Great blog post on Real Clear Science this morning, by Ross Pomeroy, on how near the NIF is – in making fusion work on earth.

LIFE Fusion on Target for Ignition This Year

Posted by Ross Pomeroy at Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:48:47

Controlled nuclear fusion with net energy gain is on schedule to occur later this year at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California.That was the message from NIF’s director for laser fusion energy, Mike Dunne, who spoke at aPhotonics West 2012 plenary talk in January. Optics.org covered the event:

“We are now in a position to say with some confidence that ignition will happen in the next 6-18 months,” stated [Dunne], adding that he felt personally that the breakthrough was likely to happen in around nine months.

A diagram of a potential LIFE power plant.

While fusion ignition is on schedule, the next eight or so months will be crunch time for NIF scientists. There remains a few key hurdles to overcome, chief among them: actually controlling the fusion reaction.