Target production for inertial fusion energy

Inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plants will require the ignition and burn of five to ten fusion fuel targets every second. The technology to economically mass produce high-quality precision targets at this rate is beyond the current state of the art. Techniques that are scalable to high production rates, however, have been identified for all the necessary process steps, and many have been tested in laboratory experiments or are similar to current commercial manufacturing processes. A baseline target factory conceptual design is described, and its capital and operating costs are estimated. The result is a total production cost of {approx}16 cents/target. At this level, target production represents {approx}6% of the estimated cost of electricity from a 1-GW(electric) IFE power plant. Cost scaling relationships are presented and used to show the variation in target cost with production rate and plant power levels. 23 refs., 7 figs., 9 tabs.