Laser burns as bright as star

May 30, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - A US weapons lab on Friday pulled back the curtain on a super laser with the power to burn as hot as a star.
The National Ignition Facility's main purpose is to serve as a tool for gauging the reliability and safety of the US nuclear weapons arsenal but scientists say it could deliver breakthroughs in safe fusion power.

'We can create the stars right here on earth. And I can see already my friends in Hollywood being very upset that their stuff that they show on the big screen is obsolete. We have the real stuff right here,' says governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

NIF is touted as the world's highest-energy laser system as is inside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Equipment connected to a house-sized sphere can focus 192 laser beams on a small point, generating temperatures and pressures that exist at cores of stars or giant planets.

NIF will be able to create conditions and conduct experiments never before possible on Earth, according to the lab.

A fusion reaction triggered by the super laser hitting hydrogen atoms will produce more energy than was required to prompt 'ignition,' according to NIF director Edward Moses.

'NIF's success will be a scientific breakthrough of historic significance; the first demonstration of fusion ignition in a laboratory setting, duplicating on Earth the processes that power the stars.' Construction of the NIF began in 1997, funded by the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Electricity derived from fusion reactions similar to what takes place in the sun could help sate humanity's growing appetite for green energy, according to lab officials.

'Very shortly we will engage in what many believe to be this nation's greatest challenge thus far, one that confronts not only the nation but all of mankind - energy independence,' said lab director George Miller.