Time Rip for my Fusion Machine

On Jul 15, 3:20*pm, Brad Guth wrote:
On Jul 15, 10:31*am, William Mook wrote:

On Jul 15, 11:29*am, Brad Guth wrote:

On Jul 14, 3:28*pm, William Mook wrote:

Conventional nuclear power plants are big and costly. *That doesn't
mean they're impractical. *The figure of merit is cost per kilowatt-
hour. *For a machine with nearly zero fuel costs - as a nuclear power
plant - its the maintenance cost, life-span and the capital expense
per watt that is the determining factor in computing the figure of
merit.

The fact is there is no practical fusion machine of any sort that
achieves break-even - other than a nuclear explosion.

There are two near-term solutions to our energy problems - and neither
of them involves controlled thermonuclear fusion. *The first is high-
temperature nuclear fission. *Raising temperatures reduces capital
cost per watt while improving efficiencies. *So, this is a no-
brainer. *The relation between temperature and cost allowed experts
like Louis Strauss (former Director of AEC) say in 1956 that by 1970
energy would be too cheap to meter. *He was fired and every attempt by
the AEC and later DOE to declassify high-temperature nuclear reactor
technology was stonewalled. *Even so, fractions of a penny per
kilowatt-hour are possible using high-temperature nuclear reactors.
The second near term solution to our energy problems is concentrated
photo-voltaics using ultra-low-cost optics as described in my patents
on the subject. *Here we reduce the system cost to pennies per square
meter and capital expense to fractions of a penny per kilowatt-hour..

At fractions of a penny per kilowatt-hour the cost of energy is less
than the cost of fuel alone. *So, it makes sense to use these sources
with high-temperature electrolysis to produce hydrogen at very low
cost. *This hydrogen may be used in the following program to convert
our fossil fuel economy to hydrogen - making money at every step;

*(1) displace all stationary fossil fuel use with hydrogen gas
distributed by hydrogen gas pipeline network
*(2) convert stranded fossil fuels to liquid transportation fuels
using hydrogen and oxygen gas
*(3) develop efficient means to store hydrogen in automobiles ships
and aircraft to displace liquid fossil fuels
* * *(a) high-pressure hydrogen tanks
* * *(b) liquid hydrogen tanks
* * *(c) metal hydrides
* * *(d) ammonia reforming
* * *(e) ammonia salt reforming

This could be started immediately, with a program of CPV arrays made
at low cost, or high-temperature nuclear reactors, or both.

You do realize that devout Zionist/Jews like rabbi Saul Levy have
absolutely no interest in promoting anything that benefits the general
population, or is less impacting our environment. *

Rot - you do realize Brad that these sorts of statements mark you off
as totally and insanely racist?

Go right ahead and find a positive/constrictive energy topic or reply
by rabbi Saul Levy. *Unlike yourself, I don’t like them bad guys, and
it's certainly not my fault if so many happen to be Jewish.


These sorts of statements reflect a failing in your mental process,
nothing more.


In fact, it's ZNR
Jews exactly like Saul Levy that has kept anything you try from ever
going mainstream.

Absolute nonsense. *Judiasm is an ethical monotheism that defines
morality as those behaviors that serve human needs and that choices
are based upon consideration of the consequences of actions as they
relate to those needs.

In other words, you still don't believe there's ever any commonality
as to whatever these Big Energy cartels/cabals have to offer.


I believe any for profit company will operate to maximize the value of
that company to their stockholders to the best of their ability. Such
a system has a few distinct common mode failure paths having nothing
to do with personalities. We are best served focusing on the process,
not the personalities involved.



And don't forget about using failsafe thorium.

*Thorium is capable of sustaining nuclear fission economy without
producing an after-market in weapons grade materials. *Despite the
inability to create weapons, Thorium reactors are capable of operating
temperatures that could make them very low cost.

