A $42 Million Investment! U.S. Department Of Energy Creates 3 Major Laser Fusion Research Centers

On Thursday local time, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it is creating three research centers in hopes of advancing fundamental inertial fusion energy (IFE) science and technology and utilizing miniature laser-driven thermonuclear explosions in future power plants.
The three centers, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, Colorado State University, and the University of Rochester in New York State, will share a total of $42 million over four years. Of that, $16 million each for Livermore and Colorado State, and $10 million for the University of Rochester - a small fraction of the DOE's fusion energy science budget - which this year is more than half a billion dollars.
Scott Hsu, the DOE's chief fusion coordinator, said future research at the three centers will "focus more on the fundamental technologies needed for any inertial fusion system.
Energy is produced by combining two small atoms, usually hydrogen, into a larger atom. This process, known as "fusion," is the source of energy for the sun and other stars. If controlled nuclear fusion could be reproduced on Earth, it would produce abundant energy without producing Earth-warming carbon dioxide or long-lived radioactive waste.
To date, most fusion energy research, and most of the Department of Energy's fusion science budget, has focused on reactors that use powerful magnetic fields to contain superheated hydrogen until the nuclei collide and combine. But a successful experiment conducted last year at Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF) emphasized a different approach - firing powerful lasers at individual hydrogen particles to squeeze their atoms together and produce a flash of fusion.
LLNL has achieved fusion ignition at NIF four times to date. The latest was achieved by firing 2.2 megajoules (MJ) of energy at the ignition target, producing 3.4 MJ of fusion energy.The NIF was not designed as a prototype for fusion energy generation. Since the cessation of nuclear testing in 1992, it has been used primarily to help maintain U.S. nuclear weapons. In previous experiments, the NIF science experiment fired a laser pulse into a hydrogen-fueled pellet. A practical power plant would need to fire the laser pulse repeatedly at a frequency of 10 times per second, with each pulse inserting a new fuel pellet.
These lasers must be more powerful, more reliable, and more energy-efficient than NIF's lasers. Hydrogen fuel targets must be cheap and easy to manufacture. A power plant will need a steady supply of millions of pellets. The new research center will help address these obstacles.
Kramer Akli, who manages the government's Inertial Fusion Energy Sciences program, said the DOE received many applications, and a panel of judges chose Livermore, Rochester and Colorado State. Each of the winning programs included collaborations with other universities, national laboratories, and private companies.
Dr. Akli said, "Bring together the brightest minds in your field so you can further accelerate innovation and solve some of the challenges of inertial fusion energy."
One of the main goals of the University of Rochester center is to test a new type of laser that can be fired directly on hydrogen fuel. This method is more energy efficient than the one used in the NIF experiment at Livermore. But if small variations in the laser produce instabilities, they can hinder fusion.
This instability can be controlled if the laser propagates over a range of wavelengths. Scientists at the University of Rochester have been working on this approach, called direct drive, for years, and research funding from the center will be used for experiments to test whether a new high-power laser can overcome this problem. This opens up a route to a direct-drive program.
The Colorado State center will study a variety of lasers proposed for different inertial fusion concepts and examine different designs for fuel targets. Carmen Menoni, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who led the center's proposal, said she will study new materials for laser optical coatings so they can better withstand sustained, high-energy laser assaults.
Tammy Ma, a plasma physicist at Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), said the center's focus would go beyond the indirect-drive approach used by the NIF and begin to address the problems required to build an actual power plant. "It's not just that you have a target and you hit it and create energy."
The initial research should help shed light on which approaches are most promising. "The investment is not going to be enough to really find those answers," according to Dr. Tammy Ma, "but I think at the end of four years, we can chart a promising path for the United States to really demonstrate a full-scale pilot plant."
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said, "Harnessing fusion energy is one of the greatest scientific and technological challenges of the 21st century. We are now confident that fusion energy is not only a possibility, but extremely promising. The scientists at these centers will be at the forefront of a game-changing and planet-saving breakthrough."
Projects funded by the Accelerated Research in Inertial Fusion Energy Science and Technology (IFE- star) program will bring together the expertise and capabilities of the U.S. Department of Energy's national laboratories, academia and industry to advance the IFE system components. Inertial confinement fusion is a leading fusion method that uses lasers or other technologies to compress and heat dense plasma. the IFE- star program will develop: high-gain target designs; high-efficiency lasers with high repetition rates; and life-relevant fusion target fabrication, tracking, and engagement. the IFE- star program is designed to provide a broad range of technologies to support the IFE system, including the use of lasers, lasers, and lasers in a wide range of applications. A major component of the funded project is the management of the inertial fusion ecosystem, including the development of an inclusive and diverse workforce.
The University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), driven by its 400 Rochester staff members, has long been at the forefront of energy, science and technology. Just last year, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, supported by LLE, reached the first net energy gain milestone.
As a result of the breakthrough at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, inertial confinement fusion has garnered even greater interest and attention.The IFE- star project aims to address common scientific and technological gaps in the anticipated technology roadmaps of the IFE fusion companies participating in the Office of Science's Milestone Fusion Development Program by addressing the prioritized research opportunities outlined in the IFE Workshop on Basic Research Needs report. Continued Progress. Unlike magnetic confinement fusion, which is designed to sustain plasma burning for long periods of time, IFE will require the formation of repetitive pulses. One goal is to develop the science and technology needed to move inertial fusion from low-gain, single experiments to the high-gain, high-repetition rates needed for potential IFE pilot plants.
The United States Department of Energy is establishing a dedicated program through IFE-star. The selected project will build and leverage world-leading capabilities, expertise, diagnostics, and facilities, and IFE-star will also significantly expand IFE research jointly funded by the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) and the Office of Science.