min­ Watt did not say explicitly is that the Law of the Sea Treaty under erals industry. Congress has once negotiation would put seabed mineral development under the control again directed the executive branch of a supranational body like the United Nations and squelch develop­ to "foster and encourage" America's ment, using the guise of protecting Third World nations' equal access to minerals industry. . . . the resources off their shores. In your invitation to me to appear

National Special Report

Will America Take Up

"The Shuttle will remoralize Amer­ ica," Shuttle pilot Captain Crippen said before the launch of the Orbiter Columbia April 12. The jubilant reaction of the Amer­ ican people to Columbia's maiden voyage indicates that, indeed, the Shuttle has begun to remoralize America. Now the question is politi­ cal: Will the nation make the capital investments to expand the U.S. indus­ trial and scientific base here on Earth in order to put civilization into space? In the period between the manned Apollo Moon program and the re­ cently successful Shuttle flight, the U.S. space program foundered in its initial commitment to spread human civilization throughout the universe. In terms of where man could im­ mediately go in space, the ground­ work was laid by the mid-1960s when NASA established the fact that man could survive in space. By the end of the decade, man had landed on the Moon and returned safely to Earth in a remarkable mastery of the science and technology of space flight. Until the flight of the Columbia, however, the next step—establishing and maintaining a permanently manned series of space stations that would allow Americans to live and work in space to prepare for the next phase of colonization—was not seri­ ously pursued. This permanent presence of Amer­ icans in space is what is now needed. The scientific exploration of Earth's neighbors in the solar system that are farther away than our own natural satellite, the Moon, proceeded with spectacular unmanned flights over the 1970s. But if we are to ever live in and "Earth-form" these barren worlds, the nation needs an entirely renewed vision and commitment to its space program. The flight of the Shuttle rekindled the American population's excitement The United States right now does about conquering space, the next frontier. Shown here, zero hour at the not have any funded programs for Kennedy Space Center April 12. space colonization. In real terms, the

Special Report the Challenge of the Shuttle?

U.S. space budget has been shrinking is to "spread human civilization The answer depends on whether since the mid-1960s. If NASA were to throughout the universe," Schmitt Senator Schmitt and those who agree have a scientific and operational ca­ told a nationwide television audience with him will fight the economic bat­ pability today comparable to the one on the ABC-TV "Issues and Answers" tle, challenging the budget-cutting it commanded at the height of the show the day of the launch. policy of Office of Management and Apollo program in 1965, it would re­ Schmitt submitted a statement to Budget Director David Stockman and quire a budget of $14 billion. Instead, the Congressional Record laying out his financial advisers. Here, even the fiscal year 1982 budget is just a the challenge to the Reagan admin­ Schmitt has fallen short. "For the short little over $6 billion. istration: term" he wrote, "the space budget (By contrast, Soviet space expendi­ "Although we now have this fan­ like most others must bear its share tures have been growing at a steady tastic new capability in hand, it is still of cuts necessary to commence a na­ rate of about 5 percent a year for the not certain that the United States will tional economic recovery." past 10 years.) reach out and fully grasp the oppor­ The vision of America in space must Without a commitment of funding tunities for services, products, and de­ be translated into concrete resources for NASA, for science education, and fense it provides. What is lacking is to enable the space program to fulfill for industrial growth, the United what has been lacking since the latter its mission. To make this dream come States will not be able to support a years of the Johnson administration, true for all mankind requires an or­ space colonization program. Contrary namely, leadership. ganized political lobby of citizens that to the beliefs of those space support­ "The Reagan administration is now will fight to create the national re­ ers who are zero growthers, space presented with the opportunity to ar­ sources necessary to do the job. colonization will not be an escape ticulate a purpose for U.S. activities in —Marsha Freeman from an Earth with limited resources; space, a purpose that establishes once instead, that space colonization will and for all a permanent commitment be accomplished only by a society to compete continuously and suc­ that has used advanced science and cessfully in the development of technology to expand the resource space. . . . base here on Earth. "As important as the public, com­ A Vision for America mercial, and defense applications will The vision for America of making be, there is an even greater need to space the nation's frontier was artic­ be served by the success of the Col­ ulated eloquently at the time of the umbia. ... All of us for a shared mo­ Shuttle mission. Two days before the ment once again stood with John and scheduled Columbia launch, for ex­ Crip on the edge of the universe. ample, Senator Howell Heflin, an Al­ Americans need to step beyond the abama Democrat, submitted a state­ Earth's shores of the new ocean of ment to the Congressional Record space and put once again to test heart that summarized the economic ben­ and soul against the frontier of the efits of the NASA program in detail. unknown." Heflin concluded: The President made it clear that he, "In my judgment, we must unleash too, shared the vision for America the creativity, the imagination, and that the space program provides. In the technological innovation of these his April 28 speech to the nation on superb teams of scientists in our space the budget Reagan said: "The Space program and provide them with the Shuttle did more than prove our tech­ funds necessary to move these daring nological abilities: It raised our ex­ programs forward." pectations once more. It started us Senator Harrison Schmitt, the New dreaming again." Mexico Republican who was the first The Fight Ahead U.S. scientist to go into space, con­ Will the United States take up the Young and Crippen deplane at Ed­ veyed a similar message: The real challenge of the Shuttle and fulfill its wards Air Force Base in California meaning of our manned space efforts dream? after the first Shuttle flight.

Special Report August 1981 FUSION 17 An Interview with Capt. Robert Crippen Getting the U.S. Back into Space

We all saw how exuberant Astro­ opinion, not derogatorily. That's what nauts John Young and Robert Crip- it is—it's a truck. pen were when they stepped out of But it's important to us from many the Columbia Space Shuttle after its viewpoints, starting from the scientific magnificent performance. Here, in an- standpoint. It is important to us from exclusive interview, Capt. Crippen the standpoint of science: being able talks about the flight, where he thinks to get out and study the environment NASA is going, what the Shuttle has of space and also to study our own done for America, and what an ac­ environment back here on Earth. It is celerated space program would mean important from the standpoint of for the nation's youth. being able to exploit space for man­ and new communications possibili­ Asking the questions is Fusion's ufacturing, and your magazine has ties. What do you think about when Marsha Freeman, who watched the done a good job of exploring for us you are up there and you see the launch in person at Cape Canaveral the things we can do while we're out Earth from 170 miles away? What kind and who frequently writes about the using the vacuum and weightless en­ of perspective do you gain on every­ space program. vironment. It's important to us from thing that's going on down there? Fusion is proud to claim Capt. Crip­ the standpoint of communications, Actually, I'll probably disappoint pen as a regular reader. weather satellites, and what have you, you with that question, because we because we can build the satellites were so darn busy we really didn't more cheaply and we can also put have time to be philosophical at all. ourselves in a position to repair sat­ We had planned a very tight flight Question: While you were up in ellites. plan to get as much out of the flight space there was a geat deal of discus­ And the military aspects of it—even as we possibly could and we were sion by the media, former astronauts, being a military manned station down pretty successful in accomplishing and people who have been following here we don't deal directly in the most of it, but that required that we the Shuttle very closely about its po­ DOD [Department of Defense] things. were pretty busy. tential, especially about the military All we're planning on doing right now Other than enjoying being weight­ versus civilian uses. From your sense is being able to carry them [DOD less and getting a chance to observe of working in the program and ac­ things]. The DOD is a heavy user of the Earth from that altitude, which is tually flying the plane, could you give space already. It's proven very bene­ a fantastic thing—it's a beautiful us an idea of what you think of the ficial to them and that's just one of place—I really did not have time to program and its potential? the reasons that the DOD was a big sit down and be very philosophical. Actually, what I would say about supporter of the Shuttle. They need I'll tell you what: It's the kind of thing the Shuttle and what it has opened to utilize it and they want to do it as that I wish more people could get to up for us is what I was saying prior to economically as possible because they enjoy. It's really a treat. doing the flight. It proved that it could work under tight budget constraints, do everything we said it could do, at the same as we do. Question: The excitement among the least to this point in testing. We still Just the fact that we have opened press and the guests who were there need to complete all the other test up space to get into and out of easily, for the launch was tremendous. We flights that we have outlined in the that's really the prime thing. felt that we were almost up there with program, and these are very impor­ you and Young— tant to us to ensure that we under­ Question: We've tried in the maga­ I've talked to several people who stand its full operating capability. But zine, as you mentioned, to give peo­ observed both the launch and the the main thing it will do for us is get ple a sense of what the NASA program landing, and apparently that was a us in and out of space easily. has created on Earth economically fairly general feeling. I really think Some people refer to it as a space and in terms of giving us a global view truck, both derogatorily and, in my of our environment through Landsat that the flight shows that what people quite often say, that the general pub- 18 FUSION August 1981 Special Report / think that getting back into space and getting the econ­ omy going on a scientific note creates jobs, and peo­ ple want to fill those jobs, and that is going to stimulate the educational system to make people smart enough to fill them.

NASA technicians assist astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen a few hours before the scheduled liftoff. Left: Capt. Crippen.

lie is kind of lackadaisical about going Schmitt, myself, John Young, my boss would like to put up some kind of into space—I really don't think that Chris Kraft at the Johnson Space Cen­ permanently orbiting space station. It that is the case. Any indication that ter here, and a large number of other would take quite a bit of time, but I've ever had in going out and talking people feel very strongly about is that certainly in the next decade we could to people is that we still have a lot of we need to put a United States man have something going of that na­ enthusiastic supporters, and it was and woman in space permanently. ture—if we could get that kind of even more obvious during this flight. Our goal that we would like to pro­ financing. Even in the press—there are always ceed on in that direction, which looks Beyond that, we hope to go back to people who are going to be critical of like the best, is what we're calling a the Moon, but before we go back to us in the press and knock us for being Space Operations Center. That's a the Moon, we want to be in a position a little bit late in our schedule and so fancy name for a permanently orbit- so that when we get there we could forth—but in the end, when we were ting manned satellite that will allow put up a colony that would allow proving that we could do what we set us to explore some of the manufac­ people to stay up there for extended out to do, I think we had nothing but turing things that we talked about, periods of time. I expect to see us supporters. some of the scientific things, and also, colonize the Moon and, eventually, one that we feel is very important, travel out beyond. We'll get a trip to Question: I think the excitement seeing how we can develop using Mars some day. Unfortunately, I don't you're talking about was not limited solar energy from outer space and think it will be while I'm flying. to the pride Americans felt in the beaming it back to Earth. We think Shuttle but was really something there is a large amount of potential in Question: One of the areas that we shared internationally. For example, that particular area. have been most interested in is the the Shuttle launch and landing were We would like to get the go-ahead contributions of NASA in education. carried live on TV in Japan and India. from the administration and start About four months ago we began Now I'd like to ask you where you working on such projects very soon. publishing a children's science mag­ think the space program should be In fact, John and I, when we get the azine called The Young Scientist, going over the next 20 years, lust a opportunity to go to Washington, geared to junior high school youth. few hours after the launch former plan on trying to make that point very Have you given any thought to the astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the New heavily both to the administration and kind of role that a more invigorated Mexico senator, told ABC-TV's "Is­ to the Congress. I guess I would like space program might play over the sues and Answers" show that the real to see that done in parallel with con­ next decade in upgrading all our sci­ potential of the space program was tinuing to utilize the Shuttle not only ence education programs? that it would help us spread human to build that space station but to see We tend to cycle somewhat of a civilization throughout the universe. it really put to work getting satellites sine wave with regard to where we What do you see as the horizons for up. stress education. I still think that we the space program over the next two We want to get the Shuttle opera­ have fairly important and good sci­ decades? tional, where it's like an airline kind entific and engineering development One of the things that Senator of operation. In parallel with that, we in our education, all the way from

Special Report August 1981 FUSION 19 Special Report

Science is very fundamental to our nation, and so is tech­ nology. It is important that we continue to have people that stress those areas at all levels, from the man on the street all the way up to the people who run the country.

Above: Technicians lower a payload of experiments into Cargo Integration Test Equipment at Kennedy Space Center. Right: Students at Camden High School in New Jersey with the experiment they submitted to fly on the Shuttle: an ant colony to study how social animals behave in space.

Carlos de Hoyos grammar school on up. It is also true, certainly when we got a lot of furor nation, and so is technology. It is I believe, that the general trend of about what the educational system important that we continue to have education has seemed like we're not was doing in this country—could it people that stress those areas at all producing the same caliber of stu­ produce the same level of scientists levels, from the man on the street all dents on an overall level. I'm not sure and technical capabilities as the So­ the way up to the people who run exactly what the reason for that is. I viets were doing? As far as I'm con­ the country. As long as we have peo­ think if we knew what the reason is, cerned, we can easily do that without ple and organizations like yours that we'd go solve it. even trying, but we can do much focus on those particular areas, I think I know from the standpoint of the better. I believe that any time we've that we can keep that drive that we military, quite often when we go out got scientific programs such as going need. I appreciate the kinds of folks and recruit people who are high into space that are viable, we've got who do that. school graduates, you would antici­ to create jobs and we've got to create pate that they have a certain caliber education. It's a natural by-product. Question: I know everyone would and knowledge. At least they ought like to know why you joined NASA to be able to read training manuals, Question: We are taking up the fight and became an astronaut, and when but we've had problems with that. as a scientific foundation to push for you first thought about getting into I think that getting back into space an upgraded NASA space program, the space program. It's an important and getting the economy going on a and we're mobilizing for a very public question, especially for children. scientific note creates jobs, and peo­ fight on the issue. I know that our That's also a very difficult one to ple want to fill those jobs, and that is readers and foundation members answer. Since I was a very young man, going to stimulate the educational have an overall commitment to sci­ I had been interested in flying, and I system to make people smart enough entific development and technologi­ was also interested in space. It was to fill them. cal progress. Is there something you'd obvious to me as I was going up I was a sophomore in college when like to say to them? through high school that technology Sputnik was first put up, and that was Science is very fundamental to our was reaching the point where very

20 FUSION August 1981 Special Report soon people would be going into as well as all the people in the past. I You should have something that space. I was somewhat disappointed think perhaps that certain negative you want to cling on to and work on, when the Soviets ended putting up things tend to get stressed sometimes. and if you don't have that, you're Sputnik—I was only a sophomore in I recall that when I was growing up going to find yourself drifting around college—because I knew I wouldn't they were saying some of these things with very little personal satisfaction in get the opportunity to fill all the about my generation as well. your life. squares that I needed to, to be able The main thing that I always try to The main thing that I've always tried to fly very soon! tell young people is that they really to orient young people to is to latch However, I also realized that in get­ ought to try to find themselves some on to something that they enjoy. It ting a chance to fly in space, there kind of a goal—I think goal-oriented may not be necessarily what your par­ were not going to be a lot of folks people are what make our country ents want you to enjoy, but if it's doing it initially, and I would have great—and that goal ought to involve something you really enjoy, and if been happy just to work at helping something that they enjoy. For some you work hard at it, you'll be success­ put people up there. I more or less people it's science, for some people ful. I think that's the main thing that stressed my education in that partic­ it's art, for other people it's social I've always tried to convey to kids. ular area when I joined the Navy to work, and for some people it's re­ I think that the Shuttle did give a get an aviation background. I was porting or doing news work. But all sense of pride to the country and a really planning on just spending one levels of endeavor are important to feeling that we can accomplish some­ tour with the Navy and coming back us. thing that we set out to do. and getting some advanced degrees to get to work in the space program. I had the opportunity after my first Houston FEF Meeting Celebrates Launch tour to go to test pilot school, so I pursued it, and I was lucky enough to A Rockwell International supervisor of management systems for the be standing in the right place at the Space Shuttle support crew at the Johnson Space Center shared the right time to end up getting selected happiest day of his life April 12 with a gathering in Houston, Texas of for astronaut training. members of the Fusion Energy Foundation. I have spent some long, dry years "You'll have to excuse me," Jim Hudson explained to the FEF meeting, on the program getting reoriented [for "but I didn't get much sleep last night, and I haven't quite come down the Shuttle], but I've had lots of fun in to earth yet. The vision of that liftoff and orbital insertion this morning the work that I've been able to do. is engraved in my brain, and I will never forget it." As to why I wanted to do it, I guess Hudson added, "The last seven-and-a-half years of my life have been I enjoy working on engineering kinds devoted to this event, and the last fifteen years of my life overall have of problems. I enjoy operational kinds been spent with NASA. I've seen some Apollo launches. I've seen some of problems and always have—and to Skylab launches. I've seen the ASTT launch. But never have I seen me, space lets you do all those kinds anything so lovely as the Shuttle launch this morning." of things. It's very interesting work, Hudson, who presented an in-depth slide show on the Shuttle to the and I like things that keep me busy. captivated audience—many of whom had been involved for years in The actual flying in space is kind of organizing and lobbying efforts on behalf of a renewed American like the icing on the cake. It's the commitment to scientific and technological advance—was thanked by main work that's all the fun. FEF regional coordinator Harley Schlanger and FEF national education director Carol White for taking time out so close to the momentous Question: We're especially con­ liftoff to address the meeting. cerned in terms of the future about Hudson replied, "I want to express my admiration and the admiration the situation facing our children— of thousands of people like me for the kind of work you are doing in peer pressure for the use of drugs, trying to overcome the neolithic, Neanderthal Naders and Fondas, and rock music, and so on. We are trying, others of their ilk." through The Young Scientist maga­ 'Space Week' zine and our other work, to reeducate The meeting endorsed the proposal by supporters of NASA to cele­ a generation of American youth, to brate "Space Week" from July 13 to 20. Activities around the country stimulate an excitement about sci­ during that week will promote an expansion of NASA and the U.S. space ence. Is there something special you'd program. The week will culminate in a campaign to make July 20, the like to say to American young people? anniversary of the first Moon landing by astronauts Neil Armstrong and I'm not sure that I share some of Edwin Aldrin, a national holiday. This holiday would provide the time the pessimism that you expressed. I for national gratitude to dedicated individuals such as Jim Hudson, and really think very positively about the to encourage the youth of this country to follow in their footsteps. youth in our country today. They can —Nick Benton and do prove that they can produce

Special Report August 1981 FUSION 21 Viewpoint Your Continued from page 10 proval of both the executive and "RTR g^^ legislative branches of government before being implemented, but the agency must have a certain amount of independence in developing With the potential to import $150 billion in capital goods alone over the next policies and programs. The review ten years, Mexico is one country American decision-makers have got to know. function of the organization should EIR knows Mexico like no one else. be limited to the implementation A dozen full-time EIR researchers in Mexico City work with EIR's New York of the program approved by the staff to compile each week in-depth reports on critical political and economic executive and legislative branches. developments. Especially important is the weekly Dateline Mexico column, an I do not mean to endorse the "insiders report" read by leaders on both sides of the border. Water Resources Council as the Join the economic boom taking place south of America's border. EIR will be agency that should carry out these your guide. functions. The council has not been a success for several reasons, the For weekly intelligence on Mexico, and other national and international most important of which is that it matters, subscribe to EIR. has been under the exclusive direc­ tion of the executive branch. In We sell fairness to the council, however, it intelligence. should be noted that Congress del­ egated all authority for water re­ sources development to the exec­ utive branch when it enacted the 1965 Planning Act, leaving Congress only the authorization process. Thus, friction developed between the two branches. Also, the council became too in­ volved in minor details and ignored the broad policy aspects of a water program. For these reasons, the proposed water agency should definitely have a different name from that of the Water Resources Council if it is to enjoy any credibility. Such names as Water Resources Policy Board or Water Resources Board might be appropriate. These are the steps that we should adopt if we are to rejuvenate our nation's water resource devel­ opment. First, develop a program for each river basin of the country. Then provide a mechanism to im­ plement and direct the program to meet our water requirements.

