LLNL experts foster national fusion-energy ecosystem at IFE-STAR Conference
More than 200 fusion energy experts from national labs, academia and the private sector gathered in Breckenridge, Colorado, last month to assess the state of the art in inertial fusion energy (IFE).
IFE is a form of fusion energy that uses lasers to create the same fusion reactions that power the sun and stars. It relies on fusion gain, in which more fusion energy is produced than the laser energy delivered to a fusion target. With sufficient investment in advancing science and technology, fusion ignition could be harnessed at scale to provide a virtually limitless energy source.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has a unique role to play in the IFE landscape because its National Ignition Facility is the only lab to achieve fusion ignition and scientific energy gain to date. NIF experiments are designed to assure the safety, reliability and security of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, and NIF’s ability to achieve fusion ignition provides invaluable data in service of LLNL’s national security mission.
Data from those experiments can also be applied to advance the field of fusion energy, in which the U.S. maintains a leadership position in a competitive global environment.
The IFE Science and Technology Accelerated Research (IFE-STAR) conference was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences. LLNL experts played a prominent role in the conference agenda.
The IFE-STAR ecosystem, led by three DOE-supported IFE science and technology hubs, aims to create a vibrant community that supports the advancement of research and practical applications in inertial fusion.
As the conference got underway, a NIF experiment back in Livermore achieved ignition for an eighth time, producing a record fusion yield of 8.6 megajoules (MJ) (+/- 0.45 MJ) from 2.08 MJ of laser energy delivered to the target. The result for target gain (the multiple of fusion energy produced over laser energy delivered) exceeding four also represented a record.
LLNL senior advisor John Edwards sparked widespread applause at a Tuesday morning IFE-STAR plenary session when he announced NIF had set yield and gain records.
Increasing target gain is of vital importance to the IFE community; LLNL experts forecast that a target gain approaching 15 would be required to operate a test facility with zero net electric demand. For comparison, the first ignition experiment from December 5, 2022, had a gain of about 1.5.
LLNL’s contributions to fusion energy science and technology were the focus of multiple presentations. Bassem El-Dasher led a discussion on the 50-year history of inertial fusion energy in the U.S. Art Pak presented the recent progress, outlook and shared needs of the IFE community and the LLNL inertial confinement fusion program.
In an IFE power plant, fuel capsules would be ignited at a rate of about ten times per second. The development of these capsules is one of many profound science and engineering challenges to realizing IFE. LLNL’s Abbas Nikroo, Darwin Ho and Xiaoxing Xia gave presentations on different aspects of target fabrication, including a description of NIF experiments on 3D-printed capsules.
Tammy Ma, lead of LLNL’s IFE institutional initiative, presented a review of the Basic Research Needs Workshop on IFE. In her talk, Ma advocated for the establishment of a comprehensive national strategy, describing IFE as “a national need that requires a national plan, program, team and sustained commitment.”
Members of the IFE Institutional Initiative team also presented posters on a range of concepts, including schematics for a proposed IFE test facility by Justin Galbraith; application of artificial intelligence/machine learning to IFE by Derek Mariscal; a model to assess the economic viability of fusion energy power plant designs by Mackenzie Nelson; and efforts to build up a fusion energy talent pipeline by Patrick Poole, among others.
The LLNL-led STARFIRE Hub, facilitated by Clément Goyon, also welcomed its first fusion Ph.D. student, Travis Hallam from Texas A&M University. Hallam’s poster presentation, “High-Fidelity Neutronics Analysis for Inertial Confinement Fusion Concepts,” received an award from the IFE-STAR judges. LLNL’s Mary Harrington played an instrumental role in administration of the event, collaborating with colleagues from the University of Rochester-led IFE-COLoR hub and the Colorado State University-led hub known as RISE.
–Thomas Lynch
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