Economic requirements for competitive laser fusion power production

An economic model of a laser fusion commercial power plant is used to identify the design and operating regimes of the driver, target and reaction chamber that will result in economic competitiveness with future fission and coal plants. We find that, for a plant with a net power of 1 GW(sub e), the cost of the driver must be less than $0.4 to 0.6 B, and the recirculating power fraction must be less than 25%. Target gain improvements at low driver energy are the most beneficial but also the most difficult to achieve. The optimal driver energy decreases with increasing target technology. The sensitivity of the cost of electricity to variations in cost and performance parameters decreases with increasing target technology. If chamber pulse rates of a few Hz can be achieved, then gains of 80 to 100 will be sufficient, and higher pulse rates do not help much. Economic competitiveness becomes more difficult with decreasing plant size. Finally, decreasing the cost of the balance of plant has the greatest beneficial effect on economic competitiveness.