John H. Nuckolls LLNL Director Emeritus Fusion Power Associates Annual Meeting “Countdown to Ignition and Gain” December 3, 2008 Search For A “YES WE CAN” Ten Year Inertial Fusion Energy Development Strategy None of these remarks are necessarily the view of LLNL, LLNS-LLC, NNSA, the USG, or any other organization.

2 JHN FusPowAssoc_12/08 Ten Year Inertial Fusion Energy Development Strategy? Ten Years??  Manhattan Project in 4 years  Apollo Program in 6 years Goal:In the next decade, develop Inertial Fusion Energy to address the great challenges of climate, energy, and the economy Funding: President-Elect Obama’s projected high national priority $150B, 10 year energy program

3 JHN FusPowAssoc_12/08 Ten Year IFE Development Strategy? Exploits Four Key Technological Strengths  Smaller, cheaper lasers enabled by advances in targets  Fusion reaction chamber wall protected from radiation damage  Separate laser, target factory, and fusion reaction chamber enable rapid innovation  NIF, supercomputers, and outstanding experts will enable major improvements in target performance

4 JHN FusPowAssoc_12/08 Ten Year IFE Development Strategy? Accelerate Ignition and Fast Ignition Why FI:  A second robust path to ignition and high gain  Requires much smaller laser energy; enables a revolution in fusion energy development and economics  Potential for major increases in target gain via increases in implosion efficiency How: Surge in funding for Rochester FI experiments, FI target design at LLNL and University of Rochester, and for a NIF FI laser capability

5 JHN FusPowAssoc_12/08 Ten Year IFE Development Strategy? Four Steps to Fusion Power  Build an efficient high-average power laser module, a target factory module and a fusion chamber  Build a surged, heat capacity IFE system  Build a fusion engine Breed tritium supply to initiate larger fusion systems Waste from fission power plants  Build a fusion power plant

6 JHN FusPowAssoc_12/08 Ten Year IFE Development Strategy? Questions/Issues  Major technological difficulties? Risks?  Costs? Less than 10% of $150B?  Strong, sustained, political support?  Need detailed plans, system studies