Anglo-American cooperates to exploit huge amounts of energy from lasers

AWE Company and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (UK) have officially joined hands with the US National Activation System (NIF) to study a new technology to produce 'clean' energy - not from wind or waves. The sea from firing a large amount of intense laser beams into hydrogen particles.

NIF uses nuclei of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes) and shoots the laser to fuse these particles to a few percent of their original size. This process makes the hydrogen atoms merge, turning into helium - a reaction similar to that of hydrogen bombs. This reaction is controlled and can produce fast-moving neutron streams. They can be used to heat water and spin steam turbines, creating energy for homes and businesses.

Recent experiments at NIF have generated tremendous energy from this technology by using a housing area the size of a stadium to place 192 laser beams. They can fire a powerful 500 terawatts of light into a particle containing only 1mm in diameter atoms of hydrogen. When firing lasers, NIF consumes more energy than electricity consumed by the entire United States. But the results are increasing. In the recent test, the energy generated from the fusion reaction is equivalent to the energy consumed by the whole world.

'This is a completely basic example of the connection between high-level theoretical scientific research and basic human needs: Energy supply,' UK Science Secretary David Willets said. Controlled nuclear fusion - or reaction in a controlled hydrogen bomb - is a great source of clean energy that scientists have long been searching for. Recent successes in the US show that researchers are getting closer to the ultimate goal of technology: A reaction produces more energy than it consumes. NIF director Ed Moses said: 'Our goal is to be able to activate (react) in the next few years'. To achieve this goal, the energy generated must increase by about 1,000 times. Therefore, the challenge that this technology faces is not small. The NIF estimates that a full-power laser fusion reactor needs to use up to 10 'pellets' of hydrogen fuel per second to fire a laser. So far, the NIF has only fired 305 times, using energy in electricity storage tanks.

Previously, British approaches to fusion reactions focused on another technology - fusion reactions in magnetic fields. Accordingly, a donut-shaped stand contains a circular flow of nuclei heated by large towers that fired molecular rays several times the temperature in the center of the Sun. The Joint European Torus system located outside Oxford has produced energy-generating reactions, but has not yet reached the level of reactive energy equivalent to energy consumption. In addition, the fusion reaction in a magnetic field tank is very expensive. A new reactor that was previously scheduled to be installed in Europe has a larger charge than the large particle accelerator (LHC) - the largest particle accelerator and the world's strongest accelerator - and possibly a project. the most expensive science project after the International Space Station (ISS) project.

Laser fusion reactions were previously thought to be more time-consuming to be successful, but recent results show that this method can be achieved sooner. In the UK, there is a similar project, called HIPER , which has been deployed since 2005.