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.