Creating a Star on Earth: A How to Guide
The world’s largest and highest-energy laser, the National Ignition Facility (NIF), was dedicated on May 29, 2009 at a cost of $3.5 billion (£2.25 billion). This summer NIF (a program of the National Nuclear Security Administration) will begin experiments that will focus the energy of 192 giant laser beams (nearly two million Joules – close to the energy consumed by 20,000 100 Watt light bulbs in a second) on a BB-sized target filled with hydrogen fuel. NIF’s goal is to fuse the hydrogen atoms’ nuclei and produce net energy gain – the same fusion energy process that makes the stars shine and provides the life-giving energy of the sun.
It is not easy to understand the type of nuclear fusion that the NIF lasers will be causing: inertial confinement fusion. This works on the basic principle of igniting fusion by squeezing a lot of very hot mass (relatively) into a very tiny space.
Brian MacGowan – the director of inertial confinement fusion – told Wired Magazine he was “very optimistic”. The knock-on effect of achieving such a milestone are near impossible to conceive. It is of a similar sort of magnitude to achieving technological singularity. Far different from today’s nuclear fission plants: fusion would create no nuclear waste, and its fuel’s components are a mere 30 litres of water supplementing the deuterium (a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in Earth’s oceans). Bill Gates dedicated his 2009 TED-talk to energy and climate: “An energy breakthrough is the most important thing”. And in terms of breakthroughs, there is perhaps nothing more sort after. This is the Holy Grail of energy, according to the NIF’s director, Ed Moses.
Check out this video that gives you a better idea of how the NIF works.
Now that those of you who were previously rusty on your inertial confinement fusion are a touch more, well… in touch, I hope a little spark of imagination has been triggered at the limitless possibility.
So does anyone else think this reminds them of a spy movie? Evil warlord builds contraption to create massive energy burst on Earth? Ransoming the entire planet for more than the cost of creating said contraption? $3.5 billion seems like an awfully low sum of money to be able to threaten the world population!!
So does anyone else think this reminds them of a spy movie? Evil warlord builds contraption to create massive energy burst on Earth? Ransoming the entire planet for more than the cost of creating said contraption? $3.5 billion seems like an awfully low sum of money to be able to threaten the world population!!
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