Scientists working for the US Department of Energy took a big step toward the development of hot fusion recently. The researchers recently tested a super x-ray laser that can create super hot plasma that’s hotter than the sun’s corona. They recently heated a piece of aluminum up to a temperature of 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius) that is actually hotter than the corona of the sun.
It is obvious that this technique could be used to create a hot fusion power source which is why the Department of Energy is working on it. The plasma matter created is the same matter inside stars which are actually giant hot fusion reactors. This could be a step in creating a hot fusion reactor right here in the United States.
The star matter was created with the Linac Coherent Light Source or LCLS a giant X-ray laser machine located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center or SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. SLAC is operated by Stanford University but is it is owned by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
A SLAC press release indicates that scientists want to use the LCLS to create and study dense plasma matter. Researchers have been able to create plasma gases for years but never dense matter. SLAC researcher Bob Nagler said the process can be used to measure dense plasma matter. These measurements could be used to create theories and computer simulations of how that matter behaves. This should help scientists analyze the hot fusion process that powers the sun and help them recreate it.
Scientists from Britain’s Oxford University and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory participated in the work. It looks like exciting work is being done in hot fusion as well. This means that we could soon have both working hot fusion and cold fusion or Low Energy Nuclear Reaction devices available.
It’s also notable that the Department of Energy is publicizing its research at this time. This publicity could be designed to counter attacks on the Department by Republican presidential candidates some of whom want the Department shut down. On the dark side the LCLS could be used to create a super laser weapon which could burn through anything. Something like the canon used on the Death Star.
There are two different fusion processes being developed today: Hot fusion which involves heating plasma to