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Livermore Lab Close to Fusion Energy Experiment
By Tim Daly
ABC News 10, KXTV, Sacramento

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

LIVERMORE, CA - The world's largest laser facility is nearly complete and experiments will begin in March 2009 to determine how well it works.

It's called the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and is being built at the Lawrence Livermore Lab in Alameda County. What scientists hope to accomplish with NIF could solve many of the world's energy problems by creating fusion.

"When we get fusion ignition in the lab there's a good chance in the next 18 months that we'll fundamentally change how people look at fusion as a source of power," said LLL Director George Miller.

Fusion energy is considered clean and comes from tiny particles of hydrogen blasted apart by incredibly powerful beams of light. The Livermore laser will have 200 beams of light to bombard hydrogen to create a quick blast of energy.

Fusion has been talked about in the scientific community for about 50 years. NIF would be the first successful creation of fusion.

Gov. Schwarzenegger toured the Livermore facility Monday and was impressed.

"This is unbelievable technology, it's mind-blowing, and it's coming to a head. Soon we'll be able to use this power," the governor said.

He was getting a little ahead of himself, because Livermore scientists will need another 20 years or so to make fusion available for wide usage.

To create energy that lasts much longer, scientists hope to safely introduce nuclear waste to the process which makes the energy produced last much longer, even hundreds of years. A demonstration power plant could be built by the year 2030.

"The way the average person's life changes, they don't have to worry about the source of energy, like foreign oil, or the amount of pollution in the the atmosphere," said Miller.

The projects are funded by the federal Department of Energy. About $2 billion has been spent in California on NIF.

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