Livermore ends LIFE

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has quietly shelved a program that was developing a design for a plant that generates electricity from laser fusion. The Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) program was meant to provide a practical application of fusion energy following the attainment of ignition at the lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF). But achieving ignition—characterized by the release of energy in excess of that required to initiate the fusion reaction—is more than a year behind schedule.

Despite achieving a significant milestone at NIF last September (see the Politics and Policy report on the Physics Today website), LLNL remains far from ignition. Last fall’s experiment, published earlier this year, produced fusion energy equal to about 1% of the laser’s 1.8-mJ input.

“The focus of our inertial confinement fusion efforts is on understanding ignition on NIF rather than on the LIFE concept,” LLNL acting director Bret Knapp said in a statement. “Until more progress is made on ignition we will direct our efforts on resolving the remaining fundamental scientific challenges to achieving fusion ignition.” He added that the lab will continue to support and invest resources in underlying science and in technology projects, such as materials research, diode lasers, and fuel targets, that could enable fusion as an energy source. A LIFE plant would implode 1.3 million precisely manufactured fuel capsules each day.

The mothballing of the program will result in no job losses, Knapp said.

Some fusion researchers have criticized LLNL for having seriously understated the challenges to be overcome in order to build an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) power plant. Indeed, an article in the July/August 2011 issue of LLNL’s Science & Technology Review had stated that a demonstration power plant generating 400 megawatts could be operational by the mid 2020s.

“In my opinion, the overpromising and overselling of LIFE did a disservice to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory,” says Robert McCrory, director of Rochester University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser fusion lab funded by the Department of Energy. Construction of the ICF facility would have to start today, he notes, given the lack of manufacturing capacity for the laser glass that would be needed. Even with none of the power-handling systems that LIFE would need, NIF took 13 years to build.

Mike Dunne, who had headed LIFE, says that he will continue to manage a wide range of R&D projects addressing key technical risks in the development of inertial fusion energy. Topping the list of needs is a new type of laser—likely diode—that’s capable of firing more than a dozen times each second. NIF’s glass laser is capable of firing only one or two “shots” per day.