Scientists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore California hope to have the world’s first sustainable fusion reactor powered up and running by 2012. Guessing by the ancient Mayan calendar that say’s the world will end by that year, scientists speculate the sun will no longer function and need a ‘replacement’ to missile off to the center of the solar system. Seriously though, engineers designed the reactor to use 192 lasers aimed at small BB sized glass targets that house the hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium. The lasers simultaneously, in a fraction of a second, pulsate ultraviolet laser energy (equivalent to two million joules) to their respective targets. The resulting energy released through this process, known as inertial confinement fusion, was around 1.3 million mega joules which created a peak core temperature of six million degrees Farenheight, about the same amount of energy and heat found in a small star or large planet. This is the first laser in which the energy released is greater than the energy used to make the fusion reaction. (I am dubious.) The NIF hope to replace existing nuclear power plants with a more safe and refined fusion plant that could theoretically handle a quarter of the United States energy consumption by 2050. Let’s just hope these fusion plants don’t go nova on us. For a more detailed abstract view and process explanationg visit NIF’s website at: https://lasers.llnl.gov/
Eavesdropper