B. Joseph Tofani, president of the Water Resources Congress, is a reg­ istered professional engineer who has spent 45 years in all phases of water resources development, in­ cluding in the planning, designing, constructing, and administrating of federal water programs. He served with the Army Corps of Engineers for 33 years.

22 FUSION August 1981 Japan Number 1 in Fusion?

The secret of Ja­ 1981 by Japan's top pan's success as an in scientists is the most dustrial nation is revealed aggressive in the world for for the first time in this exclu developing fusion energy: It sive report. Japan is the only non-Western will put a demonstration power reactor nation to become fully industrialized. on line by 1993. For 25 years, Japan's And, as shown here, it did so using the involvement in fusion has depended on methods of the American System—in­ international scientific cooperation, espe­ vesting in the most advanced technology cially with the United States. Today, the to power the nation's economic growth. Japanese are convinced that fusion is the Since 1975, the Japanese have viewed fu­ key to their nation's survival—regardless sion as the leading edge of a strategy for of the fate of the U.S. fusion budget. As development through the 21st century. one Japanese fusion scientist put it: "If The fusion program proposed in March the United States won't do it, we will."

Copyright < 1981 Fusion Energy Foundation, 888 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019 August 1981 FUSION 23 If the U.S. Won't Do It, We Will' Japan s Ambitious

24 FUSION August 1981 Fusion Program by Marsha F

IN MAY 1978, JAPAN'S Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda Intor tokamak program. And we are developing fusion surprised President Carter—and his nation's Finance Min­ reactors on our own." istry—with the announcement at a New York City foreign Although the Japanese involvement in the fusion effort policy forum that Japan was prepared to spend $1 billion goes back to the late 1950s, the aggressive goal-orientation in a joint program for fusion research. Three years later, dates from 1975. Since that time, and especially since 1979, in March 1981, Japan's scientific experts have recom­ the fusion program has been under intense discussion. Of mended to the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission that particular importance were the Intor meetings during 1979 Japan build and operate a 400- to 800-megawatt fusion and 1980 with scientists from the United States, the Soviet reactor by 1993. If approved by the present Prime Minister, Union, and the European Community. It was through Zenko Suzuki (and according to Japanese sources, this is evaluation of the fusion research results worldwide that nearly certain), the Japanese fusion program would merge the long-term planning subcommittee of Japan's Nuclear plans for an Engineering Test Reactor with those for a Fusion Council, led by Shigeru Mori, decided that the multi-billion-dollar Experimental Power Reactor in order Japanese program could successfully skip some of the to achieve the 1993 goal. steps in fusion development that were earlier thought to This accelerated program would catapult Japan ahead be necessary. of other nations, including the United States, in develop­ How soon do the Japanese expect to achieve commer­ ing controlled thermonuclear fusion, an energy source cial fusion? In an interview with Fusion, Uchida estimated that uses seawater as fuel and is clean, safe, and virtually that fusion would be commercialized by 2010, with the unlimited. Unless the 1980 U.S. fusion legislation is imple­ current international tokamak program. But he quickly mented, the United States will be left years behind the added: Japanese. Fukuda made the proposal based on his personal com­ You [pointing to a copy of Fusion magazine] have to mitment to ensure the development of fusion energy, a ignite the hearts of mankind to be excited about commitment made in 1975 when Japan's leading scientists fusion. And if you do that, then we can have fusion and cabinet ministers evaluated international fusion re­ by the year 2000. Man can do anything if he'll put the search and decided that fusion was "the energy resource resources to it. By resources I don't mean money. of the 21st century." Money is just how you value labor; it's not a real The United States, largely because of former secretary resource. How many plasma physicists are there work­ of energy James Schlesinger's maneuvering, has not yet ing on this [fusion]? Only about 1,000 in Japan. And taken full advantage of the Fukuda fusion proposal. Now, how many are there in the United States? Only several many Japanese feel that Japan is going to achieve its fusion thousand. So if the nations decide that this is a priority goal with or without the collaboration of the United States and devote the human resources to this project rather government. than other projects, and multiply the number of "We have a two-track system," explained Tokyo Uni­ scientists in the field 10 times to work on fusion, then versity Professor Taichiro Uchida, one of the five plasma we could have commercial fusion by the year 2000. physicists on Japan's long-term planning subcommittee of But if it moves forward at the current momentum, the Nuclear Fusion Council. "We are cooperating inter­ then we'll achieve that goal by 2010. nationally with the [International Atomic Energy Agency's] The Japanese decision to accelerate their fusion time­ table is not surprising. Japan's economic philosophy has been to invest in the frontier technologies and industries •* japan's Nagoya Bumpy Torus, which combines features of in order to move the whole economy forward. In scientific the magnetic mirror configuration in a tokamaklike ma­ terms, similar Department of Energy and congressional chine, is the only fusion device of its kind besides the reviews of the U.S. fusion program over the past year have Elmo Bumpy Torus at the Oak Ridge National Lab in also recommended an aggressive entry into the engineer­ Tennessee. ing phase of fusion development. As several leading sci-

August 1981 FUSION 25 Vertical coil

Joule winding

Toroidal coil Vertical coil (main) Vacuum chamber

Plasma

Figure 1 HELIOTRON E SCHEMATIC The Heiiotron E is a toroidal plasma experiment using a spiral-shaped conductor to create the magnetic force field that contains the fusion fuel or plasma. Although these laboratory devices use a normal hydrogen plasma, the fusion reactor itself will burn a mixture of the two heavy forms of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium), available from seawater. The fuel mixture must be heated to a temperature of millions of degrees in order to ignite the fusion reaction. At this temperature, hotter than the Sun, the fuel must be insulated and confined, a function performed by the magnetic field. The other magnetic field coils on this device provide heating and stability control for the hot, ionized fuel. entists have put it, the remaining problems with fusion University to upgrade and continue the Heiiotron work. are not scentific but political. Another major influence on the Japanese program was Japanese involvement in fusion-related research began the 1958 Geneva conference on the Peaceful Uses of in the 1950s, growing out of discussions at international Atomic Energy, where the United States, the Soviet Union, scientific conferences. and Great Britain declassified their early thermonuclear fusion research. Throughout the 1960s, international co­ The Early Years operation with the world fusion community continued to Uchida credits a 1956 speech by I.V. Kurchatov, the be of prime importance, as Japanese scientists visited U.S. Soviet physicist, with influencing the shape of the early and other fusion laboratories and participated in various Japanese fusion work. Kurchatov said that if you want international symposia. fusion, you have to begin with basic theoretical work in At the third IAEA conference on fusion, held in Novo­ plasma physics. The American scientists, Uchida said, sibirsk, Siberia in 1968, the Soviets announced their star­ agreed with Kurchatov and gave the Japanese the same tling progress with a toroidal-shaped magnetic fusion advice. container, or tokamak. This and subsequent results with In 1959, Japan's Science Council debated whether to the tokamak convinced the Japanese to pursue a compre­ work on an energy-producing fusion device or develop a hensive program geared not only to research but to research-oriented fusion program and decided on the energy production. Professor Uchida recalls that at the latter. The first Japanese toroidal research device, the time Japanese scientists were still not absolutely sure that Heiiotron A, was under construction at Kyoto University fusion was practical, but they thought it was worth an that same year. aggressive try to find out. In 1969, Japan's Atomic Energy Two years later, the Institute for Plasma Physics was Commission launched a five year plan for fusion as part established at Nagoya University. The IPP continues to be of a national energy program. the lead university laboratory for the exploration of alter­ Three years later the JFT-2 (Japan Fusion Tokamak) native concepts for fusion to the tokamak, with 20 research began operation to test basic plasma physics theory. units involving about 140 scientists and engineers. In 1966, The evaluation of the research on the JFT led to a the Laboratory for Plasma Physics was created at Kyoto decision in 1973 to launch an even more aggressive toka-

26 FUSION August 1981 mak experimental program under the direction of the The Atomic Energy Commission gave the Japanese sci­ Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) in Tokai- entific community the go-ahead to begin implementing mura. At the same time, the Laser Institute at Osaka the next step in the leading fusion concept, the tokamak. University was established to begin large-scale laser and As the fusion funding profile in Table 1 suggests, after particle beam inertial fusion research. 1975, Japan's scientists were ready to take the next big One of the most exciting developments in the Japanese step. The funding for JAERI more than doubled between energy program was the organization in 1973 of Tsukuba 1978 and 1979, representing in concrete terms the national City, a new academic city similar to the Siberian scientific commitment Japan made to develop commercial fusion city of Academgorodok. Tsukuba City now has 43 research energy. institutes and 8,000 students, with a goal of 10,000 students Equally important in establishing the fusion program, in the near future. Tsukuba University is the lead facility the Nuclear Fusion Council was set up, with full govern­ in Japan's ambitious fusion mirror program. Magnetic ment backing from the top. The council is a group of 20 mirrors—open systems compared to the closed, donut- representatives drawn from the Education Ministry, the shaped tokamaks and stellarators—are the leading com­ Science and Technology Agency, the Atomic Energy Safety petitor to the mainline tokamak in the United States. Commission, the Ministry for International Trade and The year 1975 marked a turning point for the Japanese Industry, and the universities. It is responsible for rec­ fusion program. Fusion became a national project, the ommending plans for Japan's fusion program and for Atomic Energy Commission created the prestigious Nu­ seeing that there is no overlap of efforts or unproductive clear Fusion Council to oversee the burgeoning fusion competition. effort, and plans were made to build a big tokamak It was at this time that Takeo Fukuda, then a member of machine—the JT-60. parliament and a contender for prime minister, became There were two deciding factors in the new push for committed to support the fusion effort. Other political fusion. First, there was the energy crisis precipitated by figures involved at the time were Ichiro Nakagawa, now the 1973 oil embargo. Second, there was the conviction of the head of the Science and Technology Agency, and Japan's scientists, who had previously been skeptical about Rokusuke Tanaka, the current head of MITI. the practicality of fusion, that fusion would work. As one scientist put it, "We knew then that fusion was the energy resource of the 21st century." Table 1 The oil embargo hit Japan very differently from the way FUSION FUNDING IN JAPAN it hit the United States. No Japanese government official (in m llion yen) could credibly propose that Japan's high-technology, en­ ergy-intensive industry conserve its way to "energy inde­ pendence"! Because virtually all Japan's energy is im­ Japan ported, simply cutting back on energy use would shut Atomic down the economy. Energy Research Ministry of The government proposed a twofold approach to the Year Total Institute Education future of dwindling world fossil fuel resources. The first was a high-technology-vectored energy efficiency im­ provement program (more or less the opposite of "con­ 1973 929 460 305 servation" as defined by the Carter administration). 1974 1,906 808 914 This involved R&D programs to commercialize advanced 1975 4,374 2,590 1,553 nuclear technologies. The high-temperature nuclear re­ 1976 8,247 4,070 3,920 actor, for example, is being developed for process heat 1977 12,173 and industrial applications, so as to lessen the burden on 7,715 4,265 liquid fuels. The government also initiated a program to 1978 17,376 11,508 5,377 develop magnetohydrodynamics to convert thermal en­ 1979 31,524 24,641 6,268 ergy from any source into electricity at potentially double 1980 37,000 29,229 8,239 the efficiency of the conventional steam turbine cycle. 1981 44,000 35,787 10,126 Japan also began a serious program for using nuclear power to produce hydrogen as the liquid fuel that will The funding for Japan's fusion program significantly in­ replace petroleum in the next century. creases after 1978. The more than doubled budget for On the fusion side, the scientists talked to the politicians JAERI in 7979 reflects the beginning of construction on and convinced several key people that fusion was the the JT-60 tokamak. Funding for the Ministry of Education long-term solution and must be developed both for ja­ fusion projects has increased steadily, although not so pan's economic security and for world stability. As a result, dramatically as for the tokamak program. fusion was designated as a national project, with the To translate the figures into dollars, the exchange rate budget for the JT-60 being made by the prime minister's is approximately 200 yen per dollar. However, these figures office (and therefore less subject to budget cutting). Takeo demonstrate the internal growth of the Japanese program Miki, then prime minister, and Toshio Komoto, the head and cannot be compared with the U.S. budget because of the Ministry for International Trade and Industry (MIT!), the Japanese figures do not include salaries and adminis­ both fully supported the program. tration.

August 1981 FUSION 27 Will Japan be number 1 in fusion? Part of the answer theoretical scaling laws for containing a fusion plasma. lies in the nation's experience in building fusion devices As early as 1970, Japanese fusion scientists were planning and their research record, briefly reviewed here. to scale up their research to approach the machine size needed to reach energy breakeven—producing more en­ Japan's Fusion Experiments ergy from the fusion reaction than the energy input The JFT series. The Japanese tokamak program is cen­ needed to heat the fuel. In 1978, Japanese scientists began tered at JAERI. The first JAERI tokamak, the JFT-2, began informal collaborative work on the U.S. Doublet III ex­ operation in 1972 as a small-scale basic plasma physics periment at General Atomic Company in San Diego to experiment. Its radius is less than 1 meter, and it was gain hands-on experience with a medium-size tokamak. superseded by the JFT-2a in 1974. The Doublet III has a radius of nearly 1.5 meters, and To gain experience with a larger, 1.25 meter machine, the Doublet experience encouraged Japanese scientists to the JFT-2M is under construction and will be operational recommend going ahead with a large-scale Japanese de­ by 1983. All these devices are small scale, multi-million- vice. dollar machines, which are considerably smaller than the The JT-60. The Japanese decided in the 1970s to go pace-setting Princeton Large Torus in the United States. directly from the small-scale JFT series tokamaks to the The PLT made international headlines in 1978 when it huge JT-60, without a PLT-size machine in between. The reached groundbreaking plasma temperatures well be­ JT-60 is about the size of the reactor-scale Tokamak Fusion yond the 44 million degrees needed to ignite the plasma Test Reactor at Princeton to be completed next year, the and demonstrated that a fusion plasma would follow the largest U.S. tokamak. Design work on the JT-60, under construction by JAERI since 1978, began in 1970 and was upgraded and acceler­ ated as the success from the U.S. PLT in 1978, as well as from other tokamak experiments worldwide, increased the confidence of the scientist community that the toka­ mak would indeed produce fusion power. Until recently, the Japanese fusion program has lagged about five years behind the U.S. program. But based on the results for the medium-size U.S. tokamaks—the PLT, Doublet, and the Alcator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—the JT-60 will "skip a step" and jump ahead. The JT-60 is designed to achieve a breakeven plasma condition using hydrogen (all deuterium) fuel and not radioactive tritium. This makes it a more flexible experi­ mental machine than the TFTR, which will use deuterium- tritium as fuel and, therefore, require remote handling equipment. In the JT-60, the technicians will be able to make adjustments with hands on the equipment. How­ ever, the JT-60 will not produce a sustained fusion reaction because with all-deuterium fuel, this would require igni­ tion temperatures of 400 million degrees. The mission of JT-60 is not only to extend the scientific basis for continuing the tokamak development program, but also to develop fusion engineering and technologies like plasma heating and impurity control. In this way, it will lay the physics basis for the next tokamak device in the Japanese program, as well as guide the work with continuing experiments on existing machines—the JFT- 2M and a new ignition experiment to be built at Nagoya University. JT-60 is designed to extend the pulse length of the plasma current and external heating power from less than 1 second, which is now common, to up to 10 seconds. The JT-60 will test experimental magnetic limiters as a method of controlling impurities in the fusion plasma without the need for physical diverters. Also, neutral beam injection, radio frequency, and ion cyclotron heating will Bringing the energy of the Sun to Earth was the theme of all be used in the JT-60 to evaluate the most effective ways Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda's $1 billion pro­ to heat the fusion fuel. posal to President Carter in May 1978 for a joint fusion The current time schedule for JT-60 is initial operation development program. If the 1980 U.S. fusion legislation in October 1984, with the start of supplementary heating is not implemented the United States will be left years experiments in August 1985. behind the Japanese in fusion. If the jump from operating the JFT-2 to the design of

28 FUSION August 1981 the JT-60 was a big step, the now-proposed step from JT- 60 to an Experimental Power Reactor (EPR) is a giant leap. The projected cost of the JT-60 is about one-quarter of a billion dollars; the EPR will be at least double that.

