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...
