And yet, big science still wants to pump $hundreds of $Billions into hot fusion.
Scientists, officials to fete super laserFriday, May 29, 2009 | 8:36 AM
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=6838142
By Teresa GarciaLIVERMORE, CA (KGO) — Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab are set to dedicate the world’s most powerful laser, which could lead to major advances in fields from clean energy to nuclear waste disposal.
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It is called the National Facility and dignitaries from the energy department and Governor Schwarzenegger will be attending the dedication ceremony.
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_ The Livermore Lab broke ground on the new facility in 1997 and it now houses a 192-beam laser that is in a 10-story building.
In about 18 months, physicists will conduct a highly-publicized test to create fusion energy from water.
The laser beans are generated by an accelerator the size of a football field and will focus on a single target chamber, containing a capsule of hydrogen.
When it’s fired on, the hope is a reaction called “fusion” will happen, creating conditions similar to those that exist only in the cores of stars and giant planets and inside a nuclear weapon.
“This is actually the hydrogen in water. h20, there’s plenty of that. This is what’s burning inside the sun right now, right this second that’s warming the earth. And when it does, it’s completely carbon free. There’s none whatsoever, If you think of geopolitics, we don’t need oil, we need water. The amount of water in the bay could power our civilization literally for thousands and thousands of years,” said NIF Director Ed Moses.
If it all works, this will potentially deliver almost unlimited energy. It also has an extraordinary side benefit, the laser can literally re-burn nuclear waste and that takes the radioactivity out of it.
This laser facility will also support the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile by doing physics tests on the viability of the weapons. There is research into the origins of the universe, and they are possibly going to create a test star inside that chamber to see how it all works.
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No, actually it cannot, and will not, do any such thing. One wonders where reporters get this kind of nutcase notion.
in a peer-reviewed scientific journal on/before 31 Dec 2008.2008 has gone by. :')