The Giant Step The proposed EPR will combine two steps in the pre­ vious fusion program plan, which included an Engineering Test Facility before the operation of a power reactor. This giant leap was the substance of the Japanese fusion review in March that recommended that the nation accelerate its fusion timetable and put an EPR on line by 1993. The EPR will be considerably larger and have a higher performance capability than the next step in the U.S. fusion program, the Fusion Engineering Device, or FED. The FED was mandated by the 1980 fusion legislation as an approximately $1 billion device, on line by 1990 producing between 100 and 200 megawatts of power. Japan's EPR is estimated to produce from 400 to 800 megawatts of power—indeed, an experimental reactor. In their program review work for the EPR, which began a year ago, the Japanese are considering a unique engineer­ ing design, based on their experience with conventional nuclear power plants. Instead of surrounding the fusion reactor with solid shielding material, they have designed a Swimming Pool Tokamak Reactor, or SPTR, where water would make the repair and maintenance easier and less costly. The SPTR could potentially cutjthe cost of the fusion reactor by 40 percent and cut the cost of the entire power plant by 10 percent—a significant savings. Using water as a shielding material eliminates the 6,000 to 9,000 tons of heavy shielding structure projected in other tokamak designs as protection for the supercon­ ducting magnets. Since water does not crack, fatigue, or permit leakage, maintenance would be simplified. The reduced need for maintenance and repair is a significant gram policies will be sent to the Diet (parliament) and will advantage, since the EPR will require remote handling, go into effect at the beginning of the next fiscal year, like the TFTR, to handle the D-T fuel. April 1. By this time next year, therefore, the Japanese A phased machine, the EPR will be upgraded and fusion program will be officially on its way to designing modified throughout its operation. It is also planned as a and building an Experimental Power Reactor by 1993—a test bed for various blanket designs for breeding tritium timetable considerably ahead of the United States. needed for fusion fuel. In its first stage, it would operate without a blanket, but with many diagnostic ports for the A Broad-Based Program investigation of the burning plasma. Like the United States,' Japan has chosen the tokamak The preliminary swimming pool design, shown in Figure fusion program for its first power-producing reactor at the 3, is a first draft conception. As work continues on the same time that it is pursuing a broad-based program in design, it will undoubtedly be modified, but the process alternative fusion concepts and supporting engineering of initiating this EPR stage for the Japanese tokamak and technology development. And like Japan's tokamak program is expected by next winter. research, all of this is being done in close collaboration According to Japanese officials, the Nuclear Fusion with the United States. Council has requested that representatives of industry and The alternative concepts for fusion that Japan is pursuing other experts from the scientific community comment on are a generation behind the U.S. devices, but they are the proposal by the review committee to go ahead with achieving experimental results in step with the U.S. fusion the EPR. program. By August 1981 the AEC will decide whether to support The Heliotron series. One fusion design unique to the the recommendations and then forward its report to the Japanese program is the Heliotron series of experiments. prime minister and the other cabinet ministers. From The Heliotron is a variation of the U.S.-developed stellar- September to December the Ministry of Finance, the ator, the first U.S. experimental fusion device. A stellarator Science and Technology Agency, and other cabinet agen­ is a nonpulsed, steady state machine in the toroidal cate­ cies will deliberate on a strategy for the fusion program. gory that has all of its confining magnetic fields generated By next February the government's budgetary and pro­ by external magnets. By comparison, in a tokamak the

August 1981 FUSION 29 poloidal fields are produced internally by an electrical current induced in the fusion plasma itself. In the stellar- ator, the plasma is not a smooth shape, as it is in the Table 2 donut-shaped tokamak, but it can be a variety of rippled MAJOR PARAMETERS FOR THE SPTR shapes that reflect the helical windings of its magnets. The Heliotron E, which began operation at Kyoto Uni­ versity last year, is a $34 million machine built by Hitachi. Plasma burn mode Ignition It is a PLT-size machine that is a proof-of-principle device. Burn time (sec) >100 If it performs according to expectations, the Japanese Fusion power (MW) 420 hope to take the Heliotron configuration to the next-step Neutron wall loading (MW/m2) 1.0 energy breakeven Heliotron-F experiment, which would Major radius (m) 5.3 be a D-T ignition experiment. Plasma radius (m) 1.1 Mirrors. Tsukuba University is the leading facility for the Elongation 1.5 Japanese magnetic mirror program. The Gamma-6, oper­ Toroidal field at centerline (T) 5.2 ational since 1978, has a tandem mirror plasma profile Plasma current (MA) 3.9 similar to U.S. mirror experiments and is supported by theoretical work at Nagoya, Kyoto, and Tsukuba univers­ Safety factor (edge) 2.5 ities. Average a, (%) (without impurities) 4 3 20 Fusion scientists are now building the Gamma-10, about Average ion density (m~ ) 1.1 X 10 the same size as the Tandem Mirror Experiment at Law­ Average Ion temperature (keV) 10-12 rence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which Impurity control and ash exhaust Pololdal divertor will be ready in 1983. Heating, NBI/RF(MW) 30/30 Bumpy torus. Among the diversity of experimental de­ Tritium breeding ratio 1.0 (target) vices in its 20-year fusion history, Nagoya University has provided the only other bumpy torus machine in the The Swimming Pool Tokamak Reactor (SPTR), shown at world besides the Elmo Bumpy Torus at the Oak Ridge right, is a unique Japanese design for an engineering National Laboratory in Tennessee—the Nagoya Bumpy fusion reactor of commercial size that would produce 420 Torus. The bumpy torus design, which combines features megawatts of thermal energy. According to the Japanese of the magnetic mirror configuration within a toroidal plans, the device will be the first machine to produce system, is providing some important experimental insight large quantities of electrical energy from fusion. The SPTR into both the tokamak and mirror programs. would produce about 150 megawatts of electrical energy, Also at Nagoya is the JIPP-T-2 stellarator/tokamak hybrid the equivalent of a small to medium-size fossil fuel plant. device, a unique facility because it can be used either in The significant advantage of the swimming pool water a tokamak or a stellarator mode. Therefore, it is a versatile shield is its flexibility in maintenance. test bed for plasma heating and other experiments, which, if successful, can be used on other machines. If the current JIPP-T-2 program is extended, a JIPP-T-3 device that In other areas, like fusion materials development, the burned D-T could be built by the late 1980s. Japanese effort requires collaborative research and devel­ Inertial confinement. Like the magnetic fusion effort, opment with the United States. These areas are on the top Japan's inertial fusion program is a few years behind the of the list of both nations for extending the cooperation United States. Osaka's Laser Institute, established in 1972, that is already underway. is involved in the operation and construction of a full Industry involvement. The involvement of Japanese in­ series of inertial fusion experiments, which include glass dustry in frontier technology development is direct: The and carbon dioxide lasers, relativistic electron beams, and government agency responsible for construction and op­ light ion beams. Osaka's Dr. Yamanaka announced in 1980 eration does not have to go through a competitive bidding that the Institute has plans to build a 40-terawatt glass procedure to grant a contract, as is the practice in the laser—GEKKO XII—later in the 1980s. GEKKO XII would United States. be larger than the 30-terawatt laser at Lawrence Livermore, Because the largest electrical and heavy machinery sup­ now the world's largest laser system. ply companies in Japan are involved in building fusion For the decade of the 1980s, the Japanese inertial fusion devices, it's likely that the transfer of this technology, effort will carry out what is known as the KONGO pro­ once commercial fusion power plants are ready for the gram, which includes next-step devices in all the inertial marketplace, will be a painless procedure from the R&D fusion driver systems—gas lasers, ion beams, and electron departments to the commercial operations within the beams. This decade-long effort will cost approximately 63 same companies. billion yen ($315 million) for equipment alone. Supportive technology. The Japanese are also pursuing International Cooperation the full array of required supportive technology devel­ Overall, the Japanese fusion effort has benefited greatly opments for fusion. In some areas, like superconducting from international collaboration, especially from the U.S. magnet development, Japanese industry is already build­ fusion programs. If the Japanese fusion effort jumps ahead ing similar components for other energy (or related) of the United States, this will be because Japan has made technologies. a national commitment to push forward and reach its

30 FUSION August 1981 Figure 3 SWIMMING POOL TOKAMAK REACTOR SCHEMATIC

. Maintenance machine

100 ton crane

. Neutral beam injector

goals. The fusion cooperation program between the and Japan cooperate in a fusion development program United States and Japan, it is hoped, will encompass new "to bring the energy of the Sun to Earth." This would take areas of joint work, including Japanese participation in "colossal investments in human and material resources," U.S. materials facilities such as the Fusion Materials Irra­ he said, but the resulting energy security and economic diation Test facility at Hanford, Wash, and the Rotating benefits would be worth it. Target Neutron Source facility at Lawrence Livermore. Fukuda made that proposal because he knew that with The collaborative fusion agreement, proposed by Fu- Japan's determination and American know-how, the job kuda in 1978 and signed by DOE fusion director Edwin could get done. Kintner and Japanese AEC director Hiroshi Fukunaga in Today, the task remains essentially the same, but the August 1979, has fulfilled three of the four initial areas of U.S. fusion program is in jeopardy. collaboration outlined: the exchange of personnel for As one Japanese scientist commented on the U.S. plan work visits to U.S. and Japanese fusion facilities, a $60 to cut the Fusion Materials Irradiation Test facility out of million upgrade program and joint work on the Doublet the 1982 budget: "The FMIT is necessary for fusion, not III experiment, and the setting up of joint fusion theory immediately in the research experiments but in the actual centers in the two countries. reactor-building phase. We need it, and if the United The fourth area, joint planning, is now under discussion States is not going to build it, we will. There are certain and could become the most interesting aspect of the things that have to be done, and if you're not going to do agreement. If the Japanese decide, as is likely, to take that them, we will." giant step for an Experimental Power Reactor by 1993, the Will the United States be importing Japanese tokamaks United States will have much to contribute to making this in the 21st century? The answer is up to the United States goal a reality. And if the U.S. fusion program is not fully and how much budgetary support it gives the U.S. fusion supported by the Reagan administration, Americans may program. have their first opportunity to participate in a fusion project that is more ambitious than our own. Marsha Freeman is the industrial research director for In 1978, Takeo Fukuda proposed that the United States the Fusion Energy Foundation.

August 1981 FUSION 31 An Unbeatable Plan for Economic Growth: Japan's Frontier Industry Strategy

It is April 1993. Joseph P. Kennedy III, the young senator who made his name in the 1980s as an antinuclear crusader, has just introduced a bill to restrict shipments to the United States of Japanese tokamak fu­ sion reactors. "It will bankrupt the U.S. windmill industry," he complains. * * *

WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR the apparent invincibility of the Japanese economic machine? Only 10 years ago, textiles were Japan's main economic challenge to the United States. Five years ago, it was steel. But today the Japanese are threatening to overtake the United States in areas once considered its special preserve. In 1980, Japan sur­ passed the United States as the world's leading automobile manufacturer. And industry sources are now beginning to sound dire warnings about a Japanese invasion in the fields of integrated circuits and computers. In fact, one of the fastest growing industries in America is the publishing of articles on Japan's successes, typified by Iron Age magazine's "What Can American Manufac­ turers Learn from the Japanese?" last year. Another big growth area is consulting companies that specialize in teaching American businessmen the managerial gimmicks that are supposed to account for the Japanese miracle. The American Management Association offers a seminar series on "Using Japanese Quality Control and Productiv­ ity Techniques in U.S._ Industry"; AMA advertises: "Learn the Japanese methods that are producing amazing results in U.S. firms." Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, differ­ ent groups have focused on various, isolated aspects of the picture hoping to discover the secret of the Japanese economic miracle. Some Japan imitators rather mystically attribute Japan's economic successes to unique features of Japanese culture. One southwestern electronics firm went so far as to dress its employees in kimonos, put Japanese slogans on the wall, and teach Japanese-style company songs. Other U.S. companies have seized on Japanese model labor-management relations and at­ tempted to reproduce Japanese industry's quality circles. Still others are mesmerized by the external structure of

32 FUSION August 1981 by Richard Katz

Japanese business. Thus, Senator Adlai Stevenson, Jr. of Illinois introduced a bill in Congress in 1980 that would permit the creation of an American imitation of Japanese- type trading companies, the multi-billion-dollar commer­ cial conglomerates that do the buying and selling of most products within Japan's domestic economy and in its foreign trade. The secret behind Japan's achievement is neither intan­ gibly cultural, nor is it a collection of managerial and structural gimmicks, which can be easily copied. The secret is, in fact, as American as Abraham Lincoln, for it was from President Lincoln's economic advisers that the founders of modern Japan learned the ideas that turned the country into an industrial giant overnight. However, in Japan the American System ideas still guide day-to-day governmental and business practices, while in the United States these ideas have been largely aban­ doned. Faced with a depressed market and serious com­ petition, the U.S. Steel Corporation, for example, has scrapped its steel investment and diversified into real estate and other quick profit areas. By contrast, Japanese steel firms, which were operating at 67 percent capacity because of the orders collapse, launched a multi-biilion-dollar modernization drive that emphasized investment in high-technology forms of en­ ergy saving such as continuous casting, and they are making profits again. Japan's top five steel firms plan to invest $3 billion more in 1981, a 27 percent increase over

-< A succession vf planned frontier industries has been the key to japan's economic miracle. Yesterday's frontier in­ dustries are arrayed counterclockwise on the field of the Japanese flag: a giant ladle crane manufactured by Hitachi for Nippon Steel; Mitsubishi Heavy Industry's new high speed container ship; electric power plant equipment produced by Hitachi for Kansai Electric; and the electric bullet train operated by Japanese National Railways, which travels up to 210 kilometers per hour. The next phase of frontier industries is shown in the emblem: an experi­ mental, magnetically levitated train designed to travel 500 kilometers per hour; precise welding technology used in the manufacture of fusion vacuum vessels; and an inte­ grated, "intelligent robot" with grasping, pushing, and pinching functions.

August 1981 FUSION 33 1980, to install energy-saving continuous casting and to upgrade their operations from basic steel production to LIVING STANDARDS, INVESTMENT, AND specialty steel. PRODUCTIVITY: U.S. AND JAPAN COMPARED Permeating the daily decision-making process at Japan's corporations and government ministries is an unshakable Growth in Hourly Compensation per Worker commitment to technological advance and a "can do" (adjusted for inflation) spirit, a spirit rekindled in the American population by the successful flight of the Space Shuttle.

1960=100 Average annual Japan's Frontier Industries growth For Japan's economic planners, technology does not 1967 1976 1960-67 1967-76 simply mean better, and growth is not merely more. Rather, business and government cooperate in setting Japan 140 300 4.9% 8.8% national goals of economic growth through planning a U.S. 113 122 1.7 0.8 succession of frontier industries. "We think about our economy in the following way," explained a Japanese banker. "Imagine an individual Gross Private Fixed Investment standing with an iron ball in his hand with a long rope As a Percentage of GNP: 1955-1980 attached. If he could throw the iron ball hard and far enough ahead of himself while holding on to the rope, the ball he throws would carry him forward a certain 1955 1960 1965 1970 1973 1975 1980 distance. "So, every five or seven years, we Japanese throw out Japan 11 18 19 27 27 24 25 some industries more advanced than the general econ­ U.S. 14 14 14 14 15 12 14 omy. In the post-World War II recovery it was textiles. They were followed by steel, then autos, and now com­ puters. The next industry is fusion power. The rest of the Growth in Labor Productivity economy, by participating in the success of that frontier industry, grabs on to the rope of that industry and is carried forward." Average annual 1960=100 growth Each technological advance makes possible the next. 1960 1978 1960-78 Therefore, Japanese businessmen and government plan­ ners consider where they want Japan to be 10, 20, and even 30 years into the future and then what technological Japan 100 450 8.7% phases Japan must pass through to achieve that 30-year U.S. 100 164 2.7 goal. Thus, as early as 1953, the government and business leaders jointly initiated Japan's shift from coal to oil and launched a research and public education program to Growth in Industrial Production promote atomic energy. As early as 1970, an official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry declared, "By the year 2000 Japan will supply up to half the world's Average annual 1960=100 growth energy through mass production of fusion power ma­ 1960 1974 1960-74 chines." The current, massive fusion research budget, therefore, is no exceptional effort but an outgrowth of the normal Japan 100 426 10.9% functioning of the Japanese economy. U.S. 100 197 5.0 This approach of deliberately planning new frontier industries made it possible for Japan to achieve 12 to 15 Sources: United Nations, U.S. Department of Commerce, Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry percent increases in productivity growth year after year, while the United States plodded along with 3 to 6 percent One often neglected spinoff of japan's frontier industry per annum productivity growth rates; in the last couple of investment strategy has been rising living standards. In the years, U.S. productivity has actually fallen. United States from 1960 on, the real growth of hourly Japan's acclaimed high growth—regular 10 to 15 percent compensation of manufacturing workers was negligible annual rises in production up until the 1973 oil price because of the stagnation of surplus-generating capital shock—was not planned as an end in itself but as a means investment and productivity, japan, on the other hand, of achieving the upward spiral of technological advance. enjoyed a positive cycle of mutually reinforcing invest­ After all, with those growth rates, within only 4 to 7 years, ment rates and productivity and wage increases. Hourly the vast majority of the national product consists of en­ compensation tripled between 1960 and. 1976, at the same tirely new products produced with new capital. Thus, time that productivity soared. The key was the rising rapid restructuring of the economy is the normal tend­ portion of CNP invested in frontier industries. ency.

34 FUSION August 1981 The locus of economic planning in Japan is the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the major business federation, Keidanren. MITI is the current name of the industry ministry set up in the late 1860s by the founders of modern Japan to implement their American industrialization strategy. Keidanren, known as the head­ quarters of business (with its chairman as the prime min­ ister of business), was set up in 1946 during the postwar U.S. occupation to foster economic recovery. In addition to the physical damage to Japanese industry from the ravages of World War II, Japan's economy had been set back by the initial occupation policy aimed at deindus- trializing Japan, the counterpart for Japan of the proposed Morgenthau plan for Germany. Japan's large, concen­ trated industries were dissolved and broken down into smaller enterprises. More than 200,000 businessmen, pol­ iticians, and bureaucrats were purged from all active political, civil, or business activities. Middle and junior executives, mostly under 45 years of age, suddenly found themselves in charge of virtually every corporation in Japan—with the responsibility of resurrecting their nation and economy from the ashes. These men ran Japan and its industrial corporations for the next 30 years. As part of this endeavor, Japan's new leaders set up the Keidanren federation, whose role is far more powerful than anything the U.S. National Association of Manufac­ turers ever imagined. Keidanren's membership includes the heads of the 750 largest corporations in Japan and more than 100 associations representing the major indus­

tries. Today, the Industrial Structure Council of MITI, J.P. Laffont/Sygm* which consists of both MITI officials and Keidanren lead­ What makes Japan, Inc. run? It isn't the management ers, makes policy and guides Japan's economic miracle. gimmicks and other secondary features of the economic The MITI-Keidanren team initially helped to promote system, as some Americans think. Here, workers take a the recovery of the textile industry as a quick way to earn five-minute calisthenics break at a Nikon factory in Tokyo. foreign exchange for the resource-poor Japanese islands. But at the same time, to establish the foundation for long- term industrial growth, MITI and Keidanren stressed the nese prime rate did not reach 10 percent—U.S. Federal development of the steel, oil, petrochemical, and ship­ Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker would not be able to get building industries. a job in Japan. In line with making steel a national priority, MITI en­ By the early 1960s, initial economic recovery had been couraged banks to lend to steelmakers; granted special achieved. Under the famous Income Doubling Plan, in­ tax incentives and other concessions for investment in dustrial growth was topping 10 percent per annum. MITI steel capacity; subsidized research; provided protection and Keidanren took action at that point to ensure that from imports; worked with the Bank of Japan, the coun­ even in times of economic recession or slowdown, in­ try's central bank, to allocate then scarce foreign exchange duced by periodic shortages of foreign exchange, Japan's for the import of coking coal and iron ore; directed the capital investment would not suffer. The Bank of Japan export-import bank to promote exports; and, for a while, would ensure that sufficient, low-interest credit would be provided low-interest government loans through the Ja­ available to keep investment going, even in periods of low pan Development Bank, although these were not as sig­ corporate revenues. nificant as the directed private credit. In addition, MITI promoted several corporate mergers Similar mechanisms were used to build up the petro­ and rationalizations, which were designed to strengthen chemical industry and to enable Japanese industry as a the economy. In 1964, for example, under the newly whole to switch from coal to oil. enacted Temporary Law for the Reorganization of the MITI, the Finance Ministry, and other arms of the Shipping Industry, MITI aided the merger of many lines government used their control over national tax and credit into six major shipping lines and arranged for government policies to ensure adequate incentives for the develop­ financial assistance to the merged lines. ment of heavy industry, growing capital investment ratios, A similar operation was carried out in the steel industry, and continuous investment in new technology. Interest culminating in the merger of the Yawata and Fuji Steel rates for industry were kept low even in times of scarce Companies to form Nippon Steel, the world's largest steel credit, and today Japan still enjoys the industrial world's company. As a result of the mergers and rationalizations, lowest interest rate of 8 percent. At its highest, the Japa- the majority of the firms were able to increase their overall

