WEEK OF SEPT 16, 2024

What’s Ahead

The ITER fusion research facility under construction in France.

ITER

Senators to Examine Progress in Fusion Energy

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on fusion energy technology development and commercialization. The head of the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in the Department of Energy, Jean Paul Allain, will testify alongside Jackie Siebens, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, and Patrick White, research director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. The event comes as both fusion and fission have recently enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress, with the ADVANCE Act incentivizing development of fission-based nuclear reactors and codifying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to use less extensive regulations for fusion technologies compared to fission. The act passed both the Senate and House with wide margins this summer.

This is also the first congressional hearing on fusion since the international fusion project ITER announced delays that it expects will push the start of full operations from 2035 to 2039. ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi cited pandemic disruptions, component quality issues, and other manufacturing challenges as the main reasons for the delay. Committee Chair Joe Manchin (I-WV) previously expressed strong support for ITER, saying at a 2022 site visit, “What you are all doing here is laying the ground for world peace.”

AI Legislation Advancing

A package of bipartisan AI bills passed out of the House Science Committee last week for potential consideration on the floor. Several of the bills have Senate versions that have also advanced out of committee. Among them is the CREATE AI Act, which would establish the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource to provide computational, data, model, and training resources to the research community in support of AI-related R&D. The NAIRR pilot began at the National Science Foundation in January and will run for two years. The amended House bill specifies a funding target of $430 million annually through 2030, while the Senate version does not include a funding target. As lawmakers work to iron out the scope of the NAIRR, some legislators have expressed skepticism about NSF taking on this type of responsibility for AI research infrastructure. At a hearing last Thursday with Department of Energy representatives, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) questioned whether NSF is the appropriate agency for the task, noting that DOE already has extensive expertise in supercomputers. “I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. … You do what you do; NSF should do what they do,” he said.

NSF Seeks Input on Research Ethics and Merit Reviews

The National Science Foundation is requesting public comment on its process for reviewing grant applications through two separate RFIs. The first seeks recommendations on ethical, social, safety, and security considerations that could be added to its merit review process. The CHIPS and Science Act instructed NSF to incorporate these elements into the review process, after considering public feedback, within two years of the act’s signing into law in August 2022. NSF ultimately published the RFI seeking comment on Aug. 22, which will remain open until Nov. 15. Separately, a commission created by NSF’s board is conducting a systematic study of the agency’s merit review process, its first since 2011. The commission seeks input through this Friday on the principles that underpin the process, particularly the “Broader Impacts” criterion.

Europa Clipper Probe Entering Final Preparations

NASA’s Europa Clipper probe is moving into its final phase of preparations following the resolution of last-minute concerns about its electronics. Concerns emerged earlier this year that some of the probe’s transistors would fail in the high-radiation environment surrounding Jupiter and its moons. NASA announced last week that its engineers concluded circuits on the spacecraft will function as intended despite potential damage to the transistors. Europa Clipper is slated to arrive in the Jupiter system in 2030 to study the icy moon Europa. NASA hopes the mission will confirm research indicating that Europa possesses a subsurface saltwater ocean, which would be among the top candidates in the solar system for harboring extraterrestrial life. The probe’s three-week launch window opens on Oct. 10. NASA will detail the mission’s next steps at a news conference on Tuesday.

Georgia Tech Ending Partnership with Chinese University

Georgia Tech announced last week it is ending a long-running partnership with Tianjin University in China due to the university’s inclusion on the Entity List, a group of people and organizations that are subject to stringent export controls. The Commerce Department added Tianjin University to the Entity List in 2020, which Georgia Tech said led it to scale back the partnership. The top Republicans on three congressional committees began investigating the partnership in May over concerns it could result in the divulgence of sensitive research to the Chinese military. In explaining its decision, Georgia Tech emphasized that its engagement with Chinese universities began in the 1980s “in support of U.S. government priorities” at the time. In recent years, the Commerce Department has continued to add Chinese universities to the Entity List. Although placement on the list does not prohibit partnerships in fundamental research, federal research agencies have begun treating partnerships with entities on the list as a risk factor when reviewing funding applications.

Also on Our Radar

The National Science Foundation’s advisory committees for astronomy and astrophysics, engineering, biological sciences, and geosciences will hold their fall meetings this week.
The National Academies’ Board on Science Education will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a day-long event on Thursday.

Registration is open for the American Meteorological Society’s Climate Policy Colloquium in December. The event will include workshops focused on the science-policy process and federal R&D budgets as well as major climate-related legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. (AMS is an AIP Member Society.)
Savannah River National Lab Director Vahid Majidi announced last week that he will resign in January 2025.