Proposed Fusion Legislation
Jim Bowery
If you disagree with it, please send me your criticizms.
If you agree with it, please forward it to:
The Honorable Tom Bevill
2302 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
and
The Honorable Philip Sharp
2217 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
----------------------------------------------------------------
03/26/92 REPLACEMENT OF
PUBLIC LAW 96-389, sec 3
Oct. 7, 1980, 94 Stat. 1540
CHAPTER 101 -- FUSION
ENERGY ENGINEERING
(Author's note: For a legislative history and purpose see 1980 U.S.
Code Cong. And Adm. News, P. 3336.)
(The purpose of this revision of 03/26/92 is to provide small grants
to fusion innovators who posess fusion technology patents, allowing
them to devote more time and effort in the pursuit of private capital
sources.)
Sec 9301. Congressional findings and declaration of policy
(a) The Congress hereby finds that --
(1) the United States and the world would enjoy enormous and
critically needed benefits from the commercial availability of
environmentally clean and virtually inexhaustible sources of energy;
(2) in theory, the fusion of light atomic nuclei can provide
the basis for such energy sources;
(3) the concept of fusion energy based on the confinement of
high temperature plasmas has been the subject of ongoing government-funded
research and development for over three decades;
(4) during these decades our understanding of high temperature
plasmas has progressed to the point that, with appropriate government
incentives, the tradition of diversity and risk management in our free
enterprise system can expand the frontiers of fusion energy technology
at a rate far greater and at a cost far lower than centrally planned
programs funded by the government alone;
(5) progress in fusion energy systems is currently limited by
the lack of a diversity in technical approaches being explored;
(6) to ensure the timely commercialization of fusion energy
systems, the United States Government must create an environment in
which the inherent commercial rewards of fusion energy technology are
leveraged by supplementary Federal funds so as to motivate many
diverse inventors and investors in the private sector who will freely
and rapidly develop the frontiers of fusion energy technology;
(7) it is vital that the Federal Government continue its
direct financial support for scientific research in the physics of
high tempurature plasmas as this creates fundamental new knowledge of
immense value which cannot be patented or reasonably treated as
intellectual property;
(8) it is a proper role for the Federal Government to
stimulate accelerated commercial investment in the development and
demonstration of fusion energy technologies; and
(9) the stimulation of commercial investment in the
development of fusion technology can be accelerated through the award
of cash prizes to entrepreneurs achieving significant technical
milestones and the granting of funds matching those put at risk by
private investors.
(b) It is therefore declared to be the policy of the United States and
the purpose of this chapter to stimulate commercial investment in the
development and demonstration of fusion energy systems and continued
scientific research into the physics of high temperature plasmas.
Further, it is declared to be the policy of the United States and the
purpose of this chapter that the objectives of such a program shall be
--
(1) to promote an orderly transition from the current research
and development program to a new one in which the private sector
capitalizes and manages risks inherent in the development and
demonstration of fusion energy technologies under the disciplined
diversity of free enterprise while the government continues to
directly fund plasma physics research;
(2) to stimulate private sector investment in fusion energy
technology by awarding substantial prizes for significant technical
achievement and matching private investment with public grants;
(3) to, over time, systematically remove public support for
private investment in fusion energy development and demonstration
commensurate with the removal of barriers to commercial deployment of
fusion energy systems;
(4) to continue international cooperation in plasma science
for the benefit of all nations;
(5) to give preferential treatment to aneutronic fusion
cycles;
(6) to give preferential treatement to fusion cycles that make
use of readily available fuels;
(7) to stimulate the commercial deployment of competitive
fusion energy sources; and
(8) to demonstrate that United States science in partnership
with commercially financed technology development and operation
continues the tradition of world leadership in science and technology.
Sec. 9302. Definitions
For the purposes of this chapter --
(1) "fusion" means a process whereby two light nuclei, such as
deuterium and tritium, collide, forming a compound nucleus, which
subsequently separates into constituents which are different from the
original colliding nuclei, and which carry away the accompanying
energy release;
(2) "energy system" means a facility designed to utilize
energy released in the fusion process for the generation of
electricity and the production of hydrogen or other fuels;
(3) "Secretary" means Secretary of Energy.
(4) "scientific research" means activities that discover
knowledge about natural phenomena, which, under existing statute,
cannot be held as intellectual property via patent;
(5) "scientific knowledge" means knowledge acquired or
discovered through scientific research;
(6) "development" means the acquisition of knowledge or
reduction to practice of an invention which does not exist in nature
and which has some practical value or which has value as intellectual
property under patent law or other statutes;
(7) "engineering break-even" means the production, by a fusion
energy device, of a fusion burn which consumes at least 5% of the
confined fusion fuel and which produces at least twice the energy
consumed by the fusion energy device during the burn;
(8) "commercial break-even" means the self-sustaining
operation of a fusion energy device by feeding its power output back
to its power input without the need for any outside input except its
fuel;
(9) "commonly available" is any fuel whose dollar (1991) per
ounce commercial price multiplied by the number of tons of plant and
equipment required to burn it per million watts sustained power
production is a quantity less than 10,000 dollar-tons per megawatt-ounce;
(10) "energetically aneutronic" means any fuel which, when
burned in a fusion energy system, produces neutron radiation carrying
away less than 10% of the produced energy;
(11) "environmentally aneutronic" means any fuel which, when
burned in a fusion energy system, produces neutron radiation carrying
away less than 1% of the produced energy;
(continued)
--
INTERNET: j...@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
UUCP: ...!nosc!ryptyde!netlink!jim
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 435-6181