August 1981 FUSION 35 rate of capital investment, application of new technolo­ still dominated by engineers. Let's look at the three largest gies, and hiring of advanced technicians. producers of nuclear reactors, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy The special government support was terminated once Industries (MHI), and Toshiba Electric, which have gross its job was done; by the mid-1970s Japan was the world's sales of $10 to $12 billion a year and a wide range of leading shipbuilder and by 1979, the largest steelmaker in products from televisions and refrigerators to heavy the noncommunist world. equipment for industry and scientific instruments: After steel, oil refining, shipbuilding, and other basic MHI's current president, who has the authority of the industries were on their feet, MITI and Keidanren directed chairman in American corporations, is Masao Kanamori. their attention to the next set of frontier industries— Kanamori is a metallurgical engineer who spent years as nuclear energy, materials development, and electronics. a researcher in Mitsubishi's technical labs before becom­ Here, research and development and their financing were ing an executive. He is now moving on to become chair­ guided by cross-company and joint government-private man and will be replaced by Soichiro Suenaga, another sector development corporations such as the Nuclear Fuel engineer. The outgoing chairman of the company is also Development Corporation, the Fine Ceramics Council, an engineer, in keeping with a long tradition at the and the Industrial Robot Association. company. MHI is part of the giant Mitsubishi business Japan's success in the computer field illustrates the group that was created de novo in the 1870s by the Japanese method in action. MITI first targeted the com­ founders of modern Japan as a chief vehicle for their puter industry as a key frontier industry in the mid-1960s. policy of rapid industrialization. Besides the usual support mechanisms, MITI and the Hitachi was founded in 1910 by an engineer to produce computer firms jointly established the Japan Electronic motors and other products that would use Japanese rather Computer Company to enable medium-size as well as than imported technology. Like its founder, outgoing large firms throughout the economy to lease computers. president Hirokichi Yoshiyama is an engineering graduate As a result, companies that would not have otherwise of Tokyo University, and his replacement, Katsushige Mita, been able to afford computers were able to use them, at is an electronics engineer. Hitachi has 500 PhDs in its R&D the same time that the guaranteed expanding market department, more than in any other Japanese firm. The enabled the computer industry to invest increasing reve­ company's executive and R&D engineering talent helps nues in further development. explain Hitachi's current leadership in computers, con­ Japan is now the only foreign country in the noncom­ sumer electronics, and scientific work, and its role as the munist world in which domestic rather than U.S.-made prime contractor for Japan's tokamak program. computers have the majority market share. What's more, Former Toshiba chief Toshio Doko has a particularly Japanese computer firms such as Fujitsu and Hitachi are striking record. Doko is a shipbuilding engineer who now preparing to compete with IBM for markets in the graduated from the Massachussetts Institute of Technol­ developing sector, Europe, and eventually in the United ogy and later become head of the Keidanren federation. States itself. The Japanese firms are beginning to develop Doko is renowned as the man who repeatedly built larger mainframe computer technology in the same class as and larger supertankers at a time when most U.S. indus­ IBM's. trialists insisted they could not be built. In the same period as the computer development, MITI More than that, these are engineers who came to and Keidanren also made the manufacture and export of adulthood during the 1930s and 1940s and were faced with machinery and machine tools a top priority. From pro­ the responsibility of rescuing Japan from the conse­ ducing a negligible amount of machine tools in 1970, quences of that period. Former prime minister Takeo Japan achieved a $3 billion production level in 1980, Fukuda speaks for most of them when he constantly points compared to about $5 billion in the United States. Japan out, as he did to President Reagan last March, that the has placed particular stress on advanced numerically con­ economics of the 1930s led to the wars of the 1940s and trolled (computerized) machine tools and is now a world that today's depressed world economy could easily lead competitor in that field. to another debacle unless government leaders take prev­ In each case, as the rest of industry geared up to provide entative action. Fukuda gave this reasoning as the moti­ the inputs to the frontier sectors and then upgraded vation for his repeated, emphatic calls for U.S.-Japanese themselves to utilize the fruits of those new sectors, the joint research in fusion energy. frontier industries propelled the entire structure of the Having taken a feudalist, backward nation with no nat­ economy forward technologically—as in the iron ball and ural resources and turned it in a single century into an rope principle described by the Japanese banker. This industrial powerhouse through technology and sheer in­ process worked even though the frontier industries them­ itiative, Japanese corporate executives have a respect for selves usually represented only a small proportion of total science and information no longer seen so frequently in output. American corporate boardrooms. The idea of buying up a patent on a new technology in order to prevent its The Captains of Industry being manufactured by others, an increasingly common The Japanese system works because of the character of practice among U.S. corporate giants, strikes Japanese the men who run Japan's industrial combines. Just as many executives as a violation of the laws of the universe. of America's corporations used to be dominated by men In Japan, a scientific or technological advance achieved like Henry Ford or George Westinghouse—production by one firm is not regarded as that firm's property. The men, not accountants or lawyers—so Japan's giants are advance belongs to society, to be used to advance the

36 FUSION August 1981 entire nation. Guided by this attitude, special corporations for joint research have been set up by competing firms in a single industry, and the prolific licensing of patents to other companies by the inventor is common. Both prac­ tices have enhanced the rate of technological develop­ ment throughout the Japanese economy. In a rapidly advancing and expanding economy like Japan's, profits are made only by steady investment in capacity expansion and in productivity-increasing inno­ vations that enable a company to maintain or increase its market share over a number of years. A comparison of the investment programs of American and Japanese steel firms illustrates the difference in man­ agement strategy. Most U.S. steelmakers have pursued a policy of at best simply patching up and improving older mills, based on the accountant's mentality that this route is cheaper. By contrast, Japanese firms have repeatedly scrapped relatively new steel plants in order to build new greenfield plants, entirely new plants that make use of economies of scale, integrated processes, and the most advanced technologies available. The oldest plant of Ja­ pan's number two steelmaker, Nippon Kokkan, was built in 1962. As a result, every dollar invested in steel by Japan's engineer-executives has yielded up to twice as much in japan's largest producers of nuclear reactors are run by increased steel output as the investment in "rounding engineers. Top to bottom: Masao Kanamori, president of out" old steel capacity advised by their American coun­ Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; Katsushige Mita, new presi­ terparts. Moreover, Japanese steel mills now produce steel dent of Hitachi; Shoichi Saba, current president of Toshiba with approximately one-third less energy, coking coal, Electric; and former Toshiba chief Toshio Doko, a ship­ and iron ore than the average U.S. mill. This is because building engineer by profession and former head of Kei- the Japanese managers think about profits in terms of danren. Above, engineering students at Waseda University years and decades rather than quarters. in Tokyo.

August 1981 FUSION 37 The 10-year plan of the Industrial Structure Council of whether to try to continue the internal aspects of the MITI in 1970 outlined the next step in Japan's develop­ knowledge-instensification strategy without the interna­ ment: knowledge-intensification. For the first time, the tional transfer of technology, or whether the latter is export of capital-intensive industries to the developing essential to internal development. The debate is continu­ countries was regarded as integral to Japan's own devel­ ing, but there is no debate over whether to continue opment. Japan would no longer simply be a supplier of Japan's domestic advancement. commodities like steel, ships, and autos to the advanced and developing countries. Instead, Japan would move 1980s: The Decade of Technology from these capital-intensive industries to the higher value- The 1980s has been declared "the decade of technol­ added, more knowledge-intensive industries such as ma­ ogy" by Japan's economic planners. "The Japanese econ­ chine tools, nuclear reactors, and computers. omy has attained the national goal of the past hundred Knowledge-intensity took on a new meaning as fusion years, reaching the level of Western industrial nations," power came to be viewed by the Japanese as increasingly declared the Industrial Structure Council's "Long-term realistic; and by 1975, fusion became officially known as Vision of MITI Policies in the 1980s." "It is time for Japan "the energy of the 21st century." The transfer of technol­ to establish new national long-term goals and to envisage ogy was then seen by many MITI officials as necessary to the course to reach them." Japan and the world's transition to the fusion age. A fusion Partly because the United States can no longer be relied economy, they understood, requires a world division of on as a source of new technologies, the heart of that labor so extensive as to necessitate the industrialization of national goal is to turn Japan into an international leader the developing countries. in initiating new science and technology in the 1980s. Japan's role during the early 1970s in aiding South Rejecting "the now prevalent apprehension that techno­ Korea's development of domestic steel, machinery, and logical progress is about to stagnate," the Industrial Struc­ auto industries is the most successful example of this ture Council's report insisted, "Great expectations are strategy of creating "new japans," in preparation for therefore placed on technological innovation providing entering the fusion age. the key to the solution of various problems in the Since the 1973 oil crisis, the U.S. government's adher­ 1980s.... In the past, Japanese industry achieved brilliant ence to the "limits of growth" perspective has involved results in improving and applying imported technologies. pressuring Japan to abandon the strategy of creating new In the 1980s, however, it will be essential for Japan to Japans with the threat of trade protectionism, a threat develop technologies of its own." made explicit in the 1979 Trade Report of the U.S. House A key task of the 1980s, the report continued, is the of Representatives Trade Subcommittee. "preparation for the next generation's epoch-making A political battle has since erupted inside Japan on technological innovations expected in the years after 1990

Industrial robots perform repetitive assembly-line work at Nissan Motor plant, freeing human labor knowledge-intensive work.

38 FUSION August 1981 . . . in the field of life sciences: treatment of cancer, genetic manipulation, investigation into photosynthesis and its application for food production; in the field of energy: nuclear fusion and MHD power generation." Gone are the days when Japan's patents were limited to improvements or adaptations of other nations' inventions. In 1970, Hitachi paid out 12 times as much in royalties on use of other companies' patents, often imported, than it earned on licensing its own; by 1980, the multiple had been reduced to 2. Japan will soon be a world technological leader in two areas that will revolutionize basic industry: computers and industrial robots. Japan is already dominant in robot tech­ nology and is increasingly challenging the United States in the computer field. Japan's ability to leapfrog America technologically in electronics points up a crucial aspect of the relationship between old and new industries and between science and industrial progress. In stark contrast to the "sunrise- sunset" perspective that sees electronic gimmickry replac­ ing heavy industry, Japanese industrialists regard advanced electronics as a means of advancing heavy industry. While in the United States computer applications have been mainly limited to administrative functions and information processing, in Japan the chief applications are computer­ ized machine tools, computer-assisted design and pro­ duction, and robotization. In the course of applying elec­ tronics to such industrial tasks, problems are posed requiring fundamental breakthroughs in science and tech­ nology. This is why, for example, Hitachi stressed in its latest annual report, "Nearly 30 percent of Hitachi's R&D The 1980s has been declared the "decade of technology" is concerned with basic research, and with this being in japan. Shown here, the transmission electron micro­ considered as having a bearing on future profits, our scope with the world's highest resolution. Among its policy is to build up the fundamentals, especially with applications is advanced biological research. regard to materials." If electronics is not applied in such a task-oriented manner, then no fundamental problems are posed, and Industrial robotization is perhaps the most dramatic of technological progress tends to take on a plodding, step- the technological leaps made by Japan. Of the 10,000 by-step character as opposed to the leapfrogging progress industrial robots now in use in the world, about 4,000 are enjoyed by Japan. in Japanese factories, far more than in any other country. Such breakthroughs are putting Japan's semiconductor In Nissan Motor's famous Zama plant, robots assemble industry ahead of that of the United States, with Japan and weld together sheet metal parts comprising the body having just matched the United States in producing a sides, floor pans, front and rear fenders, and roofs into 64,000-byte chip and expected to be first in producing a the basic body of its Datsun cars. A central control room chip with 256,000 bytes. can instruct the robots to shift programs to accommodate Even more interesting, Matsushita Electronics (Panasonic different models. in the United States) reported earlier this year that it will The Japan Industrial Robot Association and its 14 mem­ produce the first gallium-arsenide integrated circuit for ber companies are now gearing up to develop so-called general product use rather than special instruments. Gal­ intelligent robots with sight and touch; and it is estimated lium-arsenide has electron motion six times faster than that by 1985, 15 percent of the robots in use will be such the silicon-based'chips currently in use. And Fujitsu and intelligent robots. One third of the research money for Hitachi are beginning to challenge IBM's technical su­ this work comes from the government. premacy in the manufacture of mainframe computers. The basic approach that Japan is using is one learned Seeking high-technology ways of saving energy, MITI from the United States at the dawn of Japan's entrance recently made a priority the development of ceramics as into modernity during the 1860s and 1870s. Along with a basic all-purpose industrial material. Nine companies steel, autos, and tokamaks, the United States should pre­ formed last November a Fine Ceramics Council, which pare to begin reimporting the American System from will work with the government to finance the research. Japan as well. Toshiba already reports progress toward developing within five to ten years the ability to use fine heat and shock- Richard Katz is on the Asia desk of the Executive resistant ceramics for making automobile engines. Intelligence Review.

August 1981 FUSION 39 Japan s Fight for

OCTOBER 26 is Atomic Energy Day in Japan. Each year on that day the Science and Technology Agency (STA) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) award prizes to high school students for the best essays on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Throughout the year, high school teachers, labor union leaders, business­ men, and others are invited to courses on nuclear energy given by the Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization, an organization set up in 1969 by MITI and STA to educate the population about nuclear power. The development of atomic energy is a national project in Japan, the nation's own long-standing "Project Inde­ pendence." With no oil or other natural resources to speak of, Japan's business and government leaders began as early as 1953 to chart the development of nuclear energy—even as the country was only beginning the transition from coal to oil. As a result of this campaign, by the beginning of 1980 japan had become the world's second largest user of nuclear power after the United States, a country with twice its population. Japan obtained its first commercial nuclear plant in only 1966, but by 1980 its nuclear capacity had grown to more than 15 gigawatts, accounting for 10 percent of electricity consumption. MITI projects that nuclear output will double by 1985 and quintuple by 1995 (see table page 42). As in many areas of the Japanese economy, the devel­ opment of nuclear power took off at an accelerating pace after a long-term planning phase. Yet, compared to what Japan could be doing or what a country like France is doing, this rate of progress is by no means adequate. In fact, by the end of the 1970s, Japan's initial momentum had turned sluggish. And by the end of 1980, France, whose big nuclear push began in 1974, surpassed Japan as the second largest producer of nuclear energy. The Soviet Union will put Japan into the number four spot by the end of 1981.

-< The development of atomic energy is Japan's long-stand­ ing "Project Independence." Here, the mock-up of the primary cooling pump for the prototype fast. breeder reactor, Manju, being placed on a test loop at Japan's Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corpora­ tion. Nuclear Engineering International Nuclear Power

In an article in the December 1979 issue of Nuclear destruction, can be used as a mighty power to banish Engineering International, MITI official Katsuomi Kodama wars from the earth and liberate humanity from pov­ reported that Japanese industry was capable of adding 6 erty and disease ... to eliminate the causes of cold to 10 gigawatts of nuclear power annually. MITI, however, wars and achieve constructive peace. . .. is currently projecting no more than an additional 4 Our country lacks coal and petroleum resources gigawatts a year for the next 15 years. among other things. . . . Atomic energy is therefore What has kept Japan from living up to its nuclear necessary. . . . potential? The reasons are political. The Carter adminis­ The time has come for the whole nation to forge tration threatened Japan with an embargo on uranium ahead without any hesitation whatever. shipments if the country went ahead with the develop­ ment of its own uranium reprocessing facilities—a move, Joining newspaper publisher Shoriki on the council in the view of many Japanese government and business were the heads of Keidanren and other business federa­ leaders, to keep Japan eternally dependent on the Seven tions, seven "elder statesmen" of the business world, the Sisters oil majors. Inside Japan, the opposition Japanese president of the state-owned Japan Development Bank, Socialist Party was at the same time organizing popular the presidents of the two other largest newspapers, and resistance to the siting of nuclear plants, further under­ the top leaders from the utility, steel, shipbuilding, ma­ cutting the country's ability to attain energy independence chinery, paper, metal, and mining industries. In all, there through nuclear power. were nearly 100 businessmen, scientists, and political lead­ In Japan, as elsewhere, the fight for nuclear power has ers on the council. always been a political one. The current fight is a contin­ One of the council's first activities was to invite General uation of one begun in the 1950s, the big difference Dynamics chairman John J. Hopkins and Dr. Lawrence between then and now being that In the 1950s and 1960s, Holstadt of Chase National Bank's atomic energy depart­ the United States was a staunch ally in Japan's fight for ment to give public lectures in Japan on atomic power. nuclear energy. The Eisenhower administration actively aided the research efforts in Japan, including supplying uranium for Japan's Japan's Atoms for Peace Program test reactors. After a visit to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's At the end of 1955, Shoriki's Yomiuri and the U.S. research facility in California in January 1954, the president Information Service jointly sponsored a six-week Atoms of Keidanren, Japan's powerful business federation, was for Peace Exhibition in a park in the center of Tokyo. convinced that Japan had no choice but to launch an Close to 400,000 students, businessmen, workers, farmers, "Atoms for Peace" program on the U.S. model. Two housewives, and cabinet ministers attended, and the polls months later, the Japanese Diet, or parliament, approved showed that 92 percent of them walked away convinced the first appropriations request for building an experi­ of the need for nuclear power. mental nuclear reactor in Japan. Within a year, Japan had Then in March 1956, the United States and Japan signed established its own Atomic Energy Commission, headed a technology agreement to facilitate cooperation in Ja­ by Matsutaro Shoriki, the publisher of Yomiuri, one of pan's industrial development. The agreement covered the Japan's largest newspapers. licensing of patents, which was critical for advancing Shoriki was aware of the special need for a public Japan's atomic research. A few days later Japan set up a education campaign on nuclear energy in Japan because special Science and Technology Agency to promote of still-intense memories of Hiroshima, and he organized atomic power and general industrial progress. a joint government-business group called the Council for In 1963 Japan became the fifth nation in the world to the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. In the council's generate electricity using nuclear power, at an experi­ inaugural statement, Shoriki stated: mental reactor run by the Science and Technology Agency. Commercial production of nuclear power began It has now become clear that nuclear energy, which in 1966. was once used against us as a terrible weapon of For MITI and Keidanren, nuclear energy was never

