Fusion research at the crossroads

On 10 December 1993 the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) at the Princetone Plasma Physics Laboratory generated 6 million watts, a world record for the amount of power produced by a fusion reactor. The achievement was heralded as proof of fusion's potential as a virtually inexhaustible supply of electrical energy. Sometime in late 1994 or early 1995 the 43-year-old lab will set another, less auspicious record: TFTR will be shut down, and the flagship lab in the U.S. fusion program will be left without an operating fusion experiment. This article examines DOE's fusion research program and shows that in the future Japan and Europe will dominate fusion research. The U.S. has only two operating reactors and may soon have only one. 2 figs