650 



Accordingly, the committee expresses its view as an overall 

 conclusion of the study: 



o For the United States in the years ahead, a program including 

 increased international collaboration is preferable to a 

 predominantly domestic program, which would have to command 

 substantial additional resources for the competitive pursuit of 

 fusion energy development or run the risk of forfeiture of 

 equality with other world programs . 



This conclusion is supported by several of the more specific ones 

 presented below. The relevant conclusions concern the potential of 

 greater benefits and lower costs (No. 1) , the existence of an open 

 window in time that implies feasibility (No. 2) , the judgement that 

 difficulties of implementation are either workable or bearable (No. 

 5) , and the sound foundation provided by past cooperation (No. 6) . 



SPECIFIC CONCLUSIONS 



1. On balance, there are substantial potential benefits of large-scale 

 international collaboration in the development of fusion energy . 



The benefits to be gained include a sharing of long-term, 

 cumulative costs, diversification of risks, and a pooling of 

 scientific and technical resources so as to enhance the needed 

 results. In addition, both economic and political merit in 

 cooperative efforts has been seen by participants in the Western 

 Economic Summit meetings since 1982. 



The factors at risk are mainly those associated with the prestige 

 of the national programs, long-run commercial competitiveness that 

 would follow from national program strength, and the undesired 

 transfer of new technology. It should be possible either to contain 

 these risks, by planning the nature of the collaboration, or to offset 

 them, by realizing other benefits of the collaboration itself. The 

 European Community itself is a current example of the net advantages 

 of international collaboration. 



2. A window in time for large-scale international collaboration is now 

 open . 



The United States, the European Community, and Japan have major 

 programs in magnetically confined fusion that are, currently, similar 

 enough in status and objectives to provide a technical and 

 programmatic basis for future major collaboration. On the basis of 



