Energy Options for the Future phần 5 pot

at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

(LLNL), is aimed at achieving ignition within 10–

15 years, see Figure 46.

‘‘Fast ignition’’ is an option that may allow the

driver energy to be reduced by separately compress￾ing then rapidly heating the target locally. Using a

petaWatt driver.

The primary efforts in this area are in the

U.S., France and Japan.. The major U.S. sites are

at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

(heavy ions), LLNL (solid-state lasers), Naval

Research Laboratory (KrF lasers), Sandia National

Laboratories (Z-pinch X-rays), University of

Rochester (capsule irradiation), and General Ato￾mics (capsule fabrication). Example drivers are

shown in Figure 47.

Progress

Progress has been systematic in both magnetic

and inertial fusion in experiment, technology and

theory. However, the pace of progress has been

slowed by inadequate funding for timely commit￾ments to the construction of new facilities, some

important technology areas, and radiation resistant

materials. Advances in computers and scientific

computation are allowing more rapid progress in

the understanding of plasmas and system compo￾nents and the ability to make projections. An

example of computation in IFE is in Figure 48.

Issues

For magnetic fusion, the primary issue is

optimizing the configuration for effective confine￾ment of the fuel. For inertial fusion, the primary

issue is optimizing the techniques for compressing

the fuel in a stable manner. For both approaches,

an important additional issue is identifying materi￾als that provide long life and low induced radio￾activity in the harsh neutron-rich environment.

Fig. 47. Inertial fusion facilities.

Fig. 46. National Ignition Facility.

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