AAAS-Brookings Conf.:Nonscience AgenciesCall R&D TuneThree-hundred government, industry,and academic representatives atthe annual American Association forthe Advancement of Science conferenceon U.S. research and developmentpolicy held June 19-20 in Washington,D.C. heard Dr. Frank Press,director of the Office of Science andTechnology Policy, and Dr. John C.Sawhill, deputy secretary of the Departmentof Energy, announce thatthe federal government has laid downexplicit R&D guidelines mandatingmilitary, <strong>energy</strong>, and agricultural researchas top priority.In an era of budget cuts and inflation,they emphasized, this will meanpruning other areas and stressingshort-term applied programs ratherthan long-term commitments to basicscience.University researchers were toldthat their funding will depend ontheir pursuit of "deep-ocean drillingtechniques and economy auto research"as major priorities. CommentedDr. Edward Frieman, directorof the DO(E Office of Energy Research:"It's a gloomy environmentfor R&D at universities. We'll have tocut 1,500 from the national laboratories."Othel' speakers protested thatU.S. basic itesearch was being hinderedby a lack of equipment."Synfuels! is the key to <strong>energy</strong> development,"said Dr. Sawhill; "thesynfuels program must be carried outwith the support of the bankers andthe scientists, and the program will bemobilized like the space program."Omitting any mention of nuclearpower in his prepared remarks, Pressalso emphasized synfuels while callingfor the United States to take the leadin <strong>energy</strong> exploitation of biomass.Other presentations stressed the recentlypromulgated memorandum byJack Watson, White House liaisonwith the Federal Emergency ManagementAgericy (FEMA) and James T.Mclntyre elf the Office of Managementand Budget (OMB), urging topdowncontrol and coordination byFEMA and t>MB of local and regionaltechnology applications.The Washington-based BrookingsInstitution, which collaborated withNEW CHEMICAL PROCESSPRODUCES URANIUM FUELThe first shipment of uranium oxideproduced by a new processwas sent recently from InternationalMinerals and Chemical Corporationin Florida to be enrichedinto nuclear reactor fuel. The uraniumoxid$ is the first producedfrom phosphoric acid at the IMCrefinery, which began commercialproduction 1 in May. The new processtakes advantage of the byproductsof IMC's phosphatechemicals plants by extracting thevery small amounts of uraniumnormally present in these phosphates.IMC shipping officialsmonitor part of the initial 30,000-pound shipment.60 FUSION September-1980the AAAS in organizing the conference,was represented by its directorof economic studies, Dr. Joseph Pechman,who summarized the R&D fundingapproach: "I do not see a distinctionbetween creating wealth andredistributing wealth."Keep MaineYankee Operating!Maine is the first state in which areferendum will decide whether toshut down an operating nuclear plant,the Maine Yankee. The referendumwas placed on the September ballotafter 1,500 environmentalists from theEast Coast gathered 55,000 signaturesduring several months of petitioning.We are pleased to reprint here theremarks of Abbot Fletcher, assistantprogram manager of the FFG programat Bath Iron Works, one of the leadersof the pronuclear fight. The FFG programis building 16 guided missilefrigates for the U.S. Navy.The Maine Yankee nuclear plantcarries one-third of the state ofMaine, provides power at 1.6
SygmaThe neutron bomb debate: Traditionalist French military thinkers have opposed tactical neutron bombs as inappropriategiven Soviet military doctrine. The latest advances, however, can be used in the civilian nuclear program to generatelarge amounts of fissile fuel cheaply. Shown here is a French bomb in the Pacific Island of Mururoa.French Gain Reported in Nuclear WeaponsResearchers working on the developmentof French nuclear weaponshave reportedly achieved a major scientificbreakthrough in the course oftheir neutron bomb experiments inthe Pacific. According to the June 7-8 issue of the French daily Quotidiende Paris, French scientists have overcomethe barriers to construction oflarge-scale neutron bombs.Previously it was believed that neutronbombs were limited to a size of1 kiloton of TNT equivalent, andtherefore capable only of