Anonymous is right that you cannot access to average power generated without knowing the rate of shots.
ICF fusion has the advantage that the rate of shots can be adjusted over a wide range to produce different amounts of power on demand (and to back up unpredictable renewable energy).
The NIF laser fusion power plant concept is called LIFE. LLNL has proposed that a LIFE laser fusion power plant capable of generating net fusion yields of 35 to 75 MJ per shot at 10 to 15 Hz (i.e., ~ 350- to 1000-MWt fusion and ~1.3 to 3.6 x 1020 neutrons/s), coupled to a compact subcritical fission blanket, could be used to generate several GW of thermal power (GWt) while avoiding carbon dioxide emissions, mitigating nuclear proliferation concerns and minimizing the concerns associated with nuclear safety and long-term nuclear waste disposition. The subcritical fission blanket could be fueled with fissile (example. “excess” military Pu-239) or abundant inexpensive fertile fission fuels like U-238 or Thorium, or run on separated Minor Actinides from LWR spent nuclear fuel (burning long half-live transuranics down to short half life fission products.
TN-72616 fusion (mini-Mike)would use about 150 micrograms of D-T fuel to ignite a tapered column of pure cryo-deuterium; producing a total yield per shot of 250 GJ. Only one mini-Mike device need be ignited per minute to produce power at an average 1 GWe rate.
"no one has ever actually built a reactor that has generated more useful energy than needed to ignite atomic fusion (hydrogen bombs don't count!"
The only form of terrestrial nuclear fusion that has ever produced any net energy at all in 60 years of hard research effort is fission/fusion or fission ignited fusion. Fission ignited fusion worked in 1952 in the Ivy-Mike nuclear test and continues to be the only real technology demonstrated to produce reliable energy from fusion at a practical industrial level.
Millions of dollars are budgeted each year to pure fusion projects based on diffuse energy ignition of fusion plasma.
Today there is almost no one that advocates use of fission-fusion, even though it is the only practical demonstrated fusion technology in existence that has ever produced energy break even and a fusion gain factor Q=>1.
Ivy Mike fission ignited fusion achieved net energy and Q>=100,000 using the low cost, sustainable D-D fusion reaction.
Fission Ignited Inertial Confinement Fusion is practical nuclear fusion that works now (not always just 50 years from now).
In modern implementations[1], Fission Ignited Fusion can use as little as 0.25 grams of fissile (U-233 or Pu-239) to ignite about 16 grams of Deuterium using D-D fusion and produce, with help of a fusion driver, a fusion burst of about 250 Gigajoules per shot (the energy released in efficiently burning about 1947.5 gallons of gasoline).
Comparison of current ICF fusion approaches -
All current Inertial Confinement Fusion concepts currently are repetitive pulse energy generators producing energy through a succession of controlled small fusion bursts.
National Ignition Facility produces a 1.8 Megajoules burst per shot which is the energy produced from burning 0.014 gallons of gasoline (while producing no net energy)
Sandia z-pinch experiment produces a 30 Megajoules burst per shot which is the energy produced by burning 0.23 gallons of gasoline (while producing no net energy)
California Energy Commission proposal TN-72616 fusion (mini-Mike)[2] is designed to produce 250 x 10^3 Megajoules of energy per shot which is the energy produced by burning about 1947 gallons of gasoline (with commercially significant, large, usable amounts of net energy)
1970s LLNL PACER Fusion (3 kt. size device) produce 1.2552 x 10^7 Megajoules per shot which is the energy produced burning 95,264 gallons of gasoline (with commercially significant large amounts of net energy)
[1] - Winterberg, F. "A Third Way Towards the Controlled Release of Nuclear Energy by Fission and Fusion" - http://www.znaturforsch.com/aa/v59a/s59a0325.pdf [2] - CEC ICF Fusion reactor (proposal TN-72616) submitted for 2015 – 2917 CEC Triennial Investment Plan support – http://bit.ly/1fTRJWY
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Re: Rate of shots for ICF
ICF fusion has the advantage that the rate of shots can be adjusted over a wide range to produce different amounts of power on demand (and to back up unpredictable renewable energy).
The NIF laser fusion power plant concept is called LIFE. LLNL has proposed that a LIFE laser fusion power plant capable of generating net fusion yields of 35 to 75 MJ per shot at 10 to 15 Hz (i.e., ~ 350- to 1000-MWt fusion and ~1.3 to 3.6 x 1020 neutrons/s), coupled to a compact subcritical fission blanket, could be used to generate several GW of thermal power (GWt) while avoiding carbon dioxide emissions, mitigating nuclear proliferation concerns and minimizing the concerns associated with nuclear safety and long-term nuclear waste disposition. The subcritical fission blanket could be fueled with fissile (example. “excess” military Pu-239) or abundant inexpensive fertile fission fuels like U-238 or Thorium, or run on separated Minor Actinides from LWR spent nuclear fuel (burning long half-live transuranics down to short half life fission products.
TN-72616 fusion (mini-Mike)would use about 150 micrograms of D-T fuel to ignite a tapered column of pure cryo-deuterium; producing a total yield per shot of 250 GJ. Only one mini-Mike device need be ignited per minute to produce power at an average 1 GWe rate.
Just fuse some atoms
The only form of terrestrial nuclear fusion that has ever produced any net energy at all in 60 years of hard research effort is fission/fusion or fission ignited fusion. Fission ignited fusion worked in 1952 in the Ivy-Mike nuclear test and continues to be the only real technology demonstrated to produce reliable energy from fusion at a practical industrial level.
Millions of dollars are budgeted each year to pure fusion projects based on diffuse energy ignition of fusion plasma.
Today there is almost no one that advocates use of fission-fusion, even though it is the only practical demonstrated fusion technology in existence that has ever produced energy break even and a fusion gain factor Q=>1.
Ivy Mike fission ignited fusion achieved net energy and Q>=100,000 using the low cost, sustainable D-D fusion reaction.
Fission Ignited Inertial Confinement Fusion is practical nuclear fusion that works now (not always just 50 years from now).
In modern implementations[1], Fission Ignited Fusion can use as little as 0.25 grams of fissile (U-233 or Pu-239) to ignite about 16 grams of Deuterium using D-D fusion and produce, with help of a fusion driver, a fusion burst of about 250 Gigajoules per shot (the energy released in efficiently burning about 1947.5 gallons of gasoline).
Comparison of current ICF fusion approaches -
All current Inertial Confinement Fusion concepts currently are repetitive pulse energy generators producing energy through a succession of controlled small fusion bursts.
National Ignition Facility produces a 1.8 Megajoules burst per shot which is the energy produced from burning 0.014 gallons of gasoline (while producing no net energy)
Sandia z-pinch experiment produces a 30 Megajoules burst per shot which is the energy produced by burning 0.23 gallons of gasoline (while producing no net energy)
California Energy Commission proposal TN-72616 fusion (mini-Mike)[2] is designed to produce 250 x 10^3 Megajoules of energy per shot which is the energy produced by burning about 1947 gallons of gasoline (with commercially significant, large, usable amounts of net energy)
1970s LLNL PACER Fusion (3 kt. size device) produce 1.2552 x 10^7 Megajoules per shot which is the energy produced burning 95,264 gallons of gasoline (with commercially significant large amounts of net energy)
[1] - Winterberg, F. "A Third Way Towards the Controlled Release of Nuclear Energy by Fission and Fusion" - http://www.znaturforsch.com/aa/v59a/s59a0325.pdf
[2] - CEC ICF Fusion reactor (proposal TN-72616) submitted for 2015 – 2917 CEC Triennial Investment Plan support – http://bit.ly/1fTRJWY
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