Visit the star-making super laboratory on Earth

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is no different from a normal building but behind closed doors can be the answer to renewable energy and security. full of the future.

The Daily Mail reported that scientists at the NIF are aiming to build the world's first sustainable thermonuclear reactor by "creating a miniature star on Earth ".

After a series of key tests in the past few weeks, a $ 3.5 billion project has moved closer to the goal of activating a thermonuclear reactor available in 2012.

According to NIF experts, on November 2, they fired 192 laser beams aimed at the center of the reactor, into the beer, a glass box containing triti (T) and deuterium gas (D). The energy generated by the release of later liberated T and D nuclei set a world record with a magnitude of 1.3 million Mega Jun and the peak radiant temperature at the center measured approximately 3, 3 million degrees Celsius (meanwhile, the temperature in the center of the Sun is close to 15 million degrees Celsius).

However, the disadvantage of this test is that there is no self-sustaining fusion reaction. Even so, NIF experts are extremely optimistic about the prospect of achieving that in the future.

American scientists have worked hard to make the breakthrough prospect a reality when the NIF began to be built in 1997. This facility is the " offspring " of the Ministry's National Nuclear Security Department. US Energy and the largest laser construction project in the world.

NIF Control Department, where an integrated computer control system is located, is built to simulate the Mission Control Department of the US Space Agency (NASA) in Houston, Texas. It is rated as one of the most complex automatic control systems ever designed for a scientific apparatus. NIF spokesman revealed, this control room has 850 computers operating at the same time to direct the laser beams to a range of 50 micrometers.

Unlike fission energy, which is being used at nuclear power plants and has caused accidents like the Chernobyl radioactive leak disaster in 1986, fusion energy is assessed as safe and relative. " clean ".

The NIF management team estimates that a prototype station of the fusion reactor could be operational by 2020 and by 2050, nearly a quarter of US energy consumption could be supplied. from fusion energy sources.