Assessment of Laser-Driven Fusion; Final Report EPRI ER-203 (Research Project 470-1)

Palo Alto, California: Electric Power Research Institute, 1976. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. Very good. Various paginations (approximately 150 pages). Illustrations. This final report on "Assessment of Laser Fusion" contains details of the national fusion program as of March 1976. It includes a general summary by the Laser Fusion Advisory Committee as well as a summary by the Working Group. The detailed scientific and technical evaluations of the national laser fusion program are presented in four parts: an overall assessment, engineering feasibility, scientific feasibility, and site visits. The primary purpose of this study is to give executives and representatives of the electric utilities and the staff of the Electric Power Research Institute an accurate picture, for planning purposes, of the likelihood of and time scale for useful utility application of laser-pellet fusion. This final report contains details of the national fusion program as of March 1976. It includes a general summary by the Laser Fusion Advisory Committee as well as a summary by the Working Group. The detailed scientific and technical evaluations of the national laser fusion program are presented in four parts: an overall assessment, engineering feasibility, scientific feasibility, and site visits. Laser-driven fusion depends in its main features on well known and verified results of hydrodynamics and nuclear physics. These allow energy breakeven by the fusion process to occur under conditions which appear to be well within the range of present technology. The feasibility of laser-driven fusion power plants appears to rest more on pellet and laser economics than on reactor technology. Keith Allen Brueckner (March 19, 1924 - September 19, 2014) was an American theoretical physicist who made important contributions in several areas of physics, including many-body theory in condensed matter physics, and laser fusion. Brueckner earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950. After completing his Ph.D. he joined the physics faculty at Indiana University (1951-1955) and then at the University of Pennsylvania (1956-1959). In 1959, Brueckner was recruited by Roger Revelle to come to University of California, San Diego, where he became one of the founders of the Department of Physics. Brueckner served as Director of the Institute of Radiation Physics and Aerodynamics and, later, Director of the Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences.
He and Murray Gell-Mann collaborated to show that the random phase approximation (RPA) can be derived by summing a series of Feynman diagrams. The relevance and correctness of RPA were heavily debated at the time. This was a seminal result, as it is often considered to be the first major accomplishment of modern quantum many-particle theory and has been an inspiration for the entire field.