Thorium by itself has no CM(critical mass), but none the less makes
for a terrific failsafe breeder reactor once kick-started by a
temporary usage of plutonium or whatever artificial proton beam that
makes for an accelerator-driven system (or ADS) reactor that's
entirely controllable to suit

The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses the naturally
abundant isotope of thorium, 232Th, as the fertile material which is
transmuted into the fissile *artificial uranium isotope 233U *which is
the nuclear fuel. However, unlike natural uranium, natural thorium
contains only trace amounts of fissile material (such as 231Th) that
are insufficient to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. Thus, some
fissile material or other neutron source must be supplied to initiate
the fuel cycle. In a thorium-fueled reactor, 232Th will absorb
neutrons *to produce 233U, which is similar to the process in uranium-
fueled reactors whereby fertile 238U *absorbs neutrons to form fissile
239Pu. Depending on the design of the reactor and fuel cycle, the 233U
generated is either utilized in situ or chemically separated from the
used nuclear fuel and used in new nuclear fuel.

The thorium fuel cycle claims several potential advantages over a
uranium fuel cycle, including greater abundance, superior physical and
nuclear properties of fuel, enhanced proliferation resistance, and
reduced plutonium and actinide production.

*(we’re talking way better off than
burning coal or even consuming natural gas, as well as almost
unlimited energy on demand, as limited by only the grid capacity).

It all depends on details. *If the nuclear reactor temperature is 3x
higher than today's reactor temperatures - then we can produce
hydrogen directly from water by thermolysis at very high efficiency.
This hydrogen can be used directly in place of fossil fuels in all
stationary applications - and the fossil fuels processed into liquid
transportation fuels.

This was proposed by Brookhaven National Labs in the 1950s and
ignored. *It was revamped by JFK, but he died before he could act on
it. *It was ignored by LBJ and Nixon through the remainder of the
1960s and beginning of the 1970s. *It was dusted off and proposed by
Carter to solve the energy crisis in the 1970s (created by the oil
companies themselves whom Nixon organized to advise the USA on energy
policy) - things looked promising until the week Congress was to vote
on the far reaching program. *Three things happened;

*(1) Three Mile Island melted down
*(2) Karen Silkwood won a $5 million court case for radiation death
(later reduced to $5,000)
*(3) The blockbuster movie CHINA SYNDROME was released in theaters.

Which killed any talk of using nuclear energy *in the USA.

Nuclear continued to be developed in Europe and came to supply the
bulk of power in France and Switzerland - until Chernobyl caused this
expansion to be curtailed.

Very lucky for the oil companies.

Not so for the everyone else.

*A sub-critical thorium reactor: (skip to page 16)
*http://energy2050.se/uploads/files/rubbia2.pdf

*We’re talking of relatively dirt cheap,

Depends on details - most important detail - what is the reactor
temperature? *Higher temps mean lower costs. *Westinghouse and GE
designed reactors to operate at temps that would make them equal in
cost to coal, since they didn't want to disrupt markets for them. *Any
talk of high temp nuclear reactors was either classified or resulted
in prompt reshuffling of power. *For example, when Louis Strauss AEC
director mentioned in 1956 that by 1970 energy would be too cheap to
meter due to high-temp nuclear reactors, he was fired by Eisenhower.

clean and environmentally
friendly energy that can’t possibly add to our current or future
problems, as well can’t become weapons grade or even seriously dirty
enough to matter.

The Uranium and Plutonium made by the Thorium reactors are the fuel -
you know this right?

Once having established a spare/surplus terawatt here or there, all
sorts of better and way cheaper alternatives to raw hydrocarbons come
to mind. *

High temperature - low cost - nuclear reactors would be made far
larger than the electrical generators we see today and they would be
used to make hydrogen from water cheaply. *A portion of the hydrogen
would be used by converted thermal plants to replace fossil fuels. *A
portion of the hydrogen would liquefy coal into gasoline diesel fuel
and jet fuel. *A rising portion of hydrogen would be used directly as
transportation fuel as technology developed.

High temperature reactors can also be used to process other materials
- creating synthetic marble and super strong glasses made from low
grade feeds. *The stranded coal and oil and natural gas become very
cost low feeds for the housing industry - creating new plastic housing
materials - reducing our impact while improving living standards.

This was the basis of houses like this;

Plastic House of the Futurehttp://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/02/2-13-08-disney-...

Johnson Glass House of the Futurehttp://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/lecture-oct-2004/Johnson%20Gla...

