FPN04-57
Lindl Decides to Focus on NIF
September 21, 2004
John Lindl has decided to resign from leadership of the LLNL Fusion
Energy Program, as of October 1, in order to work full time on
making NIF a success. Over the past year, he has spent increasing
amounts of time on developing a NIF activation and early use plan as
well as on better understanding the leverage that various types of
target improvements can have on the ability to achieve ignition as soon
as possible after NIF is completed. Lindl says, "NIF is now at a critical
period as we activate progressively more beams and transition toward a
much greater focus on developing all the program capabilities the
project will be need for success (targets, cryo system, diagnostics,
user specified special optics, etc).
Lindl has been selected as a Teller Fellow (one of 3 at LLNL this year)
which will facilitate taking a broad multi-institutional view in putting
together the NIF plans. He says, "I do not intend to disappear from the
other parts of the fusion enterprise but NIF will be my focus and other
activities will be on a more ad hoc basis."