U.S. ITER Forum

ITER Cutaway Drawing
May 8-9, 2003
Sponsored by the University Fusion Association, U.S. ITER Planning Office, and
the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Science
This website, <http://www.apam.columbia.edu/fusion/US_ITER_Forum.html>, represents a tangible outcome of what will surely be recognized as a milestone in the U.S. Fusion Program. The U.S. ITER Forum was the first community meeting of fusion scientists and engineers since the historic announcement by President Bush on February 6 calling for the U.S. to rejoin the international effort to build a burning plasma experiment at the scale of a power plant.

The President's announcement couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. The success of our research is easy to see: we have developed a fundamental and practical understanding of how to control and optimize high-temperature fusion plasma. We've built experiments that span decades of parameters, used precision diagnostics to reveal micro-scale and macro-scale plasma phenomona, and applied powerful plasma technologies and heating tools. Scientists outside fusion as well as national policy-makers recognize the readiness of fusion to launch an experiment at the scale of ITER. Furthermore, today's fusion community works within a supportive and vigourous environment of national team work.

This U.S. ITER Forum continues our tradition of inviting open community discussion to develop the scientific and technical basis for building broad support for fusion's strategic directions. On very short notice, the U.S. ITER Forum attracted over 110 participants from 29 institutions representing university, industry, and national laboratory. Thursday morning provided an overview of the U.S. ITER Planning Activities and introduced the issues and opportunities facing ITER negotiators. In the afternoon, we heard 17 presentations representing 32 contributed abstracts and more than ten white papers describing potential U.S. scientific and technical contributions to ITER. Nearly all of these presentations and papers are available for download at this website as PDF documents. During the Thursday evening, Steve Allen lead a two-hour community discussion on issues related to national organization and to the larger development of fusion energy science. Finally, on Friday morning, we separated into two break-out groups (the "yellow" and "blue" teams) to consider the question, "What factors should be considered when developing the U.S. negotiating strategy for ITER?" Brief summaries of these discussions are available.

We are grateful for the wonderful hospitality of the University of Maryland and for the support of the University Fusion Association, the U.S. ITER Planning Office, PPPL, and the DOE OFES. We also appreciate the excellent presentations (and the ability of every speaker to keep to his or hers time limit!) If I dare write one statement of strong consensus, it is our wish to participate with additional ITER workshops and discussions–but especially so when progress with the next steps of negotiations is at hand.

Sincerely,

Mike Mauel, Chair of the Organizing Committee