The National Ignition Facility: On the Edge of the Burn?

On March 10th, the National Ignition Facility exceeded the 1 MJ barrier, confirming the NIF system as the most powerful fusion facility on record. 192 pulse-shaped lasers delivered the power equivalent of 10,000 100-Watt light bulbs to its target in less than one second. According the the NIF director, Edward Moses, this achievement exceeds the output of any other laser system by more than 25 times. Impressive as it is, the question still remains: Are we on the edge of controlled, sustainable fusion or are we still falling short of the goal?

If the NIF fusion project succeeds, it will be a phenomenal breakthrough in sustainable energy research. Fusion's allure is in its ability to convert seawater into clean energy, with no greenhouse emissions. The kind of energy produced can couple easily to the current energy grid, adding to the attractiveness of the project.

But even with the grid in place and ready for more energy, there are still many pragmatic issues to address. At the moment, the NIF can only fire full-strength on a weekly basis, to avoid burning the optics. A self-sustaining reactor, however, would need to fire ten times per second. No optics currently exist that can withstand that kind of energy. The gold targets, of which several hundred are needed per year, would need to be made more affordable, and the space constraints of such a facility (three football fields across and 10 stories high) severely restrict the number of feasible locations.

Still, the press releases from NIF remain optimistic. Moses sketches a timeline of 2020 for the first prototype fusion-fission reactor and 2030 for the first commercial one: he sees the current limitations as surmountable. From the sidelines, it is hard to know whether this current system will be the one of groundbreaking successes and many records or whether sustainable fusion reactions are still on the edge of the burn.