US pursuit of inertial fusion

The Issues and Events piece (PHYSICS TODAY, March 2011, page 26 ) about the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) caught my attention. Inertial fusion appears to be on the threshold of ignition. Whereas NIF has low efficiency and no average power, at least two laser concepts could be relevant to energy: diode-pumped solid-state lasers being developed at LLNL and krypton fluoride lasers being developed at the US Naval Research Laboratory.

In the field of magnetic fusion, large new tokamaks and stellarators are sprouting up all over Europe and Asia. The US has no large magnetic fusion experiment and has canceled plans to build a stellarator; all its intermediate-size tokamak experiments are at least 30 years old.

The ground truth is obvious. We are way ahead of the rest of the world in inertial fusion; the rest of the world is way ahead of us in magnetic fusion. In these times of very tight budgets, I suggest that except for a minimal contribution to ITER to satisfy our international obligations, the US should pursue inertial fusion, and the rest of the world should pursue magnetic fusion. Let the best concept win.