Fusion Engineering and Design

Fusion Engineering and Design 30 (1995) 1-5

The role of the Associations in the European fusion programme

K. Pinkau Max-Planck-institut fiir Plasmaphysikk, Euratom Association, 85747 Garching, Germany

Abstract

The national fusion laboratories - the “Associations” - in the European fusion programme have the task of providing the necessary programme scope to produce frontier scientific knowledge, and to attract and train the next generation of scientists. This has to be balanced with the requirements of goal-oriented projects like JET or ITER. Until a market for fusion power stations becomes available. the “demand” side for fusion must be provided by the Associations.

The role of the Associations in the European fusion programme or, for that matter, the role of the national fusion programmes in the ITER Quadripartite collaboration have recently again moved into the centre of attention through the argument about the former ITER Director, Paul Henri Rebut, and his replacement by Robert Ay- mar. An article in Nature [l] echoes Rebut’s personal opinion that, during his previous experi- ence as the widely respected head of the JET at Culham in the UK, the “project made the key decisions, and the national programmes played a supportive role”. He has argued: “The same must also be true for ITER”.

The “role of the Associations” or the role of the project team (be it JET or ITER) is therefore a reoccurrence of the age-old question whether a situation requires that all resources should be concentrated in one large effort-which is reason- able only once the aim is given or the truth is known, and this could be called the military ap- proach-or whether the situation is such that this

truth is still uncertain so that the application of the scientific method is asked for. The scien- tific method is the advance, the finding of truth, by experiment and criticism within the scientific and technical community of knowledgeable ex- perts (e.g. [2]). Since this is an engineering confer- ence, I should perhaps say that, in the context discussed here, engineering is part of the science system.

This paper will deal with these questions just outlined, It will not describe the activities in the European Associations. This information can be taken for example, from the publication of the Commission of the European Communities [3] from which Fig. 1 is taken.

The question then is: how does the fusion pro- gramme plan to reach its goals, i.e. what is the “fusion strategy”?

The European fusion programme is “a long- term cooperative project embracing all work car- ried out in the member states in this field, designed to lead in due course to the joint con-

0920-3796/95/$09.50 8 1995 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved SSDZO920-3796(94)00396-3

2 K. Pinkuu / Fusion Engineering and Design 30 (I 995) l-5

Lausanne

Euratom - UEMAT)

(Euratom - IST) Lisboa

Titelbild : Der Joint European Torus (JET)

Fig. 1. The European Associations.

Extrap - 12 (Euratom - NFR) Stockholm

TEXTOR (Euratom - KFA,

in collaboration with Euratom-EB)

Jiliich

TOSKA (Euratom - KfK) Kwkruhe

ASDEX Upgrade Wendelstein VII-AS (Euratom - IPP) Garching

SULTAN (Euratom - Suisse) Vi&en

RFX (Euratom - ENEA) Padova

ETHEL (ECIJRC) lspra

CEC - 1993

struction of prototypes with a view to their indus- trial production and marketing”.

The implementation of this programme was originally done exclusively through “contracts of association” with the national research institutes, the so-called “Associations”. These Associations are funded institutionally by a combination of national and Euratom funding. They provide the scientific and technical knowledge; they train the new generation of fusion professionals.

In the last 15 years, the fusion programme has in addition begun to operate and proceed through goal-oriented projects. JET, NET and ITER. These projects are staffed from the Associations, and they are’ set up for limited periods of time. They have become necessary because the size of effort and equipment required for progress in many cases exceeds the capabilities of individual Associations.

The present strategy of the fusion programme foresees advancing along three paths, namely through ITER, by concept improvement, and through the development of long-term technology (Fig. 2) [4].

Fig. 2. The three paths by which the fusion programmes hope to advance.

K. Pinkau / Fusion Enginrrrirrg and Design 30 (1995) I-5 3

There is worldwide agreement that in parallel to the next large project ITER, concept improve- ment is a necessary task, with respect to con- finement, the plasma boundary and wall load problems, and with respect to the pulsed nature and disruption problem of the tokamak. Concept improvement is also addressed through con- finement principles other than the tokamak, such as the stellarator. Likewise, in parallel to ITER and concept improvement, the problems of fusion technology must be addressed.

