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many in the U.S. The EC program managers believe that they 

 should maintain their progress toward leadership by 

 constructing a major new TOKAMAK experiment. Next European 

 TORUS (NET), to operate in the mid to late 1990 's. NET has 

 the physics objectives of achieving an ignited plasma and a 

 long-burn pulse and other ambitious technological 

 objectives. Planning and conceptual design work on NET has 

 been authorized by the Council of Ministers of the European 

 Community and initiated at the technical level. The 

 decisions whether or not to proceed to engineering design 

 and to construction will be made in 1988 and 1992 

 respectively. 



The Japanese fusion program is relatively newer than 

 the other three major programs, but is moving rapidly toward 

 full parity. The program of the Japanese Atomic Energy 

 Research Institute (JAERI) , \inder the Science and Technology 

 Agency, is concentrating on the TOKAMAK and on fusion 

 technology. The JT-60 TOKAMAK, which will begin operation 

 within one year, will have confinement capabilities 

 comparable to those of TFTR although JT-60 is not designed 

 for deuterium- tritium operation. Conceptual design studies 

 are in progress for a new major TOKAMAK experiment, the 

 Fusion Experimental Reactor (FER) , to operate in the mid to 

 late 1990's. FER would have objectives similar to those of - 

 NET. The Fusion Technology Program is comparable to the 

 U.S. program although not as broad. 