tactical battlefieldapplications. This reflects considerationsof the kind of <strong>fusion</strong> fuelused and how the fuel is burned andignited. Tritium has a half-life of 1,1years and is expensive; U.S. N-bombsare said to depend on tritium fuel.Other fuels such as lithium deuteride,used in ordinary H-bombs, have thedisadvantage of absorbing and degrading<strong>fusion</strong>-generated neutrons.In most seemingly practical configurations,such as a sphere, the unburned<strong>fusion</strong> fuel itself absorbs anddegrades <strong>fusion</strong>-generated neutronsas the thermonuclear burn wave,which is generated at the core of acompressed fuel configuration, heatsand ignites the cold outer layers of<strong>fusion</strong> fuel.If this report is confirmed, Frenchscientists have made significant advancesin understanding either thedynamics of thermonuclear burnwaves, thermonuclear ignition at highdensities, development of totally newtarget approaches, or all three.From a strategic point of view,Quotidien de Paris commented thatthis breakthrough will further ensurethe national security of France fromthe <strong>energy</strong> standpoint as'well as thedefense standpoint, and supersedethe debate on deployment of "tactical"neutron bombs with developmentof a new generation of strategicweapons. Another French daily, LeFigaro, was less sanguine about thecontribution to France's security.French Nuclear Program Alarming?The May 1980 issue of Bild der Wissenschaft, the highest-circulationpopular science magazine in West Germany, features an article onFrance's full nuclear fuel cycle program by Martin Urban that views theFrench program with alarm. Bild expresses unsubstantiated concernsabout "radioactivity blowing over the border to Germany" and otherdangers from alleged safety problems that might arise from the massproduction of nuclear power reactors that France has pursued.Considerable influence on the magazine's editorial policy is exercisedby Robert Jungk, the most prominent West German opponent of nuclearpower. To European environmentalists, what Bild describes as "thecentrally directed, results-oriented atomic <strong>energy</strong> policy" has become amatter of the utmost concern. Unlike the U.S. situation, the environmentalisthave been unable to stop or delay France's progress.September 1980 FUSION 61
- Page 2 and 3:
FUSIONMAGAZINE OF THE FUSION ENERGY
- Page 4 and 5:
of the Academy drew an editorial bl
- Page 6 and 7:
LettersRiemann Vs. Darwin:Evolution
- Page 8 and 9: LettersContinued from page 7The Aut
- Page 10 and 11: News BriefsCarlos de HoyosUwe Parpa
- Page 12 and 13: News BriefsU.S. BUDGET CUTS TARGET
- Page 14 and 15: Special ReportWhy MonetarismDestroy
- Page 16 and 17: according to Mitchell, the seminal
- Page 18 and 19: the worst accident that could possi
- Page 20 and 21: subways), fossil-fueled power plant
- Page 22 and 23: should be started now, Levitt state
- Page 24 and 25: TheNASAStoryThe Fight forAmerica'sb
- Page 26: To one leading military faction at
- Page 29 and 30: created since the midcentury, in at
- Page 31 and 32: created the rockets and all the ins
- Page 33: While the military and the presiden
- Page 36 and 37: James E. Webb (right), the NASA adm
- Page 38 and 39: NASAAnatoly Dobrynin (foreground),
- Page 40 and 41: TheNATOPlan to KillUS. Scienceby Ma
- Page 42 and 43: Europe, Bertrand de Jouvenel, himse
- Page 44 and 45: could well be a "three-way split; i
- Page 46 and 47: mation of a U.S. Association for th
- Page 48 and 49: continued development of high-power
- Page 50 and 51: intense beam of laser light, ions,
- Page 52 and 53: toward the generation of "hot" elec
- Page 54 and 55: system that combined the KrF with a
- Page 56 and 57: Others have charged that scientists
- Page 60 and 61: Siberian development is at thecente
- Page 62 and 63: tition from the antinuclear Union o
- Page 64 and 65: as the primary driver to implode th
- Page 66 and 67: A CDC spokesman said that thenew sy
- Page 68 and 69: Space Science& TechnologyThe Solar
- Page 70 and 71: hoto by C. Srinivasen/United Nation
- Page 72 and 73: 1975. This index has been at or bel
- Page 74 and 75: course, the primary cooling systemi
- Page 76 and 77: _The Young Scientist.What IsEnergy?
- Page 78 and 79: Lyndon LaRoucke, Democrat for Presi