New Energy Department Funding Spurs LLNL Fusion Energy Efforts
Researchers are charting a course from fusion ignition to a fusion energy power plant
Earlier this month, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $107 million investment in a broad range of partnerships that are developing technologies required to make fusion energy power plants possible. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and its Inertial Fusion Energy Institutional Initiative are engaging with these efforts, called Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives.
In 2022, an experiment at LLNL achieved fusion ignition in a laboratory, generating more fusion energy than the laser energy required to start the reaction. This breakthrough provides the physics basis for power plants that could harness energy from fusion ignition reactions for commercial energy. If realized, fusion energy would provide a safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy source.
LLNL is now applying its fusion energy know-how – in both inertial and magnetic confinement fusion - to these FIRE Collaboratives. This includes a project on advanced profile prediction for fusion pilot plant design (APP-FPP), with LLNL principal investigator (PI) Mikhail Dorf, as well as through partnerships with Savanna River National Laboratory on fusion fuel-cycle testing capabilities and with General Atomics on target injector technology for inertial fusion energy (IFE) concepts, with LLNL PI Bernard Kozioziemski.
"The APP-FPP project aims to improve design capabilities for economically attractive fusion power plants by developing accurate performance predictions for toroidally confinement devices – tokamaks and stellarators,” said Dorf, who is heading the LLNL effort for this multi-institutional collaboration led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Fusion fuel capsules must remain at low temperature and precisely arrive at the center of a target chamber, which may exceed 1000 degrees C, for an IFE power plant to work,” added Kozioziemski. “This funding will allow GA and LLNL to develop and test concepts that help bridge this technology gap and advance the state of the art.”
In addition, the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced that an LLNL-led project with PI Pierre Michel has been selected to receive $2 million in funding to support the development of gaseous optics that would enable lasers to withstand the extreme conditions of inertial fusion power plants.
“I am excited to be selected by ARPA-E to pursue the development of gaseous optical elements,” said Michel. “This technology could play a crucial role in future IFE facilities by transporting high-power lasers to fusion targets without sustaining damage from radiation or target debris.”
This project, to be carried out in partnership with Stanford University and UC Berkeley, was been selected as one of 49 Vision OPEN 2024 projects, which seek to develop disruptive and ambitious technologies that advance America’s energy future.
