NATIONAL LAB BRIEFS

Plasma Lab Chilled By DOE

If the last three months are any indication, it's going to be a tough year for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. In November Robert Hunter, director of DOE's Office of Energy Research, dropped a bombshell by withdrawing $12.5 million of the $20 million that the lab had already committed to remodeling the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor to make possible higher energies. Hunter is said to prefer programs more likely to show quick results. A howl of protest from the lab led Hunter to return $6.5 million of the funds, however, leaving what lab director Harold Furth wryly calls a deficit "shrewdly calculated to be oppressive, but not impossible." But the new year brought more bad news. Last February DOE promised to provide $31 million for the construction of a complementary facility, the Compact Ignition...