Hearing of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Scientific Research

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REP. KEN CALVERT (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I'm very pleased to be here today with Dr. Orbach. I've known the doctor for many years. He was the chancellor at the University of California, Riverside, which is in my congressional district, and has a great reputation in California as well as here in Washington, D.C.

And welcome, Doctor. It's good to see you again.

And let's talk about ITER a little bit. Obviously, I've been very supportive of ITER for some time now. And I think the fusion is something that is, I guess some people describe as the silver bullet. If we could ever move in the direction in which we can prove that fusion is a viable energy source for the future of this country, then basically, many of our energy problems are behind us.

And I'd like you to have the opportunity to describe why is progress in fusion research in this country so dependent on our participation in this project, ITER?

MR. ORBACH: Thank you, Congressman Calvert. And thank you for the compliment. I've enjoyed working with you. I look forward to continuing.

The issue for the world is energy, in terms of production, that is environmentally benign. And there's no other source that I know of that's capable of the magnitude of energy production without any impact on the environment besides fusion.

It's the way the sun works. It's the way the stars are fired. It's an opportunity for us to try to create on Earth that environment.

The difficulty is that the interior of stars exceed any kind of temperature that we've ever controlled on Earth before. And so we now believe that magnetic confinement can work.

It's a high risk, and I won't promise that it will work. But if it does, we want to be part of it because the consequences for us and the world will be immense.

We have done very rough estimates that indicate that something like half of the extra energy that the world needs under a carbon limit could be produced by fusion by the end of this century. That's a huge amount of energy. And it's because the only thing that we need is deuterium from water, seawater, and lithium, which is one of the most abundant elements on Earth.

So you're starting with elements that are abundant, and what you end up with is energy and helium gas -- helium gas. You don't like helium gas. It leaves the Earth because gravity's not strong enough to keep it.

I just don't know of another source capable of that amount of energy which is clean. And so we're doing everything we can.

If we're not a part of ITER and it works, just think about the United States 30 years, 40 years from now and the position we'll be in. In my view, it is absolutely critical that we play a major role. And our computational simulations, our experiments at MIT, at Princeton, at General Atomics, are the best in the world. The -- (inaudible) -- design, the V-shaped design is a consequence of our work at General Atomics.

So we have a huge stake in this. And it's been tough for us, but we are going to persevere. I've worked very hard to keep the project office alive in Tennessee, at Oak Ridge, because it's a wonderful group of people. They have -- it's attracted the very best people in our country, and for all the reasons that I just outlined.

REP. CALVERT: Just from a business point of view, since I came out of the business community, we made a deal; we made a deal with a number of international partners to go into a very risky endeavor. Obviously, these partners understand that risk, these countries, and they're putting money up. And what would happen to us as a country, the United States, if we failed to participate, failed to meet our obligation within this agreement with international partnerships in the future or deals that are going on this very day here in the United States?

MR. ORBACH: Well, we've already lost some credibility, and we would lose all. Half the world's population is involved in building ITER. And I was criticized over and over again during the negotiations because, quote, "We couldn't trust the Americans to stay with us."

I pushed back. I said we're as good as our word. We ended up signing it in November of '06. It's now ratified and in place.

It's -- it would be tragic for our collaboration on an international scale, which I believe is essential for future large- scale scientific experiments, but also, I think we have a huge stake here in our country for our own self-interest in this program.

REP. CALVERT: Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor.

MR. ORBACH: Thank you.

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