Firing the Fusion Laser

Scientists have test fired a man-made stellar core, and the awesome conclusion is: All Systems Are GO.  The hundred and ninety two laser beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) fired in concert, signaling a new stage in fusion research: the stage where we actually blow things up in the name of free power from seawater.

When most people think green, they think solar, forgetting that even that solar power has to come from somewhere.  The Sun is a vast fusion reactor, using its immense gravitational pressure to ram small hydrogen nuclei together and convert a tiny sliver of the mass into pure energy.  But since the equation is Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared, an equation you may have heard of, that can be a lot of power.  It turns out that the speed of light squared is ninety quadrillion.

Unlike its uglier nuclear cousin fission, fusion doesn't deal with any toxic or radioactive components.  If you've seen seawater and party balloons, you've seen most of the fusion fuel already.  The problem is that you need stellar core temperatures just to get the fusion party started, and that's where the lasers comes in.

The NIF uses an array of 192 precisely timed lasers to bombard a fusion pellet target with four million joules of energy in only a few thousand-billionths of a second (picoseconds).  This results in a power of half a petawatt, which doesn't sound big to you only because petawatts are so immense you've never had to hear of them before.  Put it this way: New York city's entire electrical consumption runs at about four millionths of a petawatt.

What happens to the target sounds like a scientific essay on "Blowing things absolutely to pieces".  The lasers hit an outer shell, a hohlraum, which re-radiates the energy as ultra-intense x-rays.  These hit the pellet of fusion fuel and blow up the surface.  The force of the pellet's own skin blowing off sends a shockwave into the center, and the combination of X-ray bombardment and pressure will, hopefully, trigger nuclear fusion.  This might sound an awful lot of hassle, and it is, but once you get the reaction started it will release more than enough energy to keep it going - and you can skim off the overspill to do little things like "power the planet."

This test-firing is just the end of the construction phase, but don't worry, they'll be blowing things up soon enough.

NIF Status Update https://lasers.llnl.gov/newsroom/project_status/2009/february.php

When most people think green, they think solar, forgetting that even that solar power has to come from somewhere.  The Sun is a vast fusion reactor, using its immense gravitational pressure to ram small hydrogen nuclei together and convert a tiny sliver of the mass into pure energy.  But since the equation is Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared, an equation you may have heard of, that can be a lot of power.  It turns out that the speed of light squared is ninety quadrillion.

Unlike its uglier nuclear cousin fission, fusion doesn't deal with any toxic or radioactive components.  If you've seen seawater and party balloons, you've seen most of the fusion fuel already.  The problem is that you need stellar core temperatures just to get the fusion party started, and that's where the lasers comes in.

The NIF uses an array of 192 precisely timed lasers to bombard a fusion pellet target with four million joules of energy in only a few thousand-billionths of a second (picoseconds).  This results in a power of half a petawatt, which doesn't sound big to you only because petawatts are so immense you've never had to hear of them before.  Put it this way: New York city's entire electrical consumption runs at about four millionths of a petawatt.

What happens to the target sounds like a scientific essay on "Blowing things absolutely to pieces".  The lasers hit an outer shell, a hohlraum, which re-radiates the energy as ultra-intense x-rays.  These hit the pellet of fusion fuel and blow up the surface.  The force of the pellet's own skin blowing off sends a shockwave into the center, and the combination of X-ray bombardment and pressure will, hopefully, trigger nuclear fusion.  This might sound an awful lot of hassle, and it is, but once you get the reaction started it will release more than enough energy to keep it going - and you can skim off the overspill to do little things like "power the planet."

This test-firing is just the end of the construction phase, but don't worry, they'll be blowing things up soon enough.

NIF Status Update https://lasers.llnl.gov/newsroom/project_status/2009/february.php

Comments

[Yordan Yanakiev]

This writing is very interesting.
1/2 PW is alot of energy ...
anyway - nothing on earth still can not stand so high temperatures, which should be the most problematic question to be solved.

ANYWAY ...
People - with

such a process - we could power not 1 , but one hundred Spaceships like ENTERPRISE :D
I'm very excited of using fusion to keep space ships fling.
With such amount of energy - we could bend even the space-time :)

This is cool !

Earth will be powered from a single Fusion Station.

[Crux]

...what if the one-and-only fusion station breaks down? ;)

[Anshar]

"...what if the one-and-only fusion station breaks down? ;)"

Then I suspect the lack of electricity will be the least of our worries. LOL!

Seriously though, you're right... better build two.

[mato92]

I hope they will never use those lasers for war...because it will be like killing ants on a sunshine with a magnifying glass :)

[Mifkin]

I never thought I'd see Doctor Evil used in a picture, thank you.

[Des]

"...the speed of light is ninety quadrillion." Ninety quadrillion what? Miles per hour? Metres per second? AU per annum? Lightspeed is the ultimate constant, faster than which nothing can move without exceeding infinite mass. But it can be measured in (any unit of distance) per (any unit of elapsed time).

[Milz]

The only thing cooler than nuclear fusion, is cold nuclear fusion. ;)

[wow gold]

C in vacuum is actually 299,792,458 meters per second, thats makes c² approximately 8.98 x 10^16 meters per second or 89.8 quadrillion m/s (1 quadrillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000 = 1x10^15).