August 1981 FUSION 41 developing sector, and it made Japan vulnerable to the sharp, politically engineered fluctuations in the world oil NUCLEAR PROJECTIONS: market in recent years—a vulnerability that the Carter JAPAN, FRANCE, AND THE U.S. administration did not hesitate to use. During the Iranian Gigawatts of Nuclear Power and revolution in early 1979, the majors declared force majeure Percentage of Electricity Generated by Nuclear and disproportionately cut oil shipments to Japan. MITI and Keidanren have therefore stressed nuclear power development as a means of achieving an indepen­ dent, domestic energy industry. Once Japan develops a domestic nuclear plant manufacturing capacity and a com­ plete fuel cycle, it will ffave achieved energy indepen­ dence, advancing its political independence. At present Japan's nuclear manufacturing firms, includ­ ing Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi, and Toshiba, the three largest, still operate predominantly under licenses simply a cheap energy source but a classic frontier indus­ from General Electric, Westinghouse, and other foreign try, whose development would propel the entire economy firms. The United States is also Japan's major supplier of forward. As MITI official Kodama wrote in Nuclear Engi­ enriched uranium, giving the U.S. government veto power neering International in 1979: over the use of spent fuel. Most of the spent fuel is currently reprocessed in the United States, though some Because the nuclear manufacturing industry is a typ­ is shipped to France, which has its own independent ical advanced technology-intensive system engineer­ facilities for both enrichment and reprocessing. ing industry, great expectations are placed on its MITI has made it a national goal to develop indepen­ development as a stimulus to further the sophistica­ dence in both reactor production and fuel by approxi­ tion of the whole Japanese industrial infrastructure. mately 1990. Since 1976, MITI has arranged for the nine major utilities to get special low-interest loans from the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute president Hi- Japan Development Bank to help them purchase nuclear roshi Murata stressed in an accompanying article that the power equipment made in Japan, utilizing an increasing high temperatures and energy density of atomic power proportion of Japanese R&D. The joint private-govern­ opened the way for revolutionary new processes not ment Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Cor­ possible with conventional energy sources. Only 30 to 40 poration (PNC) was established to provide Japan with an percent of energy used in industrial societies is in the independent source of fuel after 1990. JAERI is conducting form of electricity, he pointed out; the rest is consumed reprocessing work at the Tokaimura research facility, while as fuel or else as heat energy in industrial processes. The MITI is taking the necessary steps to enable private com­ advent of Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTRs), he panies to acquire the funding, technical know-how, and predicted, would revolutionize the latter. sites to set up commercial reprocessing. MITI and JAERI "Hydrogen, reducing gas, and synthetic gas, as fuel and are also conducting and funding R&D work on the en­ feedstocks for the chemical industries, can be produced richment process and expect to complete a pilot plant in utilizing nuclear heat from high temperature reactors," 1979. Finally, as part of the advanced work of JAERI, Murata wrote. Thus, "the steelmaking and chemical in­ research is being done on fast breeder reactors, which do dustries, which are energy intensive industries, can avoid not need enriched fuel and which can make nuclear dependence on coal and oil as energy sources." power economical for decades and ensure political inde­ The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, or JAERI, pendence. which is a unit of the Science and Technology Agency, These ambitious plans and timetable have not pro­ expects to produce a 50-megawatt VHTR by 1987. In ceeded unopposed. In 1977, the Carter administration parallel with JAERI's work, since 1973 MITI has been refused to allow Japan to operate a 0.7 ton per day pilot researching direct-reduction steelmaking technology, us­ reprocessing plant at Tokaimura, under the threat of a ing a VHTR to produce the high-temperature reducing shutoff of uranium shipments, unless Japan met certain gas. Commercial application of this process is expected by conditions—conditions that in fact would make reprocess­ the 1990s. ing economically unfeasible. For Japan, in short, nuclear energy has been a means of Japan eventually agreed to operate the research facility revolutionizing all of basic industry within a matter of under a compromise arrangement, in which it virtually years. bound itself to the guidelines set forth by the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) initiated in 1977 by Nuclear Energy: Political Independence former secretary of state Cyrus Vance. These guidelines Nuclear energy also means political independence for required Japan to undertake costly research on copro­ Japan. Traditionally, Japan imported most of its oil through cessing, a fuel reprocessing technique in which plutonium the multinational oil companies, since it lacked a state oil always occurs together with uranium. The research has importing company like those in some European coun­ since shown that this process is economically impossible tries. This dependence made it difficult for Japan to pursue for Japan. an independent foreign policy especially vis-a-vis the Despite the publicity about nuclear weapons prolifera-

42 FUSION August 1981 tion, Vance's primary motivation in calling for INFCE was to prevent the acquisition of peaceful nuclear energy by nonnuclear countries. The Carter administration's subse­ quent heavy pressure on West Germany to abrogate its nuclear reactor deal with Brazil had a major impact on Japan as well. Japanese firms postponed indefinitely their plans to export nuclear reactors to developing countries, even though such exports had been an integral part of the knowledge-intensification strategy developed in the 1970 long-term plan of MITI's Industrial Structure Council. JAERI President Imai charged at the time:

INFCE has provided two years of virtual moratorium on the rising momentum of the world's nuclear en­ ergy. It has forced people to realize that this industry is full of factors that are beyond its commercial or industrial control so that the rules of the game may be changed overnight on political, rather than eco­ nomic or technical grounds; from encouragement of Light Water Reactor plutonium recycling to its pro­ hibition, for example.

Under these circumstances, MITI complained, it had become increasingly difficult to convince the private firms to make years of investment that could go up in smoke because of a single move from Washington. JAERI presi­ dent Imai added, "It is doubtful under the circumstances Antinuclear demonstrators outside Japan's Ministry of whether even a renewed promotional drive by powerful International Trade and Industry in June 1979. countries could re-create the necessary self-confidence of this industry." Thus, MITI is projecting only a 4-gigawatt However, the Japanese enviromentalists have gained increase in nuclear capacity per year until 1995, despite ground in the interim. On March 8, for example, anti- the potential for adding 6 to 10 gigawatts a year. nuclear crusaders persuaded the residents of the small, 18,000-person town of Kubokawa to vote out of office the MITI Versus the Environmentalists local mayor who had agreed to locate a nuclear plant in Internal sabotage of nuclear power development in the town. The chairman of the Japan Atomic Industrial Japan has proceeded lockstep with the external. Japan's Forum, Kansai Electric's Hiromi Arisawa, commented that environmentalists launched a crusade against nuclear the recall vote meant, "We have not made adequate power in the late 1960s, soon after the first commercial efforts to persuade people opposed to atomic power." reactor appeared. The main political support for the anti- nuclear movement comes from the Japan Socialist Party The Future: A New Atoms for Peace? (JSP), the opposition to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), President Ronald Reagan pledged to his first foreign which has ruled Japan for the last 30 years. The JSP's 1980 visitor, South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, that the election platform officially called for zero economic United States would henceforth be a "reliable supplier" growth, which explains why the party has never won a of nuclear technology and fuel. Thus, when former prime national election. Yet, like the environmentalists in the minister Takeo Fukuda met with Reagan in March, he United States, the JSP has made it difficult for nuclear renewed the invitation for U.S.-Japanese cooperation in utilities to find plant sites, dragging out construction time fusion research, an-offer snubbed by President Carter in and costs. 1978. Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ito subsequently asked To counter the problem, MITI and the Science and Secretary of State Alexander Haig to lift the restrictions on Technology Agency have launched popular education Japan's nuclear development imposed by the previous drives about nuclear energy and created the Japan Atomic administration. However, at a joint press conference with Energy Relations Organization. But the educational work Ito, Haig said only that the United States would be more and the pronuclear political leadership behind it have not "flexible" on the issue—a stalling gesture. always kept up with the opposition. After the Three Mile Whether President Reagan responds to Fukuda's pro­ Island incident in the United States, former prime minister posal for a new era of Atoms for Peace cooperation and Carter ally Masayoshi Ohira announced an indefinite around fusion development, or accepts Secretary Haig's suspension of new nuclear plant licensing until safety tacit continuation of the Carter adminstration's policy, investigations were completed. It was not until March may well determine, as Shoriki prophesied in 1954, if 1981, almost two years later, that Ohira's successor per­ nuclear power will be used to "banish wars, liberate mitted the licensing of the first new nuclear plants in humanity from poverty, and end the causes of cold wars." Japan. —Richard Katz

August 1981 FUSION 43 The American Roots of Japan, Inc. by Daniel Sneider

NOTHING IN THE current media outpouring on Japan's Meiji revolution of 1868, they looked to America as the economic and technological success has revealed to "mother" of a new Japan. Americans the secret behind the so-called Japanese mir- For Japanese leaders today, the great dividing line in acle:The simple truth is that behind that economic pow­ their history is not 1945 but 1868, when a decisive civil war erhouse there is a method labeled "Made in USA." The overthrew the old order of the feudal Tokugawa Shogun­ greatest irony of the attempt to Japanize America is that ate. A central government was established that restored the enduring, essential features of Japan's successful eco­ the Emperor as sovereign and brought Western ideas, nomic system are largely imported from the United States. science, technology, and industry to Japan. Determined The roots of this transfer of American know-how are to avoid the fate of neighboring China, where the decay­ not, as might be thought, in the more recent postwar ing Manchu regime had left that nation the prey of the period, when Japan spurred its recovery with U.S. tech­ European imperialists, a group of relatively young Japa­ nology. Japan's American experience begins more than nese leaders acted to discard the backward practices of 100 years ago: When the founding fathers of modern the past—and of Chinese influence—and introduce mod­ Japan threw off an oppressive feudal system in the great ern civilization to Japan.

The Meiji revolution of 1868 defeated the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate and brought Western ideas, science, technology, and industry to Japan. Surrender, a painting by a 19th century artist, depicts the defeated samurai as uncivilized beasts; the Meiji soldiers look like their contemporaries in the United States.

44 FUSION August 1981 It was fortunate for the founding fathers of new Japan noted that "the American System of protectionist eco­ that in the first 10 years of their new state they found an nomic theory had become generally common thinking ally in America, particularly among those who carried on among [Japanese] statesmen, government officials, and phi­ the tradition of Lincoln republicanism. The reestablish- losophers." ment under Lincoln of the American System—meaning The Americans were well aware of their Influence on the U.S. founding fathers' commitment to the fostering of Japan. When the first Japanese mission abroad after the science and industry, especially through Alexander Ham­ Meiji revolution arrived in San Francisco in 1872, the first ilton's national banking system—supplied the model for stop in a world tour to open diplomatic ties with the great Japan's rapid development into an industrial nation. powers on a more equal basis, it was enthusiastically In the first years after the Meiji revolution, the young greeted. The welcoming editorial of the Da//y Evening leaders opened their doors to new ideas. They sent out Bulletin, a San Francisco paper, is typical: students and emissaries around the world to study the economic, educational, social, and political systems of the Japan is today, all the circumstances of her previous most advanced nations to find models for their new condition considered, the most progressive nation on system. Here in the United States they found the prototype the globe. . . . Among the principal changes, there for their banking system, one which provided credit to has been an entire revolution in the system of gov­ encourage the establishment of new industry with the ernment, the Mikado (the Emperor) having become most advanced technology available; for their educational the active head of the temporal power. The entire system, which provided universal education and advanced system of feudalism has been swept away, and all the training in sciences and the arts—the foundation of Japan's forces of the empire, both on land and sea, have incredible growth; for their agricultural system, which been consolidated, and are fed and clothed in Euro­ tried to implant America's modern agricultural technol­ pean style and paid by the national treasury. The ogy; and for their system of "protectionism," which built Government possesses a large fleet of war and trans­ up and sheltered the tender beginnings of modern indus­ port steamers. ... It has also constructed a stone dry- trial and merchant activity. dock that will admit steamers of the largest size, with In all these realms, still recognizable today as the foun­ ways for repairing smaller vessels, and foundries, dations of "Japan, Inc.," the model was the American System forged by Hamilton and developed by the Lincoln- era economists who gave it its name. Preeminent among these was Henry C. Carey. Carey and his most important cothinker, the German economist Friedrich List, were among the first economists whose works were translated into Japanese, and to this day Japanese economists and businessmen are schooled in their writings. Unfortunately, Carey today is far better known in Japan than in his native country. Not only the ideas, however, were imported to create the new Japan. Scores of Americans, including many prominent citizens, came to Japan to act as advisers, technicians, educators, and political allies. The moderni­ zation of Japan in the 19th century can be called America's first, and perhaps only, successful Third World develop­ ment project. The most influential of the Americans in Japan, although the least known today, was Carey's collaborator Erasmus Peshine Smith. Smith worked from 1871 to 1877 as the official adviser to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, a position held by Americans for 40 years. Smith was instrumental in two regards: spreading the influence of the American System economics and helping the Japanese to revise the coercive foreign treaties im­ posed on the previous regime, which restricted Japan's sovereignty as well as the development of its mercantile activity. In a letter from Japan Smith wrote, "The Japanese statesmen appear to have sound notions upon the policy of encouraging the protection of native industry and I think the revised treaties will be most unacceptable to the Christian powers in this particular. We mean to utterly The roots of Japan, Inc. lie in the ideas of the "American reject commercial trammels unless we get some distinct System" economists Henry C. Carey (below), adviser to consideration for submitting to them." President Lincoln, and Carey's leading cothinker, the Ger­ By the time Smith left Japan, one Japanese historian man economist Friedrich List.

August 1981 FUSION 45 or Dutch Studies Movement. They were dedicated to the study of Western science, at the time known only through the tiny Dutch trading settlement in the port of Nagasaki in western Japan. The spread of this movement, aimed in part at what they called the "hidebound ignorance" as­ sociated with the dominant influence of Chinese classical thought, produced the 19th-century leaders of the Meiji revolution.

Japan's Founding Fathers The brightest stars among them, Japan's George Wash- ingtons, Ben Franklins, and Tom Paines, are names well known today in Japan. The intellectual giant of Meiji, Fukuzawa Yukichi, through his teaching and writing pop­ ularized Western science and philosophy among an entire generation of Japanese at the time of the revolution. Fukuzawa, who had visited America twice before the revolution, founded Keio University, Japan's first, as well as Japan's first newspaper. He also wrote several books on science, education, economics, and politics which, in some cases, were sold in millions of copies. Keio, which is still one of the finest universities in Japan today, trained the cadre who led government and private industry during the post-Meiji revolution period. Fukuzawa's ally Okubo Toshimichi was the man most responsible for organizing the revolution itself, and for creating the institutions of Japan's government and eco­ nomic system. Assassinated by profeudal terrorists in 1878, Japan's founding fathers Fukuzawa Yukichi (below) and Okubo had already laid the foundations of Meiji govern­ Okubo Toshimichi, leaders of the Meiji revolution. ment during the first 10 years of the revolution. He was the first minister of finance, creating the national banking system based on the U.S. model. He then created the machine shops, and forges, capable of doing the Home Ministry, which combined a bureau for civil control largest class of work, the machinery being the best with the Bureau for Industrial Promotion, a government obtainable in France.... agency that set up and fostered new industries during the The Government schools at Yeddo [modern Tokyo] first Meiji years. Today that bureau's activities are carried contain about 1,600 pupils studying foreign languages, out by its successor, the Ministry of International Trade three-fourths of whom are under American teachers, and Industry, which is the guiding governmental center receiving an English education. The principal of this of Japan, Inc. school and some 20 sub-teachers are American, while The Fukuzawa-Okubo alliance had a third prominent many subjects of other nations are employed in dif­ partner, Iwasaki Yataro, founder of what is today Japan's ferent capacities in other departments. An American largest and most powerful industrial combine, Mitsubishi. fills the highest office that a foreign can hold under Mitsubishi's existence and growth demonstrate the Meiji the Japanese Government—that is, Imperial Council­ use of the American System. Fostered by the government lor, whose duty is to frame codes of general laws for directly under Okubo, Mitsubishi became Japan's first the empire. Four Americans compose a scientific modern shipping company and allowed Japan to take commission, to introduce new methods of agriculture, control over its own internal shipping trade from British mechanics, mining, roads, etc. while another Ameri­ companies. Staffed largely by graduates of Fukuzawa's can has been appointed to revise and organize a Keio University, Mitsubishi is the classic example of gov­ system of internal revenue somewhat similar to our ernment-business partnership that is the trademark of own. In addition, during the last four years, nearly Japan's economic system. 1,000 young men of intelligence and ability have been In the 1880s, Iwasaki published pamphlets arguing that sent abroad to study the languages, laws, habit, man­ the only way Japan could industrialize was by setting up ufactures, methods of government, and all other mat­ a banking system modeled on that of Alexander Hamilton. ters appertaining to western civilization, the greater Japan succeeded in using this Hamiltonian system to part of which is to be introduced into Japan. industrialize 100 years ago. Now perhaps the best lesson the United States can learn from Japan is an appreciation The leaders who created this burst of creativity in Japan of American System economics and how to apply them. were the product of 100 years of an intellectual and political movement that began in the 18th century with a Daniel Sneider is the Asian editor of the Executive small group of medical scientists known as the Rangaku, Intelligence Review.

