Providing for the world's energy demands is one of the most urgent—and difficult—challenges facing our society.
LIFE, or Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, offers:
1. A sustainable, carbon-free source of baseload electricity
2. Security of supply (reducing our reliance on foreign oil imports)
3. No enrichment, no reprocessing, and no high-level radioactive waste
4. Global commercial competitiveness from a U.S.-led solution
5. Compatibility with existing grid infrastructure
6. Intrinsic safety
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/
Once energy gain is achieved the rest of the world will be frantically moving to benefit from that knowledge. The U.S. needs to put the infrastructure in place now to capitalize on this new research before other countries beat us to it.