Grand Challenges of Inertial Fusion Energy

As soon as practical, Earth’s low-cost, abundant, environmentally attractive fusion energy resources should be applied to the urgent global challenges of climate change, energy supply, economic growth, and the developing world. A National Ignition Campaign is under way at the recently completed National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to ignite high-gain inertial fusion targets in the 2010–2012 time frame. Achieving ignition on NIF could be the catalyst for national and global leaders to support the development of inertial fusion energy (IFE) to meet the future’s worldwide electric power demand. With sustained, high-priority funding could practical IFE be possible by the 2020 timeframe? The answer lies in how well can the community address and solve technical challenges in four key areas: achieving ignition, producing advanced targets and drivers, creating a practical fusion engine, and developing economical fusion power plants.