46 FUSION August 1981 Inside Energy

//The oil reserves of the coun- the Congressional Office of Tech­ • try, as the public has been Misestimating nology Assessment (OTA) with the frequently warned, appear ade­ title "World Petroleum Availability: quate to supply the demand for Fossil-Fuel Resources 1980-2000," similarly concludes that only a limited number of years. . .. it is "highly likely that there Will be For some years we have had to little or no increase in world pro­ import oil, and with the growth in duction of oil from conventional demand, our dependence on for­ sources. . . . Oil production in the eign oil has become steadily industrialized noncommunist world greater. ... It is therefore evident could begin to decline by the early that the people of the United States 1980s." should be informed as fully as pos­ Perhaps even more discouraging sible as to the reserves now left in is an analysis by the recently retired this country. . . ." head of the U.S. Geological Survey, This 1922 repbrt by the American by William Engdahl H. William Menard, which was pop­ Association of Petroleum Geolo­ ularized in a January 1981 Scientific gists, recommending elimination of American article, "Toward a Ra­ waste, development of a synthetic time and money to search out new tional Strategy for Oil Exploration." shale-oil industry, and increased fields. Menard argues that, based on his­ use of coal, estimated crude oil re­ A deeper problem lies in the torical analysis of exploration effort sources in the United States at 9 methodology of reserve projection in the lower 48 states (deliberately billion barrels. techniques. A recently published excluding the Rocky Mountain Ov- John D. Moody, a highly re­ study by the Rand Corporation, erthrust Belt, Alaska, and the Outer spected petroleum geologist, in which was commissioned by the Continental Shelf), the number of 1977 compared this embarrassingly Carter administration in 1978 ("The oil fields discovered has been de­ low 9-billion figure to his estimate Discovery of Significant Oil and Gas clining exponentially from a discov­ of 50 billion barrels of discovered Fields in the United States"), states ery peak of 1.8 billion barrels per reserves and some 150 billion bar­ bluntly, "We estimate that 80 to 90 year in the 1930s. rels in as yet undiscovered reserves percent of all crude oil, natural gas, Gambling in the United States, providing a and natural gas liquids that will ul­ Menard's method is similar to potential just short of a 70-year sup­ timately be produced in this coun­ that of a gambler who has rolled ply. try below $40 a barrel is in fields too many dice in Las Vegas. Termed Since that 1922 misestimate, there that already have been discovered." a computerized "random-drilling have been a number of attempts to The report's author, Richard Nehr- model of oil exploration," the estimate world oil reserves, with ing, further states that "the petro­ Menard method says that the prob­ equally unreliable results. Why is it leum industry is gradually running ability of finding an oil field by so difficult to determine accurately out of ideas as to where oil and gas purely random drilling is about how large our fossil-fuel reserves may still be found in the United equal to the actual results using are worldwide? States, not because of a lack of billions of dollars for subsurface ge­ As Dr. Hollis D. Hedberg, profes­ creativity and imagination, but be­ ology. sor of geology emeritus at Prince­ cause of the increasing exhaustion Significantly, Menard uses King- ton University, has noted, one an­ of geological possibilities." Hubbert units (1 King-Hubbert unit swer lies in the fact that "In spite of Using Nehring's analytical meth­ equals 100 million feet of explora­ the tremendous progress that has odology, the report then issues a tion drilling) rather than the more been made in petroleum geology, pessimistic evaluation that U.S. sup­ indicative number of wells drilled— geophysics, and geochemistry, it is plies of petroleum liquids can con­ wells are now being drilled deeper still not possible to determine with tinue at 1979 levels of production to recover larger pay zones. In assurance the amount of petroleum for only 20 to 40 years more, with other words, according to Menard, in an untested region in advance of natural gas lasting for 17 to 26 years, drilling five 2,000-foot-deep wells at substantial drilling." To emphasize all at a cost of exploration and pro­ random locations is equivalent to his point, Hedberg cites the unan­ duction of $40 per barrel. drilling one 10,000-foot-deep well ticipated magnitude of the recent "We've found a lot of oil and gas at a geologically determined site. discovery of some 10 billion barrels in this country," Nehring states, Two half-wells equal a whole! of oil on the North Slope of Alaska. "but we've already produced most Not only does Menard arbitrarily In other words, the resource isn't of it, and nearly all of it at costs of ignore the areas of most vigorous really there until exploration com­ less than $10 a barrel." new exploration and production, panies are encouraged to invest the An October 1980 report issued by Continued on page 48

Inside Energy August 1981 FUSION 47 World reserves have been simi­ administration, combined with re­ Inside Energy larly underestimated. Thirty years cord-breaking levels of exploration Continued from page 47 ago, the estimated size for world in new areas of the Rocky Mountain but he also ignores such relevant reserves more than doubled to 1.6 Overthrust Belt, the Williston Basin, historical factors as the move of trillion barrels when a Stanford pro­ the Tuscaloosa Trend, the Black major oil companies into the Mid­ fessor named Levorsen included Warrior Basin, and the Appalachian east over the past 25 years. the highly rich offshore basins in Overthrust, show that with ade­ In short, statistics can be a dan­ the calculations for the first time. quate incentives for new explora­ gerous weapon in the wrong hands. By the late 1960s, a consensus of 1.8 tory activity, reserve additions will The Rand, OTA, and Menard As­ to 2 trillion barrels was reached. begin to appear—just as they did sessments all share a common Michel T. Halbouty, renowned after 1922. methodological blunder that makes petroleum geologist and past chair­ As Interior Secretary James Watt, them next to worthless as policy man of President Reagan's Energy Energy Secretary James Edwards, guides. Nehring, who wrote the Policy Task Force, agrees with John and geologists like Hedberg under­ Rand report, also collaborated with Moody's estimate that with 514 bil­ stand, we need exploration in the the CIA economist Walt Macdonald lion barrels of oil equivalent (in­ most promising new regions com­ on the infamous 1977 CIA report, cluding natural gas) produced to bined with deeper development of "The International Energy Situa­ date, there are 1.1 trillion barrels of existing fields. Hedberg is con­ tion: Outlook to 1985," which pre­ oil equivalent worldwide in re­ vinced that the principal site of de­ dicted peaking world oil output by serves and a further undiscovered velopment of new U.S. oil lies in the early 1980s followed by inter­ potential of 1.7 trillion barrels. the largely unexplored offshore national competition over dwin­ Assessing the data of Nehring, areas. He notes that of the almost dling resources. Menard, and others, Halbouty 1,700,000 square miles of U.S. off­ Macdonald admitted that in pro­ notes that one reason for a global shore Continental Shelf area that jecting future Soviet hydrocarbon decline in the rate of new discov­ has great geological promise, we reserves, for example, he merely eries for the years 1965-1976 is sim­ have leased only a little more, than made a simple linear extrapolation ply that exploratory drilling levels 2 percent for exploratory drilling. of past data to predict that the So­ have remained more or less con­ "The amount of producible pe­ viet Union would be forced to com­ stant outside North America, and troleum in this U.S. offshore is an pete for Persian Gulf oil by the mid- that although there have been in­ unknown," Hedberg says, empha­ 1980s. When asked why he did not creasing levels of exploration in the sizing that "almost all of it has suf­ take into account the nonlinear ef­ United States and Canada, much of ficient prospects to be worthy of fects of enhanced-recovery and it has been in marginal fields with drilling exploration." other improved technologies, Mac­ limited potential. Aggressive exploration with gov­ donald replied, "Because this is the Halbouty, a scientist rather than ernment encouragement, develop­ way I was told to do it." a pure statistician like the Rand an­ ment of new technologies to en­ His method points up the flaw in alysts, concludes: "About as much hance retrieval, basic research in all these reports. The science of oil and slightly more gas remain to the science of hydrocarbon geol­ geology should not be confused be found as have been discovered ogy, and research into how fossil with statistical regression analysis, so far. . . . The undiscovered poten­ reserves are formed in the first random-drilling models, and the tial throughout the world is siza­ place will enable us to make sci­ like, none of which takes into ac­ ble." entific projections about our hy­ count the reasons why there has Recent decisions by the Reagan drocarbon reserves for the future. been a relative stagnation of dis­ coveries of new giant fields. For example, using a statistical analysis of the number of giants and large (between 50 and 500 million barrels) U.S. fields, Nehring con­ cludes that "the amount of crude oil discovered peaked in the dec­ ade from 1926-1935, coinciding with the peak in the number of giant oil field discoveries." Yet, as we have seen, the 1922 estimate of 9 billion barrels has been "revised" to 50 billion barrels

actual and 150 billion barrels in un­ Uwe Parpari discovered reserves. A Mexican petrochemical complex: kept busy by Mexico's new oil finds.

48 FUSION August 1981 Inside Energy Washington

lion, the Senate has yet to take spe­ other programs, but nothing about cific action on the proposal. the fusion budget. Pewitt, acting di­ The budget required to carry out rector of the Office of Energy Re­ Little Progress the engineering phase of the Mag­ search, in previous testimony had netic Fusion Energy Engineering Act called the 1980 fusion act "a permis­ On Fusion Budget of 1980 is $525 million. sive piece of legislation." On April 29, Senator Pete Domenici The committee staff has given no Little progress was made in Con­ (R-N.M.), chairman of the R&D sub­ hint about Senator Domenici's think­ gress during April toward an agree­ committee of the Senate Committee ing on fusion, although he has been ment on the fiscal year 1982 budget on Energy and Natural Resources, a supporter of fusion development in for the magnetic fusion program. Al­ held hearings on the programs of the the past. though the House authorizing com­ DOE Office of Energy Research, As of this writing, the worrisome mittee has marked up the budget, which includes the fusion program. House Appropriations Committee has adding $14.7 million to the Depart­ The senator asked the DOE witness, taken no mark-up action on the fu­ ment of Energy request of $460 mil­ Dr. Doug Pewitt, questions on many sion budget, but staff members expect the DOE bill to be considered before the summer. The Senate appropria­ tions process is considerably behind that of the House and may not take place until September.

MHD Facility Dedicated

A dedication ceremony in Butte, Mont, to mark the completion of the Department of Energy's magnetohy- drodynamics (MHD) test facility took place April 24 in the middle of a Washington budget fight that may end in the elimination of the MHD U.S. Air Force General Dynamics James A. Beggs (right) and Dr. Hans Mark, nominees for NASA administrator program. and deputy administrator. The new MHD Component Devel­ opment and Integration Facility (CDIF) is a 50-megawatt thermal MHD Reagan Nominates Strong Team to NASA generator built to do engineering- scale testing of components for a President Reagan named James M. NASA, Beggs was with the Westing- coal-burning generator. MHD is a Beggs as NASA administrator and Dr. house Corporation. process to generate electricity directly Hans Mark as deputy administrator in Mark was the secretary of the Air by passing high-temperature gases April—a combination of an industry Force under President Carter and was from coal combustion through a mag­ leader and a scientist that should con­ formerly head of NASA's Ames Re­ netic field. The CDIF was designed to siderably strengthen NASA's visibility search Center. A physicist and nuclear be the first U.S. machine in which all on Capitol Hill. engineer, Mark has worked with the MHD components are simultaneously Beggs, a director of the General academic community and scientists in fully operational. Dynamics Corporation, has been re­ the national laboratories. Although the dedication, which sponsible for the Convair, Electronics, NASA supporters on Capitol Hill, marks the readiness of the CDIF to Fort Worth, and Pomona divisions of who have tried to keep the space begin operation, is a milestone for the the company. The Convair Division is agency's funding at a level high MHD program, it may be the last developing superconducting magnets enough to keep current projects on one—unless the Reagan budget for for the magnetic fusion program. schedule as well as initiate new pro­ MHD, now zero, is amended. Capitol NASA Experience grams, are hopeful that this industrial- Hill sources indicate that Congress Beggs also served in NASA's Office scientific combination will give them will probably restore between $20 and of Advanced Research and Technol­ some strong backup in the fight $30 million to the program. The fund­ ogy in 1968-69 and as undersecretary against the Office of Management ing level was more than $60 million of transportation. Before joining and Budget's budget cutting. last year.

Washington August 1981 FUSION 49 Washington

A planned economy would be worse nology is like what the Nazis did, and than being behind the Soviets. we wouldn't want that. The Soviets An Interview with the OTA and the Japanese are just like that— Question: Article IV of the U.S. Con­ short hair and all. stitution states that it is the duty of 'Hamiltonianism the government to foster science and Is Like Nazism' technology, and when we had a na­ The OTA tional science commitment—for ex­ Fusion reporter Mary Gilbertson ample, the Kennedy administration's For or Against asked a spokesman for the Congres­ promotion of NASA—the results were Technology? sional Office of Technology Assess­ noticeable. Could you comment? ment (OTA) to comment on the fact I know what you're getting at. The Congressional Office of Tech­ that the Soviet Union has moved That's Hamiltonianism. I used to think nology Assessment (OTA) was ahead of the United States in key that approach was good, but I've been founded in 1972 to evaluate the fea­ areas that bear on national security— convinced lately that Hamiltonianism sibility of new technologies—an im­ space exploration, scientific and en­ is like Nazism—I especially mean the portant and influential responsibility. gineering manpower, and basic in­ relationship between government The problem has been that since its dustrial infrastructure. and industry that Hamilton pushed. I inception, the OTA has been domi­ "That's the price we pay for a free read his material on manufacturing. nated by policy makers who are market economy," she was told. . . . It's a good thing Jefferson was against technology and for zero Excerpts from the OTA spokesman's around or we would never have had growth. remarks appear below. For a factual a free country. Hamilton was the man Founded at the initiative of Senator assessment of "How the U.S. and the behind the Constitution, and Jeffer­ Edward Kennedy and his adviser, Club Soviets Measure Up," see the special son was behind the Declaration of of Rome member Michael Michaelis, report on "Science and National Se­ Independence. Jefferson stood for OTA's first director was Russell Peter­ curity" in the July Fusion, p. 13. the free traders. son, who is now in the forefront of the environmentalist attacks on Inte­ Question: Didn't we fight a revolu­ rior Secretary James Watt. Peterson is tion against the free traders so the a member of the boards of the U.S. Question: Could you comment on country could commit itself to a pol­ Association of the Club of Rome and the growing U.S.-Soviet gap? icy of fostering science and technol­ the World Wildlife Fund, president of It's kind of shocking that they are ogy? The free traders are the ones the National Audubon Society, and a so far ahead, but that's okay. Our who say sell anything—even dope. leading supporter of the Global 2000 being behind the Soviets is proof of That's the price we pay for freedom. Report. the fact that we have a free market Look at the engineering faculty in he The OTA's current director, John H. economy; that's the price we pay for United States today. We'll never catch Gibbons, is a specialist in university a free market economy. The Soviets up, because no one wants to teach and government energy conservation and the Japanese have planned econ­ when the salaries are so much higher and environmental quality programs. omies, but we don't want that be­ in electronic engineering. . . . Having Working under Gibbons is Michael cause it would be like Nazi Germany. government push science and tech- Walsh, another Club of Rome mem­ ber. The OTA has produced reports crit­ ical of the supersonic transport pas­ senger aircraft; pesticides; fertilizer use; advanced medical technology; international nuclear plant sales; and the U.S. fusion research program. Currently the OTA rates synfuels as feasible, nuclear energy as not. Ac­ cording to the OTA, fusion should be rejected in favor of biomass and other low-technology energy sources, be­ cause fusion requires a more central­ Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury ized economy. secretary of the United States. His The OTA is financed with U.S. tax­ 1792 Report on Manufactures is now payers' money at a current level of considered "Nazi" by some officials $13 million a year. You can reach the at the OTA. OTA at (202) 226-2090.

50 FUSION August 1981 Washington International

cent warnings that Spacelab, which ESA is building to fly on the Space Shuttle, is in jeopardy, Aigrain ap­ 'Gray Matter' peared confident that whatever fund­ ing problems may have existed have France's Most Valuable Resource been resolved. The French minister issued an ap­ France has "the world's most am­ became the main preoccupation of peal for international cooperation, bitious program for research," Pierre the nation." particularly between the United States Aigrain, France's state secretary in Nuclear energy, which is scheduled and Western Europe, in basic science charge of research, told members of to produce 80 percent of France's projects. He cited the case of the the French community in New York electricity by 1990, is now so widely Large Electron Positron particle accel­ April 16. In a presentation sponsored accepted in France that vacationing erator currently being built by the by the Clubs Perspectives et Realites, families frequently include tours of Center for Nuclear Studies and Re­ Aigrain reported that the French gov­ nuclear plants and other high-tech­ search (CERN) based in Geneva. The ernment's newly issued Eighth Plan nology facilities in their travel plans. LEP will have a 10-kilometer diameter. calls for a 7 to 8 percent per annum We have a tendency to forget, Ai­ "If we want to make a larger machine increase in research spending for the grain said, that France is not just a some day," Aigrain said, "we will next seven years—the highest growth land famous for its haute couture, need the surface of an American state rate anywhere in the world, including wine, and cheese. "France is the to do it. I'm not even sure Rhode )apan. Moreover, the adopted re­ world's third largest exporter in vol­ Island would be big enough!" search budget for 1981 is 8 percent ume terms, on equal footing with —Dana Sloan higher than last year's. Japan, which has about double the In his speech and in wide-ranging population. In terms of the rate of interviews, Aigrain emphasized that export growth, France is first in the An Interview France has no national resources ex­ world, in a tie with West Germany cept its R&D and scientific capabili­ and far ahead of the United States With Pierre Aigrain ties. However, these, he said, are an and Japan. The share of exports in unlimited resource. French economic activity is 2.2 times Science for "Gray matter has an enormous ad­ greater than in Japan," he said. vantage," Aigrain commented. "It is The Space Program Industrial Growth the only raw material that doesn't get Aigrain also ventured into more used up when you use it. In fact, the sensitive ground, warning that the more you use it, the more you have cancellation of the U.S. side of the In an interview with Fusion contrib­ of it." joint NASA-European Space Agency utor Dana Sloan, French Secretary for Another major theme of Aigrain's Solar Polar Mission puts "ESA's Sur­ Research Pierre Aigrain expanded on New York presentation was that the vival at stake." The cancellation was France's fusion program, the need for majority of the French population precipitated by the U.S. budget cuts, U.S.-European cooperation in basic shares its government's concern with and it provoked loud protests from science research, and his definition of advancing France's scientific and ESA, which has already spent large postindustrial society. The interview technological capabilities. "It would amounts of funds on the now defunct took place April 17, in New York, after be inconceivable," he said, "it would project. Aigrain's public presentations. Here not permit our population to satisfy The International Solar Polar Mis­ are excerpts. its aspirations, if we were not engaged sion was a cooperative venture in in a fundamental research effort plac­ which two spacecraft, one built by Question: Has the French govern­ ing us among the first in the world." ESA and the other by NASA, were to ment accelerated its fusion program "We have great ambitions," he be launched by the U.S. Space Shuttle with additional funding? continued, "but they can only be re­ with trajectories taking them on paths There has been a slight acceleration alized if the population as a whole flying over the opposite poles of the this year because we started putting considers scientific and technological Sun. This mission was designed to give money in the TOR-Supra. It's a new research to be the future of the na­ man the first three-dimensional view level of spending, but our plans are tion." of the Sun through pictures taken to keep that level of spending rela­ This educational goal was in part simultaneously from the two vantage tively constant. We are not expanding accomplished by a white paper on points. fusion expenditures any faster than research, which was widely distrib­ Aigrain said that he hoped Con­ other research expenditures. And of uted last September, especially to the course, the biggest amount of money gress would increase NASA's funding press, Aigrain said. "It had the impact actually goes to the Joint European to enable it to revive the program or we wanted. For the first time, research Torus [JET]. start a similar one. Despite some re- International August 1981 FUSION 51 International

Question: Does this mean that you are banking on the JET for the indus­ trial realization of fusion, or are you counting on the French fusion pro­ gram to achieve this? Assuming we achieve—when I say we, I mean maybe the JET program, maybe the American large tokamak, or maybe the Japanese—assuming somebody achieves scientific break­ even by the end of the decade, then I believe that before a significant amount of energy is produced from fusion, we will probably have to wait 20 to 30 years for industrial realization. There will still be all the engineering and industrial development side. And fusion, like all energy, is capital inten­ sive. An interesting point is that the lower the fuel costs—the recurring costs—of an energy producing sys­ tem, the higher its capital costs. When a new source of energy becomes eco­ nomically competitive, the sum of the amortization of the capital investment plus the recurring costs are, by defi­ nition, equal to those combined costs

for all other sources of energy. So if EDF French Embassy Press and Information Division an energy source has a lower fuel An aerial view of the 750,000-kilowatt nuclear power station at Chinon, France. replacement cost, it obviously has a With the change in government, a question mark now hangs over France's higher investment cost. And that ambitious nuclear and R&D programs. Inset: Pierre Aigrain, state secretary for means we are limited by the availa­ research in the Ciscard government. bility of capital. This is true for all new energy sources, and it will be true for fusion, too. that the plasma frequency is close to at ultraviolet lasers like Eximer lasers, Between the point of scientific the wavelength. And if the wave­ krypton-fluoride lasers, and things breakeven and a real fusion-based length is shorter, then the higher den­ like that may be a better solution. So industry, probably 20 or 25 years will sity regions and the mean free path the Ecole's work may have an influ­ go by. The question of industrial de­ of fast electrons are smaller; there is ence on the kind of lasers that we velopment of fusion will arise only in a smaller proportion of fast electrons have to develop. 1990, and it is at that time that the moving to the center of target and problem will become urgent. preheating the target—something the Question: U.S.-European cooperation How we will do it at that time, I scientists would like to avoid—so ap­ received a major blow with the can­ don't know. parently better compression charac­ cellation of the joint NASA-ESA Solar teristics are achieved by working with Polar Mission. Do you see any hope Question: What can you tell us about shorter wavelengths. for reviving this program? the breakthroughs achieved in fusion If confirmed by further studies, this I would hope that possibly other by the Ecole Polytechnique team? work could change the order of mag­ projects could be started in coopera­ By the way, the Ecole is not unique nitude of energy required for inertial tion with the United States in this area in its line of research; there is a team confinement. of basic science. working on the same line at the Uni­ It also means that the kind of laser versity of Rochester. The general idea needed would presumably not be the Question: Perhaps with the success of they are researching is that if we work same. This ultraviolet light can be pro­ the Columbia Space Shuttle there will at a shorter wavelength for inertial duced by quadrupling the frequency be a new wave of support from the confinement with laser light compres­ of the 1.06 micron neodymium glass U.S. side? sion, the light is absorbed essentially laser. But it's obvious that if what is We can hope that Congress will in the area of the plasma density such wanted is the ultraviolet light, looking give more money to NASA and that

52 FUSION August 1981 International EN JOY WIM &7 ITS MSf

NASA will be able to start either the same project or a new project.

