Cold fusion coming?

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That would be awesome:
To get that micro-blast of heat, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses lasers---coherent light---at a massive scale. Laser engineer Moses notes that photons are perfect for the job: "no mass, no charge, just energy."

Moses ran a dramatic video showing how a shot at the NIF works. 20-foot-long slugs of amplified coherent light (10 nanoseconds) travel 1,500 yards and converge simultaneously through 192 beams on the tiny target, compressing and heating it to fusion ignition, with a yield of energy 10 to 100 times of what goes into it. Successful early test shots suggest that the NIF will achieve the first ignition within the next few months, and that shot will be heard round the world.

[...]

There is no such thing as peak hydrogen.

Video here. (I guess on the scale of the whole universe there is such a thing as peak hydrogen, but we'll let subsequent generations worry about that.)

Comments

grishnash said…
A correction to your headline: this is not cold fusion, it is fusion at 200 million degrees, so this is definitely hot.

Fusion engines have been "just about here" for a very long time now, and it would be cool if this one can make it to the next step.
8:22 AM, June 19, 2010
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