FY 2007 budget submitted to Congress.President Bush submitted his Fiscal Year 2007 budget requests to Congress on February 6. Within the Department of Energy (DOE) budget, the President requests full support for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER ITER. A foot way. Vide Way. ) fusion engineering test facility, to be built in Caderache, France. ITER is a joint venture of seven Parties: China, European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. The budget proposes to slash other domestic fusion energy programs, particularly those aimed at using lasers and other pulsed power sources to produce fusion by inertial confinement. Some magnetic confinement fusion Magnetic confinement fusion is an approach to generating fusion energy that uses magnetic fields to confine the fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of fusion energy research, the other being inertial confinement fusion. activities not directly connected to ITER are also targeted for reductions.The President proposes a budget of $319 million for the DOE's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), an increase of $31 million over the $288 M available for FY 2006. An increase of $35 M (to $60 M) is proposed for ITER, resulting in a proposed decrease of $4 M in the balance of the U.S. domestic fusion program within OFES. The President also proposes a budget of $451 M for inertial confinement fusion Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium. within the DOE's weapon's program, a decrease of $93 M. Within the inertial confinement fusion program, the budget proposes to eliminate, in its entirety, $48 M for High Average Power Lasers ($25 M), Krypton Fluuride laser research at the Naval Research Laboratory Noun 1. Naval Research Laboratory - the United States Navy's defense laboratory that conducts basic and applied research for the Navy in a variety of scientific and technical disciplines NRL ($15 M), extended operations at the Z facility at Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories, which is managed and operated by the Sandia Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation), is a major United States Department of Energy research and development national laboratory with two locations, one in Albuquerque, New ($6 M), and laser work at Ohio State University Ohio State University, main campus at Columbus; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1870, opened 1873 as Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, renamed 1878. There are also campuses at Lima, Mansfield, Marion, and Newark. ($2 M). The budget also proposes to eliminate $32 M for acceleration of the OMEGA EP project at the University of Rochester The University of Rochester (UR) is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research university located in Rochester, New York. The university is one of 62 elected members of the Association of American Universities. ($22 M) and other projects at the University of Texas, University of Nevada, Sandia and elsewhere ($26 M). Within the OFES budget, the DOE proposes to reduce funding for Heavy Ion Fusion and High Energy Density Physics by $4 M, (to a level of $12 M), to reduce Innovative Confinement Concepts research by $2 M (to a level of $20 M), and to reduce funding for fusion materials research by $2.4 M (to a level of $4.7 M). Other elements of the OFES program in support of ITER receive modest increases. Details of the FY 2007 budget requests are posted at http://fire.pppl.gov |
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