New laser could bring fusion energy’s star power to earth

The world’s most powerful laser was dedicated today in a highly-anticipated event at the National Ignition Facility, part of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, Calif.

The laser, officially certified by the National Nuclear Security Administration in March, is expected to allow scientists to further research fusion energy. The anticipated event drew prominent names including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Charles Townes, a Nobel Laureate and laser pioneer.

The $3.5 billion facility could pave the way for scientific advancement and discovery that promises to enhance national security, help break America's dependence on foreign oil, and lead to advances in various scientific disciplines, according to a news release.

The theory is that 192 individual laser beams are to be fired on a single fleck of hydrogen, about one-half millimeter in diameter at the center of its 10-meter diameter target chamber. When compressed and heated, the hydrogen atoms could combine into helium, discharging thermonuclear energy.

The New York Times reports that if the theory works the facility "would be able to keep the nation’s nuclear arms reliable without underground testing, would reveal the hidden life of stars and prepare the way for radically new kinds of power plants" that could get rid of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste could be re-burned through a separate compartment around the fusion chamber.

Fusion energy, created when light atomic nuclei are fused together at temperatures greater than those of the interior of stars and far above the melting point of any solid container, could provide for the world's electricity needs without greenhouse gas emissions and also generate hydrogen.

An international consortium including China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States signed an agreement to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France in 2006 (see $13B nuclear fusion research agreement signed).

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