These are all based on the fact that we don't need to burn coal and
hydrocarbons and we have lots of low cost high temperature heat to
process glass and steel cheaply.

Of course this didn't happen, so we didn't get these things.

But we could have.

And with very low cost fuel (recall that in 1956 a barrel of oil cost
$2.94 and that by 1970 according to Louis Strauss this could drop to
$0.30 per barrel) we have increasingly larger cars and a helicopter in
every garage.

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-o...eum-A-Helicopt...

Obviously those cartels and cabals of Big Energy do not want
to see any of this happen, so it's no wonder that even a small amount
of Mook renewable energy is still going nowhere.

They're making a simple business decision based on what's good for
their stockholders. *They have a depleting resource, the only way they
can increase their value as a company in an era of increasingly
difficult to develop reserves is to gain increased prices every year.
This is reflected in the history of oil prices;

1945 - $1.63 per barrel
1965 - $3.01 per barrel
1985 - $26.92 per barrel
2005 - $50.04 per barrel

The market doesn't lie! *The rising value of oil is a reflection of
its increasing scarcity and difficulty to produce in quantity.

Iraq's oil is still available at a net wellhead cost of less than $2/
barrel (possibly as low as $1/barrel).


Production cost has nothing to do with market value. Market value is
determined by the supply and demand of a thing. Rising costs reflect
increased demand in the midst of limited supply. This proves that oil
is a depleting resource and suggests a reason oil companies do not
want to develop low cost alternatives to oil (high cost ones are just
fine particularly if heavily subsidized)



Now, if I were to produce synfuels for $200 per barrel - or more-
everyone would be for it. *But, since I can produce synfuels for $8
per barrel - and that cost will fall as the system expands to
something like $0.80 per barrel eventually - I will start off shutting
down about 2/3 of the producing wells as being uneconomic - and as I
grow - I will shut down ALL conventional wells since the cost of
extraction exceeds the value of the barrels.

Your suggested 80 cents/BOE is noted, as is the cartel/cabal that'll
not allow it over dead bodies (mostly over the dead bodies of us
"small people" that'll have to fight their wars)


All for profit companies seek to maximize the value of their company
to their shareholders. This is why gas companies owned newspapers
that featured every house fire and electrocution caused by
electricity. This is why Edison created a newspaper that reported
every suffocation and house fire caused by gas. Its why the gas
companies sponsored electrocution of stray dogs in Central Park at the
end of the 19th century. The conditions of the marketplace and the
general level of intelligence and education in a population determine
the decisions companies make - not the individual personalities. We
can do nothing complaining about individual personalities - since all
personalities will come to the same logical conclusions given the same
conditions and level of intelligence. We CAN do something about the
failings of the system - while recognizing where the system works
generally.



This has a dramatically NEGATIVE impact on the value of a major oil
company. *Not only does it undermine the value of reserves they have
on hand- it takes out of production the vast majority of reserves that
are very costly to bring to market.

I had this conversation in the board rooms of BP and Exxon Mobil,
Chevron and Texaco. *I could GIVE them my technology and it would
still be opposed because it reduces the value of their holdings in the
short term.

From my viewpoint, or anyone's viewpoint that doesn't own a vast
proven reserve of oil, my ability to produce oil or other fuel
products at progressively lower cost means that I am rewarded for
lowering price.

This is something that major oil companies don't want part of the
discussion on energy. *Because it quickly ends the dominance of
conventional oil and erases the notional value of present reserves.

The advance of our global industrial culture from 1850 through 1950
occurred as a result of progressively lower cost energy used in larger
and larger quantities. *From 1950 through 1970 the price of oil rose
slowly, and then rapidly after 1970. * Despite massive improvements in
automation and worker productivity - the rising cost of energy and raw
materials erased these gains. *In 1950 in America the average
household had one bread winner who worked 40 hours per week and was
able to afford a reasonable life style. *In 1990 in America the
average household had two bread winners that worked 70 hours per week
total and needed to borrow about 4% of their income each year to
maintain their life style. *This despite massive increases in worker
productivity.

Most of this increase went overseas to buy raw materials, products and
energy. *In fact, the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the
world occurred between the USA/Europe and the Middle East during the
last half of the 20th century.

btw; *The BOEING hydrogen powered spy-plane/aircraft "Phantom Eye"is
about to further prove exactly what you've been saying all along.
Once again, Mook gets no formal credits.

I merely reported here the logical consequences of reducing the energy
per unit weight of a fuel that powers a flying machine. * For me to
claim credit from those who actually built a working unit based on
this obvious truth wouldn't be right. *The failure if there is one -
is the lack of ability of the investment community to distinguish
between important technical development based on fundamentals versus
hype based on incidentals. * We all suffer for it - and its a major
issue. *Ignorance doesn't require a cabal to operate - it operates on
its own without anyone's help.

*http://www.industryweek.com/articles...owered_spy_pla...

In other words, whenever anything bad or unusually deceptive and
subsequently spendy takes place, there's never an actual individual or
much less any Semitic faith or political group in charge. *

Things that are profitable tend to be done for profit. Things that
are not profitable tend not to be done. Technology that creates new
markets and new opportunities are generally embraced. Technology that
disrupts existing profit streams is generally opposed by existing
owners of that threatened profit stream. This tends to keep the
economy on well worn paths and delays the introduction of important
technologies or avoids it altogether.

The problem of the current epoch is that we are descending past a
tipping point and haven't a clue of what to do. Those who do have a
clue do best by focusing on what needs to be fixed in the system - and
avoid bashing personalities involved.

Is your
consistently **** poor luck of getting anything of Mook energy off the
ground and into mainstream entirely and only your own damn fault,

I don't know - but this is an important point. If I assume its all my
fault, then I have the ability to change it. If I assume its not my
fault, then I am giving my power to someone else. If I assume its my
own fault - I have the power - even if I am wrong in the assumption.
Why? Because even prisoners in a well guarded prisoners escape.
Which is more likely to escape? One who takes responsibility for
ending his captivity? Or one who is looking for the guards to let him
out by complaining how innocent he is? Obviously the prisoner who
takes full responsibility for his freedom is more likely to achieve
his goal of ending his incarceration.

because supposedly there's not another soul, agency or special
interest group keeping you down. *

Why do you want me to give my power to an unnamed unknown entity that
may not exist? Can't you see that I must proceed as if I am
ultimately responsible for everything that happens to me?

In other words, perhaps William Mook
is just as much a liar and a pretender as are all the others you try
to associate with, and obviously you're good with that.

Do you see how abusive statements like these reduce your ability to
influence others?

You seem to be contradicting yourself, even within this reply of
yours:

I am pointing out the flaws in your logic - nothing more.

*"This is something that major oil companies don't want part of the
discussion on energy. *Because it quickly ends the dominance of
conventional oil and erases the notional value of present reserves."

Yes, this is obviously true.

Are you suggesting exactly like Semitic cabals, that Big Energy also
need not bother to police itself?

There are plenty of police - the problem are certain details in the
system that go uncorrected. Correct these and progress will be swift,
no matter who makes it.

Your pretension that our global oil price/barrel and other hydrocarbon
energy has never been artificially manipulated or otherwise skewed,

I never said that. The USA intelligence community worries about the
costs of raw materials to feed the US economy and takes threats to
that low cost supply very seriously. That's why Nixon worked with
others to sustain the notion of rogue regimes at the very time US oil
production peaked. This removed oil from the market just as prices
spiked. This made the price of oil relatively constant after that at
5x its previous level. It also gave the USA the means to bring oil to
market in a controlled way to maintain this long term price stability
- which is why oil production didn't peak in 2000. Nixon gave us 20
years of price stability after 2000 - which is a monumental
achievement. Had the market been free to operate our output would
have peaked at twice today's levels in 2000. Stability is considered
good in a market. Rapid improvements in automation was thought in
part to offset the rising cost of energy.

In 2003 Bush's failure to bring Iraqi oil to market by regime change
pushed the price of oil upward. China and India's entry into the
market for oil in a big way will push it up again. Saudi Arabia
adjusted production to bring prices under control in 2008 during the
Presidential election to remove energy from the front burner of
American politics - and Saudi Arabia quietly pulled all their cash out
of American banks to expand the banking crisis at the same time
putting banks on the front burner of American politics. The problem
is - oil production cannot be sustained by Saudi. This is the point
of the Iraqi invasion and bringing Libya back to the market.

Each player operated in their own interest - and there is a connection
of interests between the USA, OPEC and major oil companies going
forward. These all benefit the US consumer. Just look at oil prices
and living standards in America today versus say Europe or Asia.
We've gotten a huge benefit from these policies and approaches over
the past 50 years.

Yet, looking forward where we're going, or looking back at what COULD
have been - we see that these folks in general they're as clueless
about the future as any of us. The point is all these machinations
benefit the USA in an era of depleting oil and rising terror threats.
The upshot in this discussion is that none of this has any fundamental
bearing on what needs to be done to end all this and get us to a
better level of living - and if that should happen those who are
empowered now will be disempowered - creating a crisis in transition
if not carefully thought out. The great difficulty is recognizing
real threats from perceived one.

and those hydrocarbon cartels are just good-natured private clubs, is
noted.

Never said that either. For profit entities are required to maximize
value of their assets for their stockholders. This limits and shapes
their world view. The US government is required to keep the peace in
a nuclear world. This limits and shapes their world view. These
operate together with other for profit entities in ways that leave
gaps - particularly as it relates to highly disruptive technologies.
These technologies are threats to the profits of important national
industries - and also pose a threat to nuclear stability. The
inability to see the larger picture and the NEED for old forms to pass
away to maintain leadership is the only thing operating here. If a
powerful capable group of leaders SAW the cost of older forms to their
stockholders - they would make the right decisions. They don't that's
the problem.

Blaming them personally or running off at the mouth ranting about
religious affiliations - is worse than useless.



What other unpoliced groups or cartel/cabals of special interest
insiders does William Mook support?

The problem isn't lack of police, its not understanding the costs of
maintaining out of date forms of business and developing new ones in a
timely manner. This is an important detail and is not an indictment
of the system generally or even of any personality within it.

*~ BG

- Show quoted text -

Mook Yes I make good use of gravity. My fusion machine uses great
"timing" and that's the big secret. *Well there is no use my dying
with it. Maybe I can get a trip to see the world for it *TreBert

Humbug!

On Jul 17, 7:53*am, William Mook wrote:

On Jul 17, 5:58 am, bert wrote:
Mook Yes I make good use of gravity. My fusion machine uses great
"timing" and that's the big secret. *Well there is no use my dying
with it. Maybe I can get a trip to see the world for it *TreBert

Humbug!

You should learn how to be a little nicer to honest people that mean
you no harm, especially to those much like yourself that have been
trying their best to make a positive/constructive difference.

You on the hand systematically reject all forms of public assistance,
perhaps because deep inside you know that you are bogus and otherwise
unable to deliver.

If what you claim is only 10% true, meaning that every man woman and
child of this nation could become worth only 100 million instead of
their ever becoming billionaires by investing in and utilizing the
Mook energy alternatives of converting solar into hydrogen (including
your satellite fleet system of additional solar energy that's focused
onto those Mook solar farms and any number of other qualified
receiving stations), then what's the problem?

If following Mook is supposed to make all of us filthy rich and extra
powerful within a couple or three decades, then why isn't our DoE and
the likes of Steven Chu into backing and otherwise supporting and
hyping all things Mook?

When's the last time anything of William Mook or that of Mook Energy
was mainstream (meaning within the top ten or how about "60 Minutes")
published or hyped?

Are there any words of William Mook quoted within our K-12 education
system?

After all, you're the one with all those hard numbers showing how much
spare loot we all supposedly have to spend or invest, as well as how
Big Energy of mostly hydrocarbon burning and conventional nuclear
reactors is essentially screwing us over and trashing our environment
at the same time (of which I can totally agree). So what is Mook
actually afraid of, or otherwise pretending to be?

You can't even get your mitts on 1% of that BP action, that which your
methods of affordably renewable energy that's squeaky clean would have
entirely prevented that sort of Gulf area fiasco. In other words, you
really don't care how spendy energy gets, how many of us have to die,
nor how much terrestrial trauma and even wars that are created and
sustained because of hydrocarbon and conventional nuclear energy.
It's called being a bloody hypocrite.

~ BG

On Jul 15, 12:42*pm, William Mook wrote:
On Jul 15, 8:52*am, bert wrote:



On Jul 13, 8:35*pm, Saul Levy wrote:

"The machine is VERY BIG AND COSTLY" sums it up, GOOFY****HEAD!

Can't you READ?

IDIOT!

Saul Levy

On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:33:08 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth

wrote:
On Jul 13, 6:36*am, bert wrote:

To Ya All * Confinement by magnetic field such as the Tokamak
works,but it is self destructive. This is what I told Columbia U *I
was right and they wasted time and big bucks. My Pulse Fusion Machine
does away with this heat problem. It has no torus.made of lithium
metal. It needs no 9 transformers *Yes it has a helium exhaust. Yes
the machine is very big and costly * *TreBert

What's the smallest prototype you can deliver, as proof-positive that
the 50/50 public and private investments are going to see as its full-
scale potential?

Can you get any of those research wizards via DoE to help?

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=641

1995-06-06
World's Most Powerful Ultraviolet Laser Comes On-line

Engineers at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser
Energetics (LLE) today unveiled the world's most powerful ultraviolet
laser, Omega.

The $61 million Omega, completed on time and within budget by LLE
staff through funding from the Department of Energy, will play a key
role for the next several years in the nation's quest to develop
nuclear fusion as a reliable energy source.

The laser makes Rochester home to the world's largest direct-drive
fusion effort, where scientists use lasers to directly illuminate,
heat and compress a tiny target of hydrogen fuel to fuse hydrogen
atoms and release energy.

The new system will allow scientists to study the conditions necessary
to ignite and sustain a fusion reaction more closely than previously
possible. Results from experiments on Omega will have a significant
impact on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a huge 192-beam laser
fusion system planned for later this decade. Scientists at Rochester,
Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos laboratories are designing
the NIF, which will be the biggest fusion machine ever built. The
Department of Energy has designated Livermore as the preferred site
for the NIF and has requested funding for the project in 1996.

"This will allow us to show the efficacy of the direct-drive approach,
and to study the physics necessary to ignite fusion reactions and,
ultimately, to harness fusion power," says Robert McCrory, director of
the laboratory. "Omega will keep open as many options as possible."

The football-field size OMEGA is 25 times more energetic than its
predecessor, putting out up to 45 kilojoules of energy in the
ultraviolet wavelengths. The 60-beam system, designed to be fired up
to once per hour, has passed all of the technical milestones set by
the Department of Energy. The system took four and one-half years to
design and build.

Omega is the world's most powerful ultraviolet fusion laser, exceeding
the present capability of the Nova system at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. Livermore scientists use
Nova for indirect drive experiments, where laser beams are converted
to X-rays before hitting a target. Although the new Omega was designed
primarily for direct-drive experiments, it can also perform precision
indirect-drive experiments that complement the indirect-drive
capability of the Nova laser at LLNL. Research with Omega is expected
to help physicists understand the physics behind both methods. Since
LLE is designated as the National Laser Users' Facility, other
scientists from around the country will use the facility to conduct
high-energy laser experiments.

"The Omega Upgrade will play a major role in advancing ICF and helping
to ensure the success of the NIF," says Michael Campbell, associate
director of Livermore. "We at LLNL, and the other laboratories
participating in the program, look forward to utilizing this wonderful
facility with our Rochester colleagues."

At the Department of Energy, Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs
Victor H. Reis stated, "The Omega Upgrade is a first- rate and highly
flexible world-class laser that will serve the inertial fusion program
and our science-based stockpile stewardship program well for many
years. The University of Rochester is a potent and cost-effective team
member of Defense Programs. The laser was on-time and on budget. The
department is proud of this, the newest, of our facilities."

Tests so far show that Omega's laser beam is one of the best, if not
the best, ever produced by a glass laser ("best" means its intensity
is distributed evenly across the beam -- the beams are "clean"). This
is especially amazing when one considers that after its creation,
Omega's beam is amplified, split and filtered many times, traveling
more than 500 feet and expanding to 60 beams before reaching the
target.

In the target chamber, the beams converge on a target less than a
millimeter wide filled with hydrogen isotopes, ablating the target's
shell and imploding the thermonuclear fuel of hydrogen isotopes to
obtain such high pressures and temperatures (hotter than the inside of
the sun itself) that the hydrogen isotopes fuse. All this happens in
less than a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second.

"The successful upgrade of Omega is the latest in a long series of
remarkable accomplishments by the Laboratory for Laser Energetics,"
says Thomas Jackson, president of the University. "We're very proud of
the key role the laboratory plays in this nation's quest to harness
fusion as a reliable source of energy for the future."

LLE is the largest unclassified fusion laboratory in the nation and is
an important source of graduate students trained in the field. The
laboratory is supported by the Department of Energy, the New York
State Energy Research and Development Authority, and the University.
The laboratory employs about 220 scientists and staff members and 100
students.

ANATOMY OF A LASER FUSION SHOT

In laser fusion, scientists try to re-create the process that powers
the sun and other stars by using laser beams to heat and compress a
tiny target of hydrogen to such extreme pressures and temperatures
that atoms fuse, releasing energy. Maintaining uniform temperature and
pressure is critical. Scientists liken the process to instantly trying
to squeeze a balloon down to a tiny size with your hands while keeping
it intact; even the slightest aberration will cause the balloon to
rupture, ruining the experiment.

For several minutes before every laser shot, huge capacitors beneath
the main laser bay store large amounts of electricity. Engineers check
and ready diagnostic equipment around the target, along with the
computers that are key to controlling the laser beam and analyzing
each shot's results.

About once per hour, an engineer commands a computer through a console
in the control room above the laser bay, and the capacitors release
their huge bank of energy, powering a laser beam that enters the laser
bay from below. Beginning as a single beam, the light is amplified,
split and filtered several times as it rushes the length of the laser
bay, reflects off of mirrors, and then rushes back toward the target
-- a tiny sphere less than a millimeter wide containing hydrogen
isotopes.

Omega is actually two laser beams in one. The first part of the beam
is a "foot pulse" that hits the target for several nanoseconds
(billionths of a second), bathing the target in relatively low-
intensity light and tailoring the target's temperature, pressure and
density for each experiment. Within the tail end of this foot pulse is
Omega's main pulse: a foot-long chunk of light, about the size of a
football in each of the 60 beams. In less than a nanosecond, the beams
converge on the target, burning off the outer shell of the sphere so
rapidly and forcefully that the atoms inside the shell are pushed
together and fuse.

Scientists compare the process to the force a rocket produces when it
takes off from earth. As its fuel tanks ignite, the rocket's exhaust
pushes mightily against the earth. Similarly, as the shell's outer
sphere is burned away, the remainder is jettisoned inward (scientists
call this "imploding"), compressing the fuel and creating temperatures
even hotter than found inside the sun. The high temperature and
density make it possible for the atoms to fuse.

As the atoms fuse, they give off energy in the form of neutrons, which
can be used to generate electricity. For fusion to be useful as an
energy source, scientists must learn to control the rate of fusion and
develop reactors that will put out more energy than it takes to create
the initial reaction.

SOME ROCHESTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO FUSION RESEARCH

Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) has made significant
contributions to fusion research. Among the major accomplishments:

1995 -- LLE scientists complete the upgrade of the Omega laser, making
Omega the most powerful ultraviolet laser in the world. The quality of
Omega's laser beam surpasses that of all previous large glass lasers.

1989 -- LLE scientists announce a new method to vary the color
(wavelength) of the laser light produced by the OMEGA laser, to create
a more uniform illumination pattern on the target pellet. This
technology, Smoothing by Spectral Dispersion (SSD), reduced the
variations in illumination of a pellet from 30 percent down to just a
few percent. Uniform illumination is key to the fusion process; such
uniformity on a high-power multi-beam laser system had not previously
been demonstrated. SSD has since been implemented on the Nova laser at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

1988 -- LLE scientists compress a pellet of liquid deuterium-tritium
to more than 200 times its liquid density; at the time this was the
highest ...

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Interesting 200 times that took great pressure. Still in a lab they
compressed hydrogen into a stable solid.It was found be be a great
conductor of electricity. With Jupiters fast spin and a core of solid
and liquid hydrogen one could use that for its powerfull magnetic
field. TreBert