Fast Ignition Fusion is being tested in several laboratories around the world this year and next. The main idea is to use lasers to spark a fusion burn, after the fuel is compressed by other means. While nature doesn't give up secrets easily, and there is much to learn, it's exciting that the field has such vitality.

Already there are potential spin offs, with the use of tiny laser accelerators to do heavy ion radiotherapy a very real possibility in the near future. Using lasers with very high intensity pulses, a beam of protons can be generated that only has a short range, but it could be used to treat cancers, and is potentially less expensive than the RFQ accelerators now used in hospitals.

The fast ignition fusion systems that are now contemplated may have a high enough repetition rate when combined with z-pinch technology to generate enough neutrons to extract energy from some of the nuclear waste that we now argue about where to store.

We could have a new generation of reactors that could extract power now locked up in spent reactor fuel. To do so takes an inexpensive source of an intense neutron flux. When generated by an inherently unstable source, it is easy to control the reaction as the fission process is driven by the more controllable fusion process.

This sort of reactor was invented by Carlos Rubbia (Nobel Prize Winning CERN physicist) in the context of an accelerator driven sub-critical device. Carlos pointed out that a useful reactor could use a small barrel of U233 or Thorium driven by an accelerator bean to produce useful amounts of energy. The same approach can substitute a fusion neutron source, possibly using fast ignition technology.

The present generation of lasers don't have a duty cycle that would be fast enough for a pure fusion power plant, but this approach could significantly relax the repetition rate requirement.

These hybrid reactors utilize a burst of neutrons to initiate fission, and the time scales are quite different. Fusion burns are short unless you contain them as in the sun, maybe on a time scale of 10e-10sec, while fission occurs on a time scale of pico seconds 10e-6sec, and fission doesn't happen at the same time to an ensemble of fissile atoms. So you could have a series of bursts of fission that would drive a more drawn out fission burn, and if controlled well, you could manage the fission power level to keep it at a manageable level. With enough neutron intensity, the present nuclear waste could be burned to a combination of isotopes that would be easier to manage.

Now I know that the idea of handling something labled as nuclear waste for power generation is a controversial subject, but the technology isn't all that far fetched and could be an environmental boon. While there will be scare mongers who object with knee-jerk predictability, thoughtful environmentalists will recognize that producing energy while addressing the legacy of the first generation nuclear power plants is smart, and can help address the climate warming due to fossil fuel use.

Research should be accelerated to investigate this technology in parallel with the fusion program. While this research isn't directly relevant to weapons, it is relevant to national security. Our security is enhanced when our energy production is combined in a reduction to the threat that storing large amounts of nuclear waste for generations now poses.

With the repository in Nevada effectively blocked, and billions spent on the unused repository in the southwest, a modest program to study a transmutation power reactor is a smart investment, one that the two U.S. National labs are well equipped to cary out. Some work is already underway at Lawrence Livermore and at Los Alamos, but the program is not focused, doesn't have clear leadership and isn't likely to produce a coherent message that can attract the sort of sponsorship needed to develop the concepts, engineering and technology needed to make hybrid reactors a reality soon.