Commercialization of Superconductors Spurs International Competition
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of Superconductor Technology, is a more exclusive MITI-sponsored group with only 20 members. Partly in retaliation, early this spring, Senator Dave Durenburger (R-Minnesota) a n d R e p r e s e n t a t i v e D o n R i t t e r (RPennsylvania) introduced identical bills calling for the establishment of a national commission on superconductors. The commission's charter would be to recommend ways to speed u p the d e v e l o p m e n t of superconductors for use in commercial and d e f e n s e a p p l i c a t i o n s . R e l a x a t i o n of antitrust rules to allow companies to do research in a cooperative mode is one of the ways the commission is to look into this. On June 9, Senator Pete Domenici (DNew Mexico) announced his intention to i n t r o d u c e l e g i s l a t i o n p r o m o t i n g an enhanced role for the U.S. national laboratories in several areas of science and technology, including new superconducting materials. In the latter area, for example, Domenici would have the Department of Energy establish cooperative governmentindustry-university research centers at the national laboratories. While s e n t i m e n t for a c o o r d i n a t e d national superconductivity program may be high in some parts of Congress, the fervor does not seem widespread. Late in July, for example, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and several federal agencies cosponsored a "Federal Conference on C o m m e r c i a l A p p l i c a t i o n s of Superconductivity" in Washington, DC. The conference's goal was to get industry
researchers together with those from government and academe in a more informal way to work out their own connections. Similarly, Praveen Chaudhari, vice president of science of the IBM Research Division, testified he would welcome increased federal support for basic research in superconductivity but that the company would prefer to find its own path into the commercial world. And Linden Blue, vice chairman of GA Technologies, acknowledged that his company would take a dim view of any venture that comprised proprietary interests. In the meantime, Erich Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation told the committee that federal support for basic research on the new s u p e r c o n d u c t o r s totals some $30 million during the current fiscal year, with some additional money going toward applications. Other agency officials o u t l i n e d p l a n s for i n c r e a s e d spending in fiscal 1988. But, despite some enthusiasm for enlarging the role of the national laboratories, the overall sentiment among those testifying at the hearings seemed to be that the usual American way of doing research and converting its fruits into products is the best. ARTHUR L. ROBINSON
Editor's Note: The article on page 50 reports on the July Federal Conference on Commercial Applications of Superconductivity mentioned above.
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