Quote:
"Previous devices generally had to cool down for many hours to allow the flashlamps and laser glass to regain their shapes after firing (due to thermal expansion), limiting use to one or fewer firings a day.
One of the goals for NIF is to reduce this time to less than four hours, in order to allow 700 firings a year.[20]"
A commercial power generator may require 5 to 10 shots per second. At 422 MJ per shot, the lasers would melt in a few seconds.
This one of the many reasons why the nif approach will bever result in a commercial fusion reactor. But that is how it is being sold to the public.
Ion-beam fusion appears to have a much better chance. Linear accelerators dump energy into the ions, and most of the energy is delivered to the target, helping to heat it.
The blanket of ions squeezes the target and confines the reactants so they do not escape.
Linear accelerators are a well-understood and mature technology. They have been around a very long time. According to a 1966 article, SLAC could run at 360 pulses per second:
That easily solves the heat dissipation and cycle time problem.
Regards,
Mike