Laser fusion power stations are the new hope for limitless renewable energy. The National Ignition Facility (INF) in California is a large facility covering the size of three football fields in a 10 storey building and it is hoped that it will be the first machine that produces more energy than it consumes.

The project has taken over 15 years to complete and it is hoped that the machine will help solve the world’s energy problems.

The machine works by using the world’s most powerful laser to create 192 separate beams of light. These beams are directed at a pellet of frozen hydrogen just 2mm across but costing $40,000 a piece. The pellet must be a perfect sphere to ensure that they collapse properly when the beam of light hits it, causing a violent burst of energy lasing just five billionths of a second.

The beams produce a large shockwave which go through the fuel pellet at a million miles per hour, generating temperatures in the region of 100,000,000 degrees Centigrade causing hydrogen atoms to fuse, producing helium and energy. These sorts of reactions are normally only seen at the core of stars.

At present the laser can only be fired a few times a day as the hydrogen fuel pellet needs to be replaced each time. However scientists are hoping to improve the machine to enable a fuel pellet to be dropped into the fusion chamber and shot mid-air, allowing for the laser to fire 10 times a second meaning the plant can produce energy on a continuous basis. It is anticipated that experiments with the plant will continue until at least 2040.

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