Affordable Near-term Burning-plasma Experiments

Fusion energy is a potential energy source for the future with plentiful fuel supplies and is expected to have benign environmental impact. The issue with fusion energy has been the scientific feasibility, and recently the cost of this approach. The key technical milestone for fusion is the achievement of a self-sustained fusion fire, ignition, in the laboratory. Despite 40 years of research and the expenditure of almost $20B worldwide, a self-sustained fusion fire has not yet been produced in the laboratory. The fusion program needs a test bed, preferably more than one, where the dynamics of a burning plasma can be studied, optimized and understood so that the engineering requirements for an engineering test reactor can be determined. Engineering and physics concepts must be developed within the next decade that will lead to an affordable burning plasma experiment if fusion is going to be perceived as making progress toward a potential long range energy source.