The UK Inertial Fusion Energy Network

The UK has played a very significant role in the development of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) via a combination of curiosity driven academic research and training, scientific and technical activities hosted in national laboratories and through many collaborations with major international partners. The prospect for fusion ignition at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) has prompted the need to discuss how the UK could capitalise on its (often world leading) expertise in fusion science and technology to develop an Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) programme. The long term goal of an IFE programme would be to create a technically and commercially viable source of carbon free energy based on thermonuclear fusion, and this is likely to be a demanding undertaking requiring a multi-national effort. In the Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF) community such a programme already exists in the UK and has well defined leadership, long term goals, scientific and technical sub-programmes, funding streams and links to international partners and industry. There is currently no equivalent IFE activity in the UK and a key aim of this network will be to develop proposals for a more programmatic approach to IFE research and development, and highlight where the UK is best placed to have major international impact.

Our proposal is to bring together all members of the UK's scientific and industrial communities with an interest in inertial fusion and supporting technologies in a series of well coordinated network activities including focused technical and scientific workshops and large scale community meetings. We will highlight where UK academics, national laboratories and industry are best placed to play world leading roles. A full and open discussion of the short, intermediate and long term goals and potential leadership of IFE activities in the UK will be held, and we will develop a series of strategies for IFE based on future funding scenarios and scientific drivers (e.g. a demonstration of fusion ignition). We will engage in community building and outreach activities that identify opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration (for example with MCF, Generation IV fission and materials research) and reach out to industry to highlight where they too can benefit, for example by partnering with national laboratories to gain access to and help commercialise cutting edge technologies.

The proposed IFE Network will have a broad range of organisational, technical and scientific impacts across UK academia, national laboratories and small and large scale industries. Its fostering of the UK's involvement in Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) programmes also holds out the prospect for major societal impact in the longer term, for example through enhanced energy security for the UK and access for UK companies to new technologies and markets. The published outputs of the network (e.g. strategy documents) and strengthened links between academia and the outward facing activities of key national laboratories including AWE Aldermaston will help to inform future research council and government policy on Inertial Fusion Energy. Some of these impacts will occur over the timescale of the network, e.g. by fostering new collaborations and enhancing engagement between the UK academic and industrial communities. Some impacts will potentially occur on the 10-20 year timescale as the development of new low carbon energy sources progresses.

We expect the impact of this network to be both national and international in nature. The network will foster improved collaboration and more efficient working within the UK, for example by identifying synergies and enabling new collaborations linking academic materials research with the demands of IFE, MCF and Gen. IV fission plants. It will highlight where UK activities are best placed to deliver world leading input to major international IFE programmes, for example in collaboration with the US National Ignition Campaign. It will also benefit the UK science base (e.g. in ICF capsule design and manufacture and complex computer simulations) by developing trans-national mechanisms for accessing key data sets generated by our international partners, e.g. at the National Ignition Facility that currently require individual end user agreements.

The IFE network will not directly generate new technical and scientific advances itself. However a key aim of the network will be to highlight the opportunities for UK industry to benefit from academic research and the IP portfolios of national laboratories, and the fostering of new collaborations. The network already has well defined industrial contacts and it will actively seek more. It will help companies to identify and contact potential partners across academia, national laboratories, and between large and small scale industrial concerns who may be unaware of existing expertise and opportunities. There is thus the potential for enhancing the economic competitiveness of the UK, for example in the manufacture of a new generation of high efficiency, high repetition rate laser, which would find many applications beyond drivers for fusion power plants.