LLNL Distinguished Scientist Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for the Laboratory's Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program, is at the forefront of the drive to
achieve nuclear fusion with energy gain for the first time in a laboratory.
NIF is designed to
achieve nuclear fusion by crushing capsules of hydrogen fuel with immensely energetic lasers, both for energy research and to help nuclear weapons designers simulate explosions.
They said they had
achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature using a simple tabletop device, thus creating a revolutionary clean energy source they called «cold fusion.»
Early on, a number of young scientists set out to replicate the attention - grabbing findings of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, and many of them did just that: They «verified» that Fleishmann and Pons had succeeded in
achieving nuclear fusion by electrolyzing heavy water, he says.
This movement is largely a reincarnation of cold fusion, the short - lived, quickly dismissed phenomenon from the late 1980s of
achieving nuclear fusion in a simple benchtop electrolysis device.
Basically, the NIF is nearly completed (fully completed in 2009); Governor Schwarzenegger toured it; the lab's first ignition attempt will be in 2010; the goal of
achieving nuclear fusion is 2011; and afterwards,
Not exact matches
It is barely capable of
achieving a detectable
nuclear reaction, so
fusion is one of the least hazardous parts of this project.
«We will almost certainly learn things like how to
achieve useful
nuclear fusion.»
Achieving fusion —
nuclear reactions that have the potential to produce copious, clean energy — requires heating hydrogen fuel to more than 100 million degrees Celsius, causing it to become an ionized gas or plasma.
Even if we finally
achieve the dream of controlled
nuclear fusion on Earth, it will carry an environmental cost
This fascinating documentary about the quest for
nuclear fusion as a silver bullet for the world's energy thirst is at the same time informative and entertaining as it dives into both the insane and insanely expensive ways of
achieving the technology (see the trailer for a taste).
While using
nuclear fusion to power homes and businesses may still be some way off, the work proves that the burning of star - like fuel can be
achieved and contained using the current approach.
Taylor Wilson, is known as the boy who played with
fusion, because at the age of 14 became the 32nd individual on the planet to
achieve a
nuclear -
fusion reaction.
Tri Alpha Energy has
achieved one - half of the
nuclear fusion equation.