ISSN:
1572-9591
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
Notes:
Conclusions The inertial fusion program has shown great progress over the past year. In the present program plan (for 1987–1991), the program was focused on an early 1990s decision date, as suggested by the National Academy of Sciences report. While the exact nature of the decision was not defined, it was generally considered to be a go/no go with regard to a new major facility to achieve high gain. The program's emphasis during this period was consistent with the priorities enumerated by the NAS (Happer) panel and focused on elucidating the conditions needed to achieve high gain. With the progress in target physics that has been made to date, we believe we are rapidly approaching a point when we will be able to say with confidence that a 5–10-MJ facility will provide high gain. Because we are not quite there yet, we believe we must continue to pursue target physics issues vigorously. But, the IF program also needs to accelerate the pace of driver development because in this past year the inertial fusion program has made large strides in showing the feasibility of a high-gain facility. We now believe with the progress that has been made to date that the question is no longer if inertial fusion can be made to work, but when and for how much.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01054643
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