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Summary of Committee Meetings
The committee held three data-gathering meetings in 1999 and two mainly deliberative meetings in 2000.
The first meeting, a data-gathering meeting that provided the information for the interim report, was held in La Jolla, California, May 16-19, 1999. The committee heard talks on the OFES program perspective, two talks on the fusion program portfolio, and two talks on the international standing of the U.S. fusion program by respected scientists from India and Japan. Bruno Coppi, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as the official respondent and spoke after each of the talks. The committee then broke into two groups to hear more detailed, concurrent talks, one on the theoretical component of the program, the other on the experimental research component. The full committee discussed the talks to the two groups and drafted an outline and some text for the interim report. This draft was then reviewed by the steering committee at the end of the meeting.
The second meeting was held in conjunction with the 1999 Fusion Summer Study in Snowmass, Colorado, July 20-23, 1999. The committee spent some time hearing from specific researchers, including one researcher who spoke on ICF/IFE/MFE programmatic and scientific connections, but it spent most of the time observing the plenary sessions of this first-time-ever community process. The nonfusion scientists on the committee particularly found this meeting to be educational. The committee also spent time finishing the interim report and talking with the FESAC chair, John Sheffield.
The third meeting was held in conjunction with the meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics in Seattle, November 17-18, 1999. The committee heard talks on the perspectives of FESAC, the national laboratories, and part of the university community. There were also talks on the role of fusion energy in U.S. energy policy, the scientific synergism between magnetic and inertial fusion energy, and OFES decision processes. Several researchers spoke on liquid wall technology. The remainder of the committee's meeting was spent in closed deliberations.
The fourth meeting was held in Washington, D.C., February 23-25, 2000. The committee heard presentations on the demographic distribution of the field and related issues. They also heard views from the Office of Management and Budget's Examiner for OFES and the Associate Director for Fusion
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Energy Sciences. Next, the committee broke up into working groups, each of which drafted a chapter of the final report. It then came together to review the drafts as a full committee.
The fifth, and final, meeting of the committee was held at the National Academy of Sciences' Beckman Center in Irvine, California, May 8-9, 2000. The committee worked on the draft chapters and finalized the findings and recommendations of the report.