The fusion community has thus responded to the fact that the time has not come to narrow matters down to a single approach. In fact, our recent experiences have taught us that it would be wrong to do that. The fusion programme is a scientific and technical programme by advance through experimentation and criticism and it re- quires the existence of an active and knowledge- able community to work properly.

JET was conceived as a limiter tokamak. It would not have been successful if operated as conceived. Its final success was possible only through the influx of new ideas and results from work carried out in the Associations and national programmes. The assertion that JET (I should perhaps say “always”) made the key decision and that the Associations played a supportive role is simply wrong, as historical facts show.

With regard to ITER, the fusion community worldwide provides a wealth of experience, knowledge and criticism which can place ITER on a much broader and safer basis than would be possible if the central ITER team had the sole responsibility and authority to make the key deci- sions. The management system of ITER must make sure that the very successful work done in fusion in the past 10 years is properly brought to bear on the ITER design. Beyond ITER, the worldwide fusion programme must take account of the fact that it is still uncertain whether or not the heat source of the DEMO is a tokamak.

Of course, ITER just like JET is a goal-oriented project which internally must adhere to strict management principles, but the setting up of the goal itself is not the task of the project alone; it is the scientific-technical community which has to determine which goal the project should meet

within the overall development of fusion science and technology. The project does not make the key decisions. These are taken by the science community in setting the goals for the project; the project then has to meet and execute them inter- nally. This is the borderline between what I called the “military approach” and the “scientific method”.

This then is the first role of the Associations and the national fusion programmes. The Associ- ations and the national fusion programmes world- wide have provided the necessary breadth of the programme, and they have established the scien- tific community necessary for the scientific method of truth finding to work.

Secondly, as fusion is a very-long-term task, it should not be forgotten that the scientific commu- nity as a whole is faced with the task of training the next generation of scientists and professionals. This next generation grows up everywhere and it attends universities everywhere. Naturally, it is mainly the national fusion laboratories-the As- sociations-and not the international projects which can introduce them into the fusion pro- gramme. Fusion, if it was executed (in the ex- treme) through only one project in the world, would die out.

However, having thus elaborated on the role of the Associations and national laboratories within the context of fusion strategy, it is also true to say that it becomes increasingly difficult for them to meet this obligation: their share of the scientific and technical contributions is decreasing, because of the large effort and equipment required to achieve progress. In the case of JET, the answer to the problem was to set it up as a time-limited project with the Association providing the staff and a return ticket. In this way, social security was hoped to be provided for the staff, and it was hoped to maintain and use their experience gained by putting this to use within the Association’s programme after their return. This second hope-while not yet really tested-may not come true. The JET staff may find it more interesting to go to ITER rather than to return home.

In the case of ITER, this project is of such long duration that permanent positions are envisaged. Again, will ITER then become the one and only

4 K. Pinkau / Fusion Engineering and Design 30 (1995) l-5

world fusion laboratory with no other knowledge It has to be acknowledged that we are in a generated outside and therefore no criticism possi- period of transition, and that it is not certain ble from outside? The application of the scientific whether or not the European fusion programme method comes to an end if there is only one can find forms of international collaboration source of knowledge-if, in the extreme, only one which provide the successful institutional struc- person knows the truth. ture for scientific and technical progress.

The discussion so far shows that the world fusion programme does not wish to enter that cul-de-sac. However, it is very clear that the fu- sion programmes then must organize themselves in such a way that they can provide such knowl- edge, results and training outside ITER, with interesting programmes.

Therefore a new form of organization is re- quired in addition to the large international projects, which on the one hand maintains the identity of the Associations but on the other hand strengthens their scientific and technical produc- tivity. The word “clustering” has been coined in the European fusion programme to describe that programmatic element.

However, it is clear that the worldwide fusion programme will not be successful if it cannot provide the breadth of successful frontier research in many fusion laboratories (the Associations in Europe), so that experimentation, criticism and a scientific community can be maintained. It would be the end of the hope to develop fusion power stations, if all effort were. concentrated in one project and if that project had the monopoly of knowledge.

