190 



Mr. Gavin. It's possible, but I will go back to what I said earlier. 

 I think that until we have worked over some rather detailed plans 

 to see how to do it and what to do, it's not clear that you can jump 

 to that kind of conclusion. I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. 



Mr. LuJAN. Weren't we ready to do that here about 4 or 5 years 

 ago? I thought we, if my memory serves me correctly, we were 

 looking at a facility of that kind, authorizing one and moving on 

 ahead with it. So I just was under the impression that the fusion 

 community was in agreement that the next step should be, and 

 rather quickly, to authorize and establish a facility where we could 

 achieve ignition. 



Mr. Gavin. Well, yes, I would have to say that if there had been 

 no concern about the amount of funding required, that possibly 

 that step could have been started. Whether in hindsight today it 

 would have been the wise thing to do, I can't say. 



Mr. LujAN. We have some other things to do before? 



Mr. Gavin. Well, most recently, of course, there has been, if you 

 go back a year, there was the consideration of the core burning ex- 

 periment, which was sort of a halfway step to whatever the Oak 

 Ridge study was finally called. And more recently there is talk 

 about a much more limited ignition experiment, which would be es- 

 sentially a scientific experiment as opposed to an experiment de- 

 signed to develop engineering data, which would be useful in a pro- 

 gression of further development. 



So at this point it's not clear to me what the best next step for 

 this country would be. I am going to be confusing you with "next 

 steps" here in a minute, but it's not clear to me what precise direc- 

 tion of the present plan is, because there are discussions going on 

 about a minimum ignition experiment which can be argued to have 

 some merit in that it would be relatively inexpensive and it could 

 be accomplished perhaps in time so that whatever large more engi- 

 neering oriented machine is considered for the future could benefit 

 from that background. 



Mr. LuJAN. Is NET that larger, more sophisticated engineering 

 machine, or is it intended to be the limited experiment that we 

 talk about here, because that is what I understand. We used to be 

 talking about a $20 billion machine; now we are talking about a $3 

 billion machine. So I assume for $3 billion you don't get quite as 

 much as you do for $20 billion. Is it a 3 or a 20? 



Mr. Gavin. NET, it's my understanding, is a very large machine. 



Mr. LuJAN. Is it the equivalent of our 20? 



Mr. Gavin. Well, I am not going to confirm your 20 because that 

 is a number that I am not familiar with. 



Mr. Lujan. Yes. 



Mr. Gavin. But it is a large undertaking. 



Mr. Lujan. Larger than this limited experiment? 



Mr. Gavin. Certainly, much larger than a limited ignition exper- 

 iment. 



Mr. Lujan. You don't think we are ready to go into that, so you 

 think we should not participate with it? We should continue with— 

 for lack of a better description— the $3 billion? I am trying to find 

 out — I really do not understand, because we keep pouring all this 

 money, $300-$400 million a year, and I don't see anything happen- 

 ing. 