Question: Some institutions, for ex­ ample the Club of Rome, claim that we have entered the postindustrial society. Do you think this is true? I think that it's partially true, if what is meant is that new types of ser­ vices—which by the way are strongly technology dependent—such as the storing, processing, and treatment of information are an increasing share of GNP and are going to go on increas­ ing. And if you call a society in which the share of those services has be­ come large and may become a ma­ jority, then it's true that we are mov­ ing toward a postindustrial society. The point I would like to make is that this kind of postindustrial society is a big user of science and technol­ ogy. Second, it is obvious that such a IVew aijd unique wii?e bucket society exists only if the industrial hardware part of the system is there, too. The cost of that hardware, the dfills wipe without ice proportion of that hardware in GNP, may be small and may even be de­ aijd will keep it for 5 Ijours at creasing, but it is essential. If it is not there, the rest is not there. For the same reason, the number of its iqost eiyoyable tenjperature. people involved in primary agricul­ This remarkable improvement on the traditional wine ture in the developed countries has bucket — called the Glacierware Wine Chiller — not only chills been going down. But that doesn't in 10 minutes without any ice whatsoever but will keep a mean food production is going down. Fortunately, food production has wine chilled and at its most enjoyable temperature for as been going up, and I believe that long as 5 hours. industrial production will be going up So why keep your wines in the refrigerator — where they in terms of included R&D. must be stored vertically? You can chill them right at the So it's true, we have entered the table when you de-cork them to let them "breathe". postindustrial society, but in the post- No more wet, drippy bottles, and the label always industrial society the role of industry remains dry and in place. A welcome addition to your wine is enormous! cellar, the Glacierware Wine Chiller is available in Burgundy, Ebony and Wedgewood Blue at only $24.95. Question: Does this mean that there are two definitions of the postindus­ trial society—the one that you have just given and the one put forward by the environmentalist movement, for example? That's not the postindustrial society. That's the preindustrial and, to some extent, the precivilization society. I hope this is not the way we are mov­ ing. I don't believe we should have a society that is a combination of stone age economics plus philosophical dis­ cussions.

International Science Update/Military

from the shortness of the X-ray laser transition, is that the pumping can be done, in any case, only by a traveling wave excitation along the rod, with Nuclear and Thermonuclear the excitation wave moving with the velocity of light. I solved this problem Directed Beam Weapons with the concept of a neutron- induced "bleach-out" wave. This can by Dr. Friedwardt Winterberg be done by "poisoning" the laser rod with a neutron absorber whose con­ A recent report by Aviation Week for one, have considered the possi­ centration changes along the rod. & Space Technology (Feb. 23) suggests bility since 1970. The idea seems ob­ Then, if the rod is exposed to the that Lawrence Livermore National vious, but the problem is how to intense neutron flux of an exploding Laboratory "invented" the idea of translate it into a practical device. neutron bomb, a nuclear excitation pumping a short-wavelength (X- or It was not until the mid-1970s that wave will propagate along the rod as y-ray) laser, with a nuclear explosion. I discovered a working concept; and, the neutron-absorbing nuclei are Such ideas, however, most likely have on the invitation of the Air Force transmuted into nonabsorbing nuclei occurred to many other scientists. secretary, I presented a lecture on this through neutron-absorbing reactions. Moreover, the feat accomplished by idea at the Air Force Weapons Labo­ It turns out that by a certain expo­ Livermore, a soft X-ray laser pulse of ratory in Albuquerque, N.M. on July nential concentration profile, one can 500 kj, does not measure up to the 15, 1977. My lecture was attended by thereby generate an excitation wave vastly greater pump energy available, the senior scientific staff members of propagating along the rod with the which must have been in the neigh­ the Air Force Weapons and Sandia velocity of light, as is required for an borhood of a kiloton explosion. A laboratories. I subsequently submit­ X-ray laser. 500-kJ X-ray pulse is by comparison ted two papers containing detailed The same principle could also be not much larger than the explosive calculations to the Energy Research used to pump a y-ray laser. However, energy of a potato! and Development Administration and because of the much larger nuclear Furthermore, the drawing shown in the U.S. Air Force. To my knowledge, recoil, this would require using some­ the Aviation Week article must have the papers also circulated at Liver­ thing like the Mbssbauer effect. Since been the product of a misunderstand­ more. at the high temperatures expected ing. The configuration shown could Neutrons Superior to X-Rays any crystal structure would be de­ hardly be used to pump the laser rods According to the Aviation Week stroyed, I suggested using a strong with a nuclear explosion. story, Livermore used pumping of the magnetic field to take up the recoil Nevertheless, the experimental re­ X-ray laser rod by X-rays from the over the excitation of Alfven waves, sult achieved can be viewed as the nuclear explosion. If this was indeed rather than sound waves as used in beginning of a new chapter in laser the case, it would explain the rather the ordinary Mossbauer effect. A y- technology. The article stresses the poor efficiency of not more than ap­ ray laser would have an even greater importance that this kind of concept proximately 10 6. In my concept, I power than an X-ray laser and would may have as an antiballistic-missile proposed to do the pumping by neu­ be the next most difficult goal to (ABM) weapon. What appears infi­ trons rather than X-rays. reach. nitely more important, however, is There are two reasons for choosing Various Designs that such soft X-ray lasers should also neutrons. First, the X-rays do not eas­ One way a nuclear X-ray laser be feasible using thermonuclear ily penetrate into the laser rod, which weapon could be built is shown in microexplosions. In this case, the ap­ consists of some high-atomic-number Figure 1. A cylindrical neutron bomb, plication is purely peaceful. material. Second, the pumping effi­ labeled NB, is positioned in the center For example, it could lead to holo­ ciency, resembling optical pumping, of a cylindrical beryllium-9 neutron graphic X-ray microscopy by which is inherently poor. If neutrons were reflector. Surrounding this cylindrical the cause of cancer could be investi­ used for the pumping, they could neutron bomb are several prisms P, gated by the observation of living easily penetrate into the rod material. which prevent the laser rods R posi­ tissue on the molecular level. But Then, if the rod contained some ura- tioned behind them from being pre­ even X-ray lasers driven by thermo­ nium-235, for example, the neutron- maturely vaporized by the X-ray flash nuclear macroexplosions may have a induced fission reactions could locally from the nuclear explosion. peaceful application as a means of create a population inversion. Figure 2 shows a much larger device interstellar communication. Neutron reactions releasing y-rays where a thermonuclear explosive TE As I stated at the beginning, the could also be used. In this kind pumps one large laser rod LR. If a 10- idea of using a nuclear explosion to of nuclear-pumped laser, a neutron megaton bomb is used and if the pump an X-ray laser must have oc­ bomb would be optimal. pumping efficiency is only 1 percent, curred to many scientists long ago. I, One principal problem, resulting the resulting laser beam will still have

54 FUSION August 1981 Science Update an energy of 10 kilotons, that is, about 10" times bigger than the energy of the Dauphin X-ray laser. A laser of such an energy output could ob­ viously be used as an ABM defense weapon. Another alternative is to use a se­ quence of laser beams rapidly fired from space onto the atmosphere to drill a hole through the atmosphere (a) Axial cross section (b) Radial view to the ground. The X-rays would pass Figure 1 through this hole, killing all higher NUCLEAR X-RAY LASER WEAPON USING NEUTRON BOMB forms of life within a large radius The cylindrical neutron bomb NB is placed within a cylindrical neutron while leaving all structures undam­ reflector Be made of beryllium-9. The detonator D sets off a high aged. The configuration shown in Fig­ explosive HE, which in turn explodes the fission trigger F for the neutron ure 3 uses the principle of staged bomb. The prisms P surrounding the neutron bomb prevent the laser explosions to do this, where a smaller rods R from being vaporized prematurely. The neutrons from the bomb nuclear explosion compresses and ig­ penetrate the laser rods, which produce laser beams of intense X-rays, nites the nuclear explosive of a sub­ to be directed at ballistic missiles, for example. sequent larger one. Besides using nuclear-pumped las­ ers as a possible ABM defense, one may also consider alternatives such as fast plasma beams or beams of macro- particles. The first possibility could be realized by a thermonuclear shape charge like that shown in Figure 4. A spherical thermonuclear detonation wave, ignited at the ignition point IP, is transformed into a plane detonation wave by a thermonuclear plane wave lens. In the technology of high explo­ Figure 2 sives a plane wave lens is realized by NUCLEAR X-RAY LASER WEAPON two explosives possessing different USING THERMONUCLEAR EXPLOSIVES detonation velocities. Here this goal In this larger device, a thermonuclear explosive TE pumps one large laser is reached by placing solid obstacles rod LR. The fission explosive A creates a shock wave that is deflected by in the path of the wave, forcing the the deflection cone C, passing between it and the tamp T in Prandtl- wave to go around these obstacles. Meyer flow PM. The thermonuclear shock burn wave from the thermo­ The resulting thermonuclear plane nuclear fuse F is then shaped by the thermonuclear plane wave lens PW wave then collapses a metallic liner L, and the deflection wedge D. A coherent X-ray laser beam XB passes out as in the case of an ordinary shape from the laser rod LR, which has been pumped by the thermonuclear charge, resulting in a fast plasma jet explosive TE. NA is the neutron absorber, which creates the conditions ]. This jet could then be thrown for an excitation wave propagating at the speed of light. against incoming missiles. Finally, Figure 5 shows the concept of a nuclear-explosive-driven railgun. An exploding atomic bomb F gener­ ating an intense X-ray flash will induce a photoelectric current in one of the rails Rv The second rail R2 is shielded against the X-ray flux. As a result, a large electromotive force and hence Figure 3 a large electric current will be set up THE PRINCIPLE OF STAGED EXPLOSIONS in the circuit formed by the rails, the The fission explosion A creates a compression shock wave that passes shield, and the projectile. We thus through a series of staged laser rods with fissionable material Lv L2, Ly have the conditions for a nuclear- Each smaller nuclear explosion compresses and ignites the next larger driven railgun. Its performance can be further im-

Science Update August 1981 FUSION 55 Science Update

proved, as shown, by pushing the rails per second. A potshot of such projec­ 2,4,5-1 Herbicide against each other with the soft X-rays tiles could be used as an efficient from the nuclear explosion, to be ABM defense. confined and guided along tho gap The new kind of nuclear ABM de­ More Evidence formed by the outer surface of the fense described differs from the old rails and inner surface of the tamp T. one in that it would direct the To Drop Ban With such a nuclear railgun it energy released, with a correspond­ The American Council on Science should be possible to propel large ingly larger kill radius. It depends, and Health released a comprehensive masses, on the order of tons, to ve­ however, on the need for a vastly study in Washington, D.C., April 14 locities of several tens of kilometers greater accuracy in aiming. concluding that there is no scientific evidence to justify the permanent ban on the herbicide 2,4,5-T sought by the Environmental Protection Agency. "No scientific evidence presented to date has shown any convincing relationship between the traditional domestic use of 2,4,5-T and any illness in humans," stated Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, executive director of the council. The controversy over 2,4,5-T has centered not on the herbicide itself but on a contaminant, the toxic sub­ stance known as dioxin, that is formed in its manufacture. Recent research has shown that dioxin is probably less dangerous than previously presumed. Moreover, the amount of dioxin in commercial 2,4,5-T is miniscule— Figure 4 about 1 part in 100 million. FAST PLASMA BEAM WEAPONS Nevertheless, most agricultural uses A spherical thermonuclear detonation wave is ignited at ignition point of the herbicide were banned by the IP and shaped into a plane wave with detonation front DF by the plane EPA more than a year ago after an wave lens consisting of solid obstacles. TE is the thermonuclear explosive, EPA investigation in Alsea, Ore., re­ T is the tamp, and L is the metal liner that is collapsed by the detonation sulted in claims by women that a front, resulting in a fast plasma jet j. relationship exists between miscar­ riages and the use of the herbicide. The herbicide scare was fueled by the subsequent flap over "Agent Or­ ange," one of the defoliants used in Vietnam, which contains dioxin and is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Vietnam veterans. There is no evi­ dence that the veterans' multiple symptoms are caused by Agent Or­ ange. Moreover, the defoliant has a much higher concentration of dioxin than 2,4,5-T. This is not the first study to attack Figure 5 the myths about the effective herbi­ NUCLEAR-EXPLOSIVE-DRIVEN RAILGUN cide. However, in a development that An exploding atomic bomb F generates an intense X-ray flash, inducing may signal the Reagan administra­ a photoelectric electron current /,. in the rail /?,. P. is shielded from the tion's intention to drop the ban, ad­ X-ray flux by a lead shield LS, setting up a large electromotive force ministrative hearings were recessed in between the rails. The rails are pushed together by the soft X-rays along April so that EPA and Dow Chemical, the gap between the rails and the tamp T. This nuclear railgun can the principal manufacturer of 2,4,5-T, propel the projectile P at great velocities. could negotiate a settlement to the proceedings.

56 FUSION August 1981 Science Update Science Update/Technology

strength of the magnetic field is varied until particles register on the detector at the end of the path. Once the velocity, radius of curvature, and Advance in Mass Spectrometry magnetic field strength are known, Will Aid Fusion Development the mass and hence isotopic identity of the particles that reach the detec­ A recent development in the tech­ lets, reprocessing, and reactor oper­ tor can be determined. nology of the mass spectrometer, an ation. Particles of different atomic mass instrument that measures the atomic Any mass spectrometer is based on will have hit the collimators, or walls, mass of particles, will permit far more the fact that when a charged parti­ therefore not registering on the de­ accurate measurements of the iso- cle—of hydrogen, deuterium, or trit­ tector. However, these particles can topic content of fusion fuels, as well ium, for example—travels through a be identified by again varying thn as the ingredients of fission reactor uniform magnetic field, its mass, ve­ magnetic field strength until their ra­ fuels throughout the nuclear fuel locity, radius of curvature, and the dius of curvature matches the equip­ cycle. strength of the magnetic field are all ment, and these particles begin to A leading company in the devel­ related in a predictable way. If the impinge on the detector. opment and manufacture of mass strength of the magnetic field, the In addition to the magnetic ana­ spectrometers has recently an­ velocity of the particle, and its radius lyzer, the Gazab makes use of an nounced that it is producing a new of curvature are known, then the mass electrostatic field analyzer, which ac­ spectrometer, called the Gazab, that can be determined. counts for the high resolution of the produces a resolution of 100,000, or How the Gazab Works device and its ability to discriminate more than a factor of 10 higher than The Gazab mass spectrometer among isotopes and compounds of the next best spectrometer in its line works as follows: The material to be nearly equal masses. When a charged of precision instruments for analyzing analyzed is gasified (if it is not already particle travels through a magnetic gases. The company, VG Micromass, a gas) and ionized and then acceler­ field, its mass is proportional to 1 over a subsidiary of the VG Instruments ated by applying a voltage. The beam its velocity; while in an electrostatic Groups based in Winsford, England, of charged particles is directed field, the mass is proportional to 1 is planning to market its new product through a series of collimators and over the velocity squared, permitting to the nuclear industry in the United magnetic optics, which appropriately increased sensitivity in measuring the States and other countries. shape the beam before it enters the mass. According to its manufacturer, the uniform magnetic field. The new instrument also utilizes Gazab spectrometer can both differ­ The path traveled by the particle advanced computer and electronics entiate among isotopes of elements beam is determined by the instru­ techniques for recording, detection, with only slightly differing masses and ment. The velocity of the particles is and operation. measure the amount of each isotope also determined and known. Then the —Ion Gilbertson in a gas mixture with far greater pre­ cision than before. Thus, in a fusion fuel mixture that is made up of hy­ drogen (H), deuterium (D), and trit­ ium (T)—isotopes of the same ele­ ment, hydrogen, that differ only in their atomic mass—the Gazab spec­ trometer is capable of precisely meas­ uring the amounts of each of the three isotopes present. The ability to identify and measure these and the other elements and isotopes present in the fuel is essential for designing, developing, and operating future fu­ sion reactors. The instrument, operated in com­ bination with other specialized mass spectrometers, will also permit the isotopic and chemical analysis q>f

every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle VG Micromass in fission reactors, including the ore The VG Gazab mass spectrometer built for use by the U.S. nuclear industry. conversion to uranium hexafluoride, The high resolution of this new spectrometer will enable nuclear researchers enrichment, conversion to fuel pel­ to differentiate among isotopes of elements with nearly the same mass.

