Assessments of the Fusion Development Path

The US power plant studies program has initiated a 3-year integrated study, called the “Pathways Program” to investigate what the fusion program needs to do, in addition to successful operation of the ITER, in order to transform fusion into a commercial reality. The US power industry and regulatory agencies view the demonstration power plant, DEMO, as a device which is build and operated by industry, possibly with government participation, to demonstrate the commercial readiness of fusion power. As such, fusion R&D programs should generate all of the information needed by industry to move forward with the DEMO, i.e., data needed to convince power industry to invest in a fusion system, the licensing authority to license such a device, etc.