4 September 2007 15 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Fusion is always bantered about as the ultimate solution to our power needs, as it is clean and produces huge amounts of energy. The problem is that until now the huge amount of energy that goes into start the process has actually been greater than the amount we can get the reaction to produce. While the ideal cold fusion reaction is still not possible, despite being just around the corner for many years.

However, it seems that there a some light at the end of the fusion tunnel. A team of British-led scientists have discovered a way to use lasers to start the fusion process. Their results show enough promise that the EU has given the go-ahead for the project to build this new laser driven fusion reactor. The first results should be seen in seven years.

Nuclear fusion involves merging two types of hydrogen atom – deuterium and tritium – to make helium, as well as neutrons that release vast quantities of energy. Almost limitless amounts of deuterium fuel can be made cheaply from seawater, tritium being produced as a byproduct in the reactor itself. Nuclear fusion produces only rudimentary radioactive waste, similar to that from hospital X-ray machines, and none of the high-level waste from fission reactors.

Using lasers as apposed to the traditional super-conducting magnets method should also ease the problems of complex magnetic fields that need to contain the reaction. My guess is that this is because the laser can be focused much more closly on the fissionable material. Its great to see projects like this getting funding. I wish them the best of luck, now only if we could get projects like this going in the U.S. as well.

[via TIMESONLINE]