Science Update August 1981 FUSION 57 FEF News

Anatomy of a Slander * FEF 'Bad' Because It's So Effective? The campaign against nuclear pronuclear publisher in Oregon who defaming the Fusion Energy Founda­ power and industrial growth in the is a long-time nuclear activist, brought tion. United States has taken some strange to the attention of Fusion energy ed­ The apparent originator of the slan­ turns since the Nov, 4 election. itor William Engdahl an attempt to der was Elihu Bergman, the executive In April, Richard Bornemann, a derail the fight for nuclear energy by director of Americans for Energy In­ dependence (AEI). Bergman was for­ merly the assistant director of the Harvard Center for Population Stud­ ies. On Feb. 5, H. Jack Young, senior vice-president of the Edison Electric Institute, mailed out to utility execu­ tives and energy activists around the country a packet of materials slander­ ing the FEF, which included a letter from AEI executive director Bergman to Young. It is apparent from Bergman's Nov. 24 letter to Young that Bergman and others brought pressure on the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) for three months after the election. That pres­ sure finally succeeded in persuading the EEl's Young to pass on to member firms slanders printed by the Anti- Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith about the FEF and Lyndon H. La- Rouche, Jr., one of its founders. One of the slanders alleges that the FEF is a "front for the U.S. Labor Party," which they allege supports terrorism. The Labor Party, founded by LaRouche in 1973, was disbanded in 1979 when LaRouche entered the Democratic Party as a conservative Democratic candidate campaigning for the presidency. Ironically, La­ Rouche and the U.S. Labor Party earned the enmity of radical groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party, because LaRouche and his party attacked ter­ rorism and exposed its controllers in the layer of radical lawyers and uni­ versity professors typified by William Kunstler, a public defender of the Baader-Meinhof terrorists in West Germany. When Richard Bornemann asked Bergman to substantiate his allega­ tions in a phone interview, all Berg-

58 FUSION August 1981 FEF News man could do, Bornemann said, is The meeting was chaired by Ira Sey- offer "some wild and weird conspir­ bold, FEF coordinator in central Penn­ acy theories . . . against the very ef­ Pa. Meeting Initiates sylvania and former manager of the fective proenergy work of the Fusion Fight To Open TMI 1 Dosimetry Department at Three Mile Energy Foundation." Island, who briefed the audience on The FEF countered the slander with An FEF members' meeting April 29 the positive responses so far to the its own mailing to utility executives in Harrisburg, Pa. unanimously voted resolution in the state legislature. on April 12, which included the evi­ to work on getting a resolution intro­ The main presentation was by Jon dence turned up by Bornemann and duced and passed in the state legis­ Gilbertson, FEF director of nuclear a call to the executives to join with lature demanding that the President, engineering. Gilbertson summarized the FEF in its campaign to revive nu­ Congress, and the Nuclear Regulatory the cost to the nation of keeping clear power in the United States. The Commission restart TMI 1. nuclear plants shut down. "Delays in FEF's letter noted that the Anti-Defa­ The customers of the utility that plant licensing and construction have mation League's "fact-finding divi­ operates the plant, Metropolitan Edi­ cost U.S. electricity users a whopping sion" produced the report that Berg­ son/General Public Utilities, are now $25 billion already," he said, "and if man and the EEI have been circulat­ paying replacement power costs for the licensing procedures are not ing. That division is headed by Irwin the closed nuclear plant of $14 million changed, this figure will rise to $50 Suall, an avowed socialist, who led a per month. TMI 1 was shut down for billion by next year." Gilbertson said national campaign against President routine refueling at the time of the that the FEF would publish a national Ronald Reagan when Reagan was a incident at the TMI 2 plant in March report on the cost of not going nu­ public relations executive promoting 1979. The NRC has denied the utility clear. advanced energy technology for Gen­ approval for a startup, despite com­ The members and guests attending eral Electric in 1962. pliance with mandated modifications included a state legislator, union lead­ The Bornemann Letter over the past 25 months. Seven other ers, representatives of the Penn­ Richard Bornemann's letter to Fu­ reactors similar to TMI 1 have been sylvania Chamber of Commerce, a sion editor William Engdahl, dated allowed to operate while making the Met Edison representative, and sev­ April 7, appears at left. same modifications. eral community leaders.

climate. Given the size of the invest­ lands policy within the Department of Watt Testimony ment required (about a billion dollars the Interior, to be undertaken in con­ Continued from page 15 per project), the most critical element junction with other federal land man­ as a spokesman for the very real pub­ to the undertaking of deep seabed agers, that will ensure the application lic interest involved in the protection mining is the security of that invest­ of the multiple-use concept that Con­ and preservation of a strong minerals ment—a security now being deter­ gress established in its major public sector. mined by Law of the Sea Treaty ne­ lands legislation. One of the first steps Law of the Sea Treaty gotiations. that will be taken in the implemen­ The matter of deep seabed mining The decisions made and agree­ tation of that policy is the determi­ and the Law of the Sea Treaty nego­ ments reached in these negotiations nation of the status of federal lands tiations provides a graphic illustration intimately concern the broadest as­ relative to all decisions affecting min­ of the complex, highly interrelated pects of strategic minerals supplies. eral access. nature of strategic minerals policy, of For that reason, I have communicated In addition, I am considering the the need for a national minerals pol­ with Secretary Haig on the Law of the advisability of legislation to statutorily icy, and of my personal commitment Sea Treaty negotiations. . . . "release" to multiple-use lands deter­ to achieve such a policy. The Secretary of the Interior has mined under section 603 of the Fed­ The United States is now dependent minerals management responsibilities eral Land Policy and Management Act on foreign sources for effectively 100 for all federal lands. It is obvious, of 1976 to be unsuitable for wilder­ percent of our manganese—vital to however, that federal land use deci­ ness. I am reviewing, as well, provi­ the production of steel, and 100 per­ sions have not been coordinated with sions permitting exploration for and cent of our cobalt—a critical hardener national strategic and economic goals. development of minerals within the of steel. Many experts believe that There have been no official determi­ wilderness system. As minerals man­ manganese nodules, located on the nations of how much public land is ager of the public's lands, I will op­ ocean floor, are an important long- off limits or restricted from minerals pose single-use designation of those term source of manganese and cobalt exploration and development. lands if there is evidence that their for the United States and the western Coordination is imperative if we are withdrawal means a significant loss of world. Yet the ability to mine these to make sound land use decisions fuel or nonfuel mineral resources vital nodules is dependent upon the exist­ essential to the national interest. I am to our economy and the nation's in­ ence of a secure and stable financial considering elements of a new public terest. . . .

FEF News August 1981 FUSION 59 Science Press Review

resents only a small portion of the Parisi deliberately ignores the neg­ cost of nuclear electricity production, ative impact on the cost of nuclear AIF STUDY SHOWS with amortized capital costs repre­ power of regulatory delays and record NUCLEAR STILL CHEAPER senting the largest portion. high interest rates and the ray of hope A recent study issued by the Atomic Thus, five years ago the per-kilowatt held out by the Reagan administra­ Industrial Forum of the relative costs cost of electricity generated in a nu­ tion's promise to cut through much of producing electricity using nuclear clear plant was only a couple of mills of the regulatory red tape. His argu­ and coal-fired power plants makes a cheaper than in a coal-fired plant. ment is based on a study of the rela­ convincing case for the economic ad­ Today, that difference has increased tive economic merits of coal vantage of nuclear over coal, espe­ to about 16 mills per kilowatt-hour and nuclear power plants by Charles cially in a period of rapidly rising fuel and is expected to rise to 18 mills in Kopianoff, a long-time antinuclear ac­ costs. the near future. The main contribut­ tivist. Komanoff concludes that coal- Titled "An Economic Comparison ing factor has been the rise in the cost generated electricity is now cheaper of Nuclear and Coal-Fired Genera­ of low-sulfur coal. than nuclear power because of the tion," the study was written by Gor­ On the other hand, with improve­ rapidly escalating construction costs don R. Corey, financial consultant and ments in nuclear technology, it has of the latter (costs that the Corey retired vice-chairman of Common­ been possible to more than double study reviewed above shows are rising wealth Edison Company of Chicago. the energy content of a pound of no faster than those for coal-fired It was based on the actual operating uranium used in reactors. plants). experience of the two types of power * * * Who is the reader to believe? Com­ plants owned by Commonwealth Edi­ monwealth Edison will probably base son, and the results were unambigu­ MORE NEWS THAT FITS THE TIMES its investment decisions on the find­ ous: "Nuclear power is sinking in this ings of the Corey study, so it's hardly Despite all the environmentalist- country—not because of chaotic fi­ likely that Corey made up his figures. caused regulatory delays, nuclear nancial markets, public protests, or Komanoff, as noted, is an avowed power remains the cheapest way to bureaucratic tangles, but under its antinuclear activist. Parisi, formerly produce electricity. The cost of nu­ own economic weight," claimed An­ the New York Times energy corre­ clear power not only has risen more thony Parisi in an article titled "Hard spondent, is now an editor of Petro­ slowly year to year than coal-gener­ Times for the Nuclear Industry" in the leum Intelligence Weekly, a trade ated electricity, but it can be expected New York Times Magazine April 12. publication of the major oil compa­ to continue to do so into the foresee­ "Despite the almost universal as­ nies, which are not exactly disinter­ able future. sumption of years past that power ested parties. Oil-fired plants were not even con­ from the atom would one day provide The Times, which ran the article, sidered in Corey's study, since they an endless source of cheap electricity, has a long history of opposing such are not a financially viable way to the nuclear genie has turned out to dangerous and polluting inventions as provide base load electrical-generat­ be a very demanding, very expensive the electric light bulb and the string­ ing capacity. servant. Even the help the industry ing of cables to carry electricity With regulatory changes and un­ expects from the Reagan administra­ throughout New York City. certainties "continually increasing the tion would not alter that reality." —Dr. John Schoonover construction costs, delaying the ser­ vice dates and jeopardizing the avail­ ability of new facilities, both nuclear and coal," the relative advantage of nuclear is attributable to its far lower fuel costs, Corey says. Corey notes that construction costs for both nuclear and coal-fired plants have risen at an annual rate of about 15 percent in recent years. Coal-fired plants cost only one-half to two-thirds as much to construct as nuclear plants. However, in the annual oper­ ating costs of coal-fired plants, the large fuel bill outweighs amortized depreciation and other operating costs. The cost of coal has risen nearly as dramatically as oil in recent years. Nuclear power is cheaper, says a recent AIF study. "?"?? ~~ Uranium, on the other hand, rep­ Here Connecticut Yankee's plant at Haddam Neck, Conn.

60 FUSION August 1981 Science Press Review states unequivocally that it is the ob­ Letters ligation of the Congress "to promote FEF's Seybold Requests Continued from page 6 the progress of science and useful Contributions for juxtaposed with your long-term goal. arts." Please reverse your stand. I cannot We're not worried about irritating Restart TMI 1 Campaign support your efforts if you continue Office of Management and Budget Editor's note: Ira Seybold, former to seek big government . . . because director David Stockman, because we manager of the Dosimetry Depart­ I believe with big government the know that groups like the FEF and ment at Three Mile Island and FEF rate of development of nuclear en­ other citizens concerned about the coordinator in central Pennsylvania, ergy will clearly be moderate at best, effects of the budget cuts are the only is circulating the following letter to and probably well behind France and thing standing in the way of his utterly FEF members and nuclear power sup­ other countries. You cannot have wrecking the nation's economy and porters. An article on the Harrisburg your cake and eat it, too. Your pur­ science capability. meeting appears on page 59. pose is nuclear energy . . . not big government. Bite the bullet. I think Keeping Up the Dear Friends: your fundamental purpose is perhaps On April 29, I chaired a meeting the most important in the long-term Good Work called by the Fusion Energy Founda­ economic success of America. Please tion in Camp Hill, Pa., near Harris­ get on with the big show and quit To the Editor: burg. The purpose of the meeting, quibbling about how the shoe I just signed up to receive Fusion. which had excellent representaton pinches. As a construction engineer on nuclear from the leadership of labor, business, Charles C. Cook power plants, I was very interested and farm organizations in the area, Cambridge, Mass. . . . and have been wondering if the was to plan a campaign to put Three Fusion Energy Foundation has any lo­ Mile Island Unit 1 back on line. To the Editor: cal chapters. . . . The time is here for All present agreed that Unit 1 must I support all budget cuts proposed grass roots organizations in support be allowed to return to operation as by President Reagan. I am not con­ of nuclear power. soon as possible. We developed a vinced his advisers are "self deluded." I was very impressed with Fusion. plan that involves introducing a res­ Nor am I convinced that we must Don't let the negative letters about olution to the Pennsylvania state leg­ whine for money from the govern­ your articles on dope and the anti- islature and distributing a pamphlet ment! We must look to the private nuclear movement stop you from to the citizens in that area. The pam­ sector for the financing of energy printing the truth. The de-moraliza- phlet, written by Jon Gilbertson of the projects—of course it will be difficult. tion, de-energization, de-industriali­ Fusion Energy Foundation, explains Ann C. Nolen zation, and de-education is all one that the cost of replacing power from Tulsa, Okla. program to make the United States a TMI Unit 1 is $14 million per month. second-rate country. Keep up the I need your help in this effort. If The Editor Replies good work. you can make a contribution toward If the United States is to avert a Melvin G. Vinson printing the pamphlet, make your national disaster over the immediate Metairie, La. check payable to the Fusion Energy period ahead—an irreversible erosion Foundation. Please write to me [in care of our industrial base and scientific To the Editor: of the FEF] at your earliest opportunity edge—the country's proscience con­ Although unable to have com­ in support of the resolution to put stituency must take responsibility for pleted high school, I am interested in TMI 1 back on line. I cannot over­ ensuring that there is a "bigger pie" science. Fusion is much too deep for emphasize the value of such letters and not accommodate itself to a per­ me to understand, but The Young when dealing with legislators. Letters spective of "sharing the poverty" (4 Scientist isn't. especially from outside Pennsylvania concept, incidentally, borrowed di­ Being "middle aged" I am so tired will help them realize that they have rectly from British Fabian socialism). of hearing the pessimistic side of sci­ a responsibility to the nation. As for the issue of government in­ ence. It is very uplifting to realize The resolution has already been tervention, there's a big difference people are still very optimistic about well received by some of the state between government funding of low- energy. representatives, including one who skill, make-work employment and the Please find enclosed $8 for five is­ attended our meeting and who proliferation of the government bu­ sues of The Young Scientist, not for pledged himself to get it introduced. reaucracy in general—which Fusion my youngest three teenage daugh­ I think you'll agree that starting up has criticized as nonproductive—and ters, but for myself to give me a little TMI 1 will make it much easier to government funding of leading-edge more knowledge of our beautiful resolve similar but less publicized sit­ scientific endeavors and technologies. world and the people trying to main­ uations around the country. The latter type of government inter­ tain and improve it. Hopefully, in time We are on the move, so please act vention is the motor that makes the I will change to Fusion. now. Let your voice be heard. whole private economy go. More­ Eilleen Simmons Ira Seybold over, the U.S. Constitution's Article 4 Groton, Mass. Mechanicsburg, Pa.

August 1981 FUSION 61 Contributions to the FEF are tax deductible!

62 FUSION August 1981 Bumper Stickers Designed to Let You HAVE YOUR SAY

F. More People Have Died in Ted Kennedy's Cai Than in Nuclear Power Plants G. Chappaquiddick 1 Three Mile Island 0—GO ORDER TODAY! NUCLEAR $1.00 each Any 25 for $15.00 Any 100 for $35.00 H. H Mary Jo Were In Harrisburg She'd Be Master Charge and VISA accepted. Alive Today I. Don't Let Jane Fonda Pull Down Your Plants J. Nuclear Plants are Built Better Than Jane Fonda Your company can hand out its own custom de­ K. Feed Jane Fonda to the Whales signed sticker (our slogan or yours). We can pro­ L. What Spreads Faster than Radiation' Jane Fonda duce them quickly and inexpensively. Inquire. M,Nuclear Plants No! Marijuana Plants N. Warning: 1 Don 1 Brake tor Liberals Buttons: Nuclear Power is Safer than SEX CAMPAIGNER STICKER Dept. f (in English or Swedish) 52 N. Arlington Ave., East Orange, New Jersey 07017

This book is being used to stop him! Now, Robert Dreyfuss tells the entire $4.25 history: Order from your bookstore or from: TheNe\? lg; n • Why Jimmy Carter let 60 Americans be Benjamin Franklin House •rfjaT'.^ taken hostage—his secret alliance with Publishing Co., Inc. «Q.OL- Khomeini. 304 W. 58th St. 5th floor. Dept F. NY, NY 10019 • How British intelligence orchestrated Add $1.50 per book postage for 1st the mullahs' revolution. class. $.75 per book for 4th class. • Why the April "rescue" raid failed. Mastercharge / Visaholders call toll free • The Soviet's role. 800-358-9999

August 1981 FUSION 63 Bring the space age home. Eight stunning NASA photographs, color enhanced by a special process, are now available from FEF. You'll want several of these classic space- age photographs for yourself and for gifts. These unique photographs are printed on Kodak paper by Maxtron Industries, and each photo is fer- rotyped to give it a brilliant glossy surface. The photographs can be purchas­ ed unmounted, with bevel-cut mat- board, or matted and framed in silver anodized section frame.

The Young Scientist is making history! Each issue of The Young Scientist magazine tells readers about the scientists, exper­ iments, and discoveries on the frontiers of science today—and yesterday. Why are the Saturn results important? How does genetic engineering work? Why are soap bubbles shaped like spheres? The Young Scientist answers questions like this in every issue—and has puzzles and experiments, Interviews, news, and photo­ graphic tours of the nation's leading scientific labs, museums, and high- technology industries. Published bimonthly by the Fusion Energy Foundation, The Young Scientist is part of a nationwide cam­ paign to reverse the collapse of American science education. Subscribe now. Give your children today's science... to make them the history makers of tomorrow.

Fill out the insert card opposite this page. What would you give to (Try $95.) And what's it v There's a premium being paid for language-knowledge in America today—and it's not only in the export trade. In multi­ national companies, in major cities, even on the factory floor, a second language marks you as the potential spokesman, the well-educated leader, the man or the woman to ask about foreign ways. And travel is so much more fun when you can meet people and talk their language. Now you can. Easily. Painlessly. All thanks to this 50-lesson do-it-yourself Berlitz® language course. Available in French, German, Italian or Spanish—it's yours for only $95.00. Packaged solidly in leather-type binding, the Berlitz Compre­ hensive Cassette Course contains: 1. Ten introductory lessons in a 90-minute long first cassette to familiarize you with the spoken language. 2. Forty additional lessons on five convenient 60-minute cassettes, making a total of 6V2 hours of recorded instruction in all. 3. 6 illustrated workbooks to use with the tapes, each containing 50 pages of easy-to-understand, concise information to help you speak with the least difficulty. 300 pages, in all, to get you on the way to fluency in a second language. 4. A specially prepared, easy-to-use Rotary Verb Finder will help you with irregular verb forms—once you're ready for grammar. This course avoids the dry and the dull—mixes voices, sound effects and useful text in the delightful manner only Berlitz, the world's best known language instructor, can offer. And cassettes don't scratch, don't warp and don't unwind—last al­ most indefinitely. Best of all, they are easy to stick in your pocket, take along on a trip or use in the car. Prepare yourself for a rewarding future. At the same time, enjoy the social advantages only a second language can bring. For $95.00, choose the course you need to start talking like a native. Use the coupon and order today.