An hour's drive north of the South Valley stands a brand-new cathedral that cost $3.5 billion to construct. This cathedral isn't a structure of the religious realm devoted to guiding humanity toward the light of a divine power. Instead, it's an edifice of science devoted to manipulating highly concentrated laser light to unleash the power bound in hydrogen atoms.
On May 29, I attended the dedication ceremony of this "cathedral" erected for energy enlightenment. Located on the campus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the football stadium-sized National Ignition Facility (NIF) is where engineers and scientists hope to one day change the course of history. Their ultimate goal is to find the means to tap into a source of fuel that's virtually limitless for human use.
NIF houses a massive maze of nearly 60 miles of mirrors, fiber optics, crystals and light amplifiers. At the start, a "seed pulse" of laser light - holding the equivalent amount of energy of a fly landing on your hand - is shot into the system. In the 20 billionth of a second it takes this light-beam to journey through the labyrinth of electronic and precision-made optical equipment, it's converted into 192 separate laser beams containing a total of 500 trillion watts of power.
In the vacuum of NIF's spherically-shaped target chamber - the Holy of Holies located at the heart of the cathedral - a scientific miracle might take place next year that could help save our planet from the perils of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. All this concentrated laser energy will fire upon a pea-sized capsule of hydrogen fuel. If things go as scientists hope, those 192 beams will compress the hydrogen to a density 100 times that of lead, heating it to more than 100 million degrees Celsius. These extreme conditions will duplicate those at the center of our sun and thus, in theory, release vast reservoirs of energy as the hydrogen is transformed into helium.
Fusion-powered electricity has been during the last half century an unfulfilled promise for humanity. Since the 1950s, fission-based power plants have tapped the nuclear power contained in uranium to boil water and thus generate steam to run electric turbines. Commercial fusion-based power plants, however, have long been an elusive dream because we do not yet have the innovative technology necessary to safely squeeze nuclear energy out of hydrogen.
As NIF program director Jeff Atherton guided me through the facility on its grand opening day, I asked him when realistically the United States might expect to have its first practical fusion-based reactor in operation. He winced when he told me he didn't have a crystal ball. But he optimistically suggested that, depending on what knowledge scientists learned at NIF, a prototype plant might be on-line by the year 2020. He stressed, however, that gaining this goal means American leaders must aggressively increase funding of fusion power research. Big bangs demand big bucks.
As we strolled down one of the lengthy NIF passageways, Atherton explained to me the cutting-edge optics used to stoke up the power of the laser beams passing through the system. Precision optical filter switches turn on and off in nanoseconds, allowing the light to pass through to the next leg of its trip, he said. As Atherton described NIF's miraculous marvels, I couldn't help but recall Chartres Cathedral which I visited during a trip to France once. As I gazed at the advanced optical engineering at NIF, I felt an awe similar to viewing the stained-glass windows at that ancient medieval church.
The connection between Chartres and NIF is not as far-fetched as it first sounds. Both edifices were built on the hope of a better tomorrow for all humanity. Both used public funding to enhance our wonder of the universe. Both were also intended for the purpose of manipulating light in order to ignite a new energy source. Chartres was built for the ignition of spiritual enlightenment from stained-glass saints, and NIF was built for scientific enlightenment from powerful laser beams.
Both structures also generate in their respective believers a powerful feeling of awe in discovering the secrets of creation. And both were "high risk, high reward" enterprises.
South Valley Congressman Jerry McNerney recognized the gamble of NIF as well as the potential high return on investment if NIF's research pays off. "The National Ignition Facility ensures America's continued excellence in a field of crucial importance to our nation," he told the dedication day audience. "The research that will take place here ... has the potential to transform how we use energy."
There's no guarantee, of course, that NIF or any other fusion-focused experiments will indeed transform how we use energy. Researchers might never achieve the breakthroughs needed to one day build commercial-level fusion power plants. But like the faithful French Christians who raised the stones and stained-glass at Chartres more than 800 years ago, we must optimistically persevere in our efforts, knowing that humanity's future will be a truly enlightened one if we succeed.
Martin Cheek Marty Cheek is the author of 'The Silicon Valley Handbook.' His column appears every other Friday. You can reach him at martych@gte.net.
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