A cluster of Associations would form around projects, where special interests are taken care of by individual laboratories within that collabora- tion. A cluster is thus a very traditional and well-known form of international scientific collab- oration, which must be established more rigor- ously in the future.

The fact that it is still undecided whether or not the goal of sufficiently broad frontier research will be reached is also because the political system has difficulties in understanding how the scientific method works.

The fusion programme therefore presents itself as a balance of forces and requirements, which are shared between national institutes, the Associa- tions, and time-limited projects, such as JET or ITER. In this picture, it is the Associations’ task to take on long-term technology development, and concept improvement in tokamaks and other relevant confinement systems such as stellarators.

(1) The Associations have to provide the neces- sary breadth of programme.

This statement opens the last topic of my pa- per. So far, I have used entirely “internal” argu- ments: how would one need to organize a successful fusion programme? Somehow at right angles to this internal argument is the question of the impact from politics. How do the scientific and technical requirements of a large internation- al programme interact with the political realities?

(2) They have to help to guide and support the large projects, such as JET or ITER.

(3) They have to train new professionals. (4) They have to maintain and improve the

stock of knowledge.

The political realities seem to lead to two differ- ent but distinct states. Either politics seems to favour the national activity, and sometimes to such a degree that the requirement of scientific and technical productivity has secondary impor- tance, or the national activity is extinguished be- cause-so it is said-the international activity provides all the answers. As has been explained above, both extremes are fatal.

(5) Using new forms of organization and col- laboration, they have to achieve these tasks in spite of the fact that their share of the scientific and technical contribution is decreasing, because of the large effort and equipment required for progress.

Normally, nations who participate in large in- ternational programmes wish to do so with a visible and identifiable national contribution. Why is it important to maintain and improve this situation-and thereby to provide a role for the Associations or the national programmes-from the political viewpoint?

The national identity and the necessity of a local root for the training of the next generation have already been mentioned.

K. Pinkau 1 Fusron Engmeering and Design 30 (1995) 1-S 5

There is another observation in the political internal discussion about research priorities, has to realm which sheds light on the necessity to main- be maintained until the demonstration of a feasible tain a broad geographical distribution of fusion and acceptable fusion power system and the deci- expertise. This derives from an answer to the sion of the public to want such a system provide question: who wants nuclear fusion as an energy for an external demand which releases the scientific source? community from this burden.

At present, it is the scientific fusion community worldwide and in the member states in the Eu- ropean Union who advance the arguments in the political discussion about the future energy supply of the industrialized nations-in favour of the development of fusion power. The argument is, essentially, that there are very few options to provide base load electricity on demand under all climate conditions in a way acceptable to society, and that fusion is one of them.

Actually, of course, there is nothing wrong with this situation. The whole history of scientific and technical achievement shows that it was always the visionaries who opened up new fields, not self-serving and often with little or no reward, until the economic and social systems realized the chances and used them.

This, then, is my view of the role of the Associ- ations in the European fusion programme and the role of the national fusion programme.

programmes in the worldwide

Therefore the “demand” side of the fusion, at present, is not provided by the market, nor by aims for political powers, nor by personal wealth, nor by the praise of the scientific reward system. It is simply provided by the social responsibility of the scientific fusion community, who see the chances for the future and who consider it to be their responsibility to make them a reality for the benefit of their societies. The scientists working in the fusion laboratories are government employees, and not part of a self-serving system.

References

[I] Nature 370 (1994) 403. (21 R.E. Merton, quoted by H. Zuckerman, The sociology of

science, Handbook of Sociology, Sage, Newburg Park, CA, 1988, Chapter 16.

Therefore the “demand” side of fusion at present is provided by the Associations in Europe. and by the national fusion programmes worldwide. This “demand” side, this voice in the national

[3] Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion, Commission of the Eu- ropean Communities, 1993. The European community fusion programme: issues, ob- jectives, milestones, Rep. prepared for the Scientific and Technical Committee by the Fusion Programme Direc- torate, DC XII, January 1993.

[4] Minutes of Committee on the Community Fusion Pro- gramme 55. March 11, 1993.