apparently, they have turned down your requests for funding? But do you think you've gotten a fair audience?

Dr. MAGLICH. Are you asking me?

Mr. FAWELL. All of the three, Dr. Maglich, yes, you, and Dr. Storms and Dr. Mills.

Dr. MAGLICH. Well, I do think that naivete in this day and age just is not fashionable any more. And if I really expected to get the audience from DOE, I would be naive.

Let me just remind you of what De Gaulle said when he was asked what to do with the universities so far as to expand them, to double their size, or to build new universities of Paris. And he said, "Every institution, like every man, grows old." We have to build every 10 years a new University of Paris. So there is the University of Paris 3, the University of Paris 4, 5, 6.

In other words, an institution cannot compete with itself, and the way the Office of Fusion Energy is behaving, it's perfectly reasonable. They are defending their 40-year-old turf. It is perfectly natural they're behaving like this, and the only way out is to open a new Office of Nonradioactive Fuel Fusion.

Mr. FAWELL. All right. So you don't think you've gotten a fair audience. [Laughter.]

Dr. Storms?

Dr. STORMS. Well, our situation is somewhat different. The phenomena that "fusion" represents does not fit into any category in known science at this point. As a result, I can be very sympathetic to the DOE and to the scientific profession in trying to deal with funding it or incorporating it into their system.

However, I do think that the way in which this has been treated has been somewhat diagnostic of the condition of science in the United States, and it does seem to be somewhat rigid. And I would hope that scientists would learn a lesson from this experience and become a little more humble, that everything isn't known and that we should give new ideas an opportunity at some point.

Mr. FAWELL. A lot of us question industrial policy for somewhat the same reasons here. Government is not necessarily the-has any unique ability to pick the real winners and losers out there. They tend to put their money on a horse, and no matter how old that horse is or how fat, they stick with it.

So, Dr. Mills, what is your reaction?

Dr. MILLS. I guess the best way to assess the DOE's response is that we're in the process of working with them, and we approached the Electrical Power Research Institute and they were our representatives, and now that has precipitated a contract between them and a very large Canadian national lab. And Thermacore's been awarded a contract from SDIO, and we've had a number of organizations out and the first response is, because it is very revolutionary, it's impossible. We say, well, take a look at it and here's the understanding behind it, and now we think we have the ash. And it takes time-they're on a learning curve.

And I think at the Department of Energy, to kind of summarize it, we've contacted them and they have given us people in national labs to talk to, and the people at the national labs want to do the work. In fact, there is one national lab that's already running pilot experiments, but there is no funding and they cannot continue to

operate unless there is an appropriation to study this specific project.

Now we're not asking-HydroCatalysis Power Corporation is not asking for money. We're just asking for a matching cooperative arrangement where we take equipment there, provide them with samples, have them independently verify the technology. Then you'll see an incredible interest in the field, and I think DOE will become very active in funding it.

Mr. FAWELL. What about the utilities? I mean, do you have— have any of you had a real listening ear? You've had EPRI

Dr. MILLS. That's correct.

Mr. FAWELL [continuing]. Which is, apparently, taking an interest in your concept. What about the utilities as far as the others? Dr. MAGLICH. Mr. Fawell, I'm glad you asked this. There are some illusions that utilities are making certain demands of fusion that are different from the national fusion program, but, actually, there is a formal report. There was a meeting of electrical engineering people that EPRI organized last July 1992, and the report came out and the report says the reactor has to be small; it should have an already active fuel. It shouldn't have neutrons, and so on.

It was a written document. It was a meeting organized in Palo Alto, and I'll be happy to send the document to you, but I'm sure you can obtain it. It's a six- or seven-page document on the assessment of fusion from the point of view of the utilities.

There is also an article by Ashworth, chief engineer of the San Francisco utility company, which says "Fusion From the Point of View of Its Ultimate Users, the Utilities". He concludes that Tokamaks are unacceptable for public use.

Mr. FAWELL. Dr. Storms, what about your experience insofar as utilities are concerned? I say this because these are the people who, again, are on the front lines and they ought to have an interest, it would seem to me, especially in something that we're not talking about long term; we're talking about relatively short term and we're not talking about the big bucks that long-term research entails.

Dr. STORMS. EPRI has shown an interest in supporting work at Los Alamos. They're looking around for expertise wherever they can find it. They're quite willing to support whoever has a good idea.

The problem is that the cost of doing work at Los Alamos is driven by government needs, and it's not necessarily driven by the free enterprise system. So it's very difficult to get what you need for the amount of money that you have available in that environment. The government can do it, but private industry has a harder time.

Mr. FAWELL. Well, may I say I think it's just fine that the four of you have had the opportunity of being here. Perhaps it would have been better to have you mixed in in the second panel.

I think we need more give-and-take, more objective analyses in regard to advanced nuclear reactors, which is an area that I am very interested in. I believe there, too, we ought to have those who are critical perhaps be here more and do a little debating on the subject, so that we can get a better reaction of how people feel.

I took up I happened to just read Dr. Hirsch-I don't know if he's a Ph.D. or not-Robert Hirsch's views and it impressed me,

and I thought I would just be the devil's advocate and present his views and then get reactions. But I gather that most of you would tend to say that the emphasis is much too heavily upon the Tokamak. That seems to baffle me.

And then we're going to be, apparently, enhancing the TFTR and we're going to be building a PTX-is that it? A TPX? We're putting an awful lot of money into it, and then when the ITER comes along, that's going to eat up everything, isn't it? I mean, what's going to be left for anything else out there? And there may be others who have some of these plans.

So I think that your appearance here does give us some of that flavor that we otherwise would not have had, and I would compliment Madam Chairman for having arranged to have you here. And, as I've said, I'm going to spend more time looking at your written testimony, and I appreciate very much your oral testimony. Yes, Dr. Maglich?

Dr. MAGLICH. An American inventor Firestone, who produced the first pneumatic tire, came to show the tires to the Dunlop Company. Then tires were hard. They told him, "We know it cannot be done."

He said, "I have my car parked downstairs. It has pneumatic tires, air-pumped tires. Please look through the window."

And Mr. Dunlop said, "Please don't tell me it's possible. Our experts tell us it's impossible."

Well, of course, now thanks to this, Mr. Firestone became a rich man. But, by the same token, we have the same situation with DOE. You have here the experimental data obtained from Tokamak showing that the reactor does not have to be large, but, nevertheless, they say, "Don't tell me that. Our experts tell me that has to be large," in other words, denying data obtained by themselves.

It is so typical of an entrenched program that there is no other way but to form a separate division.

Mr. FAWELL. Thank you very much. Again, I appreciate the testimony.

Mr. SWETT. Thank you, Mr. Fawell.

This has been a very inspiring afternoon for me. I have learned a great deal, including the proper pronunciation of one of my colleague's last name. [Laughter.]

But I also learned that he is a pioneer just as you are, and that's something that I did not realize and I now have further discussions that I'm going to follow up with when I have an opportunity to meet with him on the floor during votes.

What we are trying to do, I think, both he and I, you have come to recognize, is get at an attitude shift in the DOE or at least identify how we might establish a very compelling argument to force DOE to recognize the technology that you are engaged in, to legitimize at least significant small amounts of funding to help you to pursue your efforts toward proving that commercial value.

It's probably going to make many more of these hearings, and certainly some of you are already actively engaged in discussion with DOE trying to teach them that you have, if not a pneumatic tire downstairs to show them, drawings and plans that will lead to

that pneumatic tire that might ultimately convince them to recognize that it does exist.

My sense is that there is going to need to be very detailed planning on the part of all of these technologies and the scientists involved in them to demonstrate how, as you go down that line month by month, year by year, that the milestones that you can accomplish are measurable and, therefore, provide that kind of visual fact of success, so that this country, as it is locked in a very difficult struggle with finances, can turn around and explain to the taxpayers that that money is not being thrown down a rat hole, but is rather developing good and very progressive technology that in the future is not only going to help the taxpayers, but it's going to help the environment as well.

Those are the things that I offer you as encouragement. I am very grateful for your coming and testifying. You are all in the same boat. I encourage you to work together to foster a little corner of alternative fusion potential within the larger fusion environment at DOE, and, hopefully, with that cooperation and that continued effort, we can realize the funding that will finally put you on the map in the bureaucracy.

Thank you once again and we look forward to hearing from you in the future of your successes.

This meeting is now adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:50 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]

On May 5, 1993, Dr. N. Anne Davies, Associate Director of the Office of Fusion Energy, Office of Energy Research, testified before your subcommittee regarding the Fiscal Year 1994 budget request for the Fusion Energy program.

Following the hearing, you submitted eight written questions to supplement the record. Enclosed are the answers to those questions. Additional questions submitted by Congressman Fawell are in the clearing process and will be forwarded to you as expeditiously as possible.

If we can be of further assistance to you or your staff, please contact our Congressional Hearing Coordinator, Barbara Campbell, on (202) 586-8238.