US-based Longview Fusion Energy Systems has announced plans to build the world’s first laser fusion power plant with ground-breaking for the first unit planned in five years.
The California company said its power plants will combine this week’s National Ignition Facility laser fusion breakthrough with efficient lasers and a patented design.
The NIF, the world’s most energetic laser, squeezes together a type of hydrogen so that it becomes 100 times denser than lead and at a temperature of 100 million C, bringing star power to earth.
The Longview design will replicate these conditions several hundred times a minute – similar to the repetitive pulses in a car engine but delivering over one million horsepower.
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