Making a Star

"Fuel" used at NIF, the tiny capsule is filled with deuterium-tritium.

The last few weeks in my Nuclear Energy class, we have been discussing the possibilities of fusion energy. Fusion energy is a lot different than the current fission reactors the world uses today because no radioactive by-products are formed. However, as of right now there is no method for producing energy from fusion that generates more money than is put in to the reaction. This is because fusion occurs at extremely high temperatures.

So this morning, my professor who has dedicated his life to the research of fusion energy was discussing some of the places he had previously worked. He showed us this slide show of which some of it pertained to NIF, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California. And then he talked about what goes on in this place...wow. As mentioned earlier, one of the problems with fusion energy is actually getting the reaction to reach temperatures higher than that of the interior of our sun. So the goal of NIF was to work on just that..."igniting" the reaction.

Although, this is somewhat "old" news...I myself  (not coming from a physics background) did not know much about it. I don't want to spoil what goes on at NIF because I know that this video will explain it much better than I can. Short and simple: A lot of big lasers shoot at a tiny, tiny sphere of fuel...thus concentrating their energy on one spot and igniting the fuel. Please check out the video (look past the corny 3rd grade science class feel)...it's really amazing.