Exciting New Energy Source…Coming Soon?
What if there
were an abundant source of non-carbon based energy that uses fuel from seawater
and the soil? There is such an energy
source whose development is about to take a major step forward this year and
consequently is closer to being a reality than the public realizes. The political class has consistently ignored
this possible energy source and has been foisting wind and solar as the
“renewable” energies that we should subsidize.
NIF named Project of the Year 2010 |
This remarkable
new energy source is Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE). Inertial confinement fusion has been the
core of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s research over the past 20 years with
the NOVA Project followed by the National Ignition Facility, which was completed
in 2009. I am intimately aware of the
technology and the project since my company, Aetna Machine Company, provided
engineering services and prototype machining of parts and assemblies utilized
in the facilities. As a stakeholder in
the project I have visited the Lab on numerous occasions over the last 20 years
and attended several concept and engineering reviews of the project.
Lawrence
Livermore Laboratory has developed this technology utilizing the National
Ignition Facility (NIF) that was built in the last decade. The facility is an
enclosure the size of three football fields that contains 192 lasers that focus
on a target housed in a ten-foot aluminum sphere. When the laser fires it
replicates the conditions in the middle of the sun to create a fusion
reaction. The facility will conduct a
benchmark test this year to see if they can produce a reaction that will
generate more energy than was required to trigger the reaction. This test will culminate 20 years and two
other laser projects that led to this scale of a test facility to prove this
concept. Once that test is concluded
successfully, it will be merely an engineering problem to build the first
prototype power plant. The project
planners believe that prototype will be completed by 2020 and a fleet of power
plants will follow by 2030. The target fuel the laser uses is comprised of
deuterium and tritium. The former is
the heavy water molecule harvested from seawater and the latter is a lithium
derivative that can be separated from soil.
As such the raw materials utilized as fuel are virtually unlimited in
their supply. You can read more about
NIF and the LIFE topics if you follow these links.
https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/ife/ https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/
I am running for
State Representative to provide a rational approach to formulate our ongoing
energy policies in New Hampshire. In
2010 the Federal Government subsidized the various forms of energy as follows:
Natural Gas/
Oil $ .64 per Megawatt
Coal $ .82 “
“
Nuclear $ 3.14 “
“
Wind $ 56.29 “
“
Solar $ 775.64 “ “
If the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is proposing that we have 23 percent of our
electricity generated by “renewable” sources,
defined as Wind and Solar by
2025, can you imagine what your energy bills will be then? When candidate Obama talked about his Cap and
Trade Bill (which is what RGGI is on a regional basis) he said, “under my
policies, energy rates will necessarily skyrocket” (his words, not mine!). Before we let misguided policies saddle residents and
business in New Hampshire with runaway electric bills, we should carefully look to alternatives that do exist right over the
horizon. I will proudly serve on the
Science, Technology and Energy Committee to make that happen.