Message Prepared for Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond L. Orbach
on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Fusion Research
at General Atomics
San Diego, CA
May 15, 2007

I am pleased to be able to address you at this celebration of the 50th year of fusion research at General Atomics (GA).  I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts on the history of scientific leadership here at GA.

As you all know, fusion may well hold the key to our future energy supply.  General Atomics has been at the forefront of developing fusion energy, as a commercial enterprise, from nearly the beginning of the worldwide fusion research effort.  Prominent scientists from a number of universities and institutions gathered at GA in the late 1950s to pursue the early promise of harnessing fusion as an energy source.  These pioneers are too numerous to list, but they included giants of fusion such as the late Marshall Rosenbluth, the “Pope of plasma physics.”

The fusion program at General Atomics experienced the same that was experienced by other U.S. and international laboratories between 1957 and 1965, as the hoped-for rapid development of fusion proved more elusive than expected. These early hopes faded as the complexity of plasma physics and plasma instabilities were observed in small-scale experiments.  A stalwart core of fusion scientists, led by Tihiro Ohkawa, continued at GA to pursue fusion research.  A notable success in that era was the demonstration of quiescent plasmas in the toroidal octupole configuration.

I am pleased that the Department and its predecessor agencies (the Energy Research and Development Administration and Atomic Energy Commission) had the foresight to continue to fund this critical research at General Atomics for over 30 years.  The first federal grant was received by GA from the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974 to build Doublet III, based on the results obtained in Doublet I-II series, which had been funded by General Atomics. While the ownership of GA has changed several times during its illustrious history, the highly productive General Atomics fusion research effort continues to lead the world in many areas. 

The GA program has led the transformation of fusion research from small experimental devices to the highly sophisticated DIII-D facility with extensive diagnostics and configurational flexibility for scientific research; from individual laboratory settings to a major international collaborative effort. The General Atomics program has made numerous pioneering contributions to the advancement of fusion science, such as the increased plasma performance of non-circular plasma cross sections in Doublet II around 1972 and the use of divertors for heat and particle control in Doublet III around 1980.  These concepts were further developed and optimized in the current DIII-D since 1986, which led to the tokamak being chosen as the basis for ITER design to demonstrate burning plasmas.  This record of important accomplishment continues today.  The DIII-D national team is leading the scientific community in critical areas of interest to the international fusion program.  This includes, among others, the control of instabilities at very high plasma pressures with both internal and external feedback tools and the understanding of the very complex relations to plasma turbulence and resultant confinement properties of the advanced tokamak concept.

The DIII-D program has shown leadership in teaming theorists and experimentalists to pursue the complex science of fusion.  GA has also been a pioneer in international collaborations, for instance, the Department of Energy-Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) Agreement on DIII collaborations in 1979.  Major financial contributions from JAERI to the DIII program provided additional capabilities to the facility; brought a team of young Japanese scientists to use the facility half-time for many years to pursue parallel research on fusion.  Through collaborations with major U.S. laboratories and universities, and with its expanding collaborations with Japan, the European Union, China, Korea, and Russia, the national DIII-D program has become a major international center for fusion research.

General Atomics has also made important contributions to the Nation’s energy security through continuing involvement in the development of next generation fission reactors and in the nuclear fuel cycle.  Nuclear energy will provide an important bridge between our present day power generation and the introduction of commercial-scale fusion energy in the second half of the century.

In 1990, DOE recognized the ability of GA to manage complex R&D activities and awarded General Atomics the contract to manufacture the finely detailed targets for the inertial confinement fusion research program.  GA has continued to contribute in this other area of fusion research and now supports the NNSA activities to develop targets for the National Ignition Facility in addition to studying the science of fast ignition for inertial fusion energy applications.

I am pleased that so many universities and laboratories worldwide are participants in the General Atomics fusion program; in fact, many are represented here today.  With this strength of expertise and capability, I expect GA to continue to be a major contributor to the success of the ITER project and to the advancement of the worldwide fusion research effort.

Before I close, I want to acknowledge that Dr. David Baldwin, the previous General Atomics Senior Vice President of the Energy Group, has been a great leader in fusion science at GA and elsewhere.  His services have been recognized by Secretary of Energy Bodman.  Our new Associate Director for Fusion Energy Sciences, Dr. Ray Fonck, will make a presentation to Dave Baldwin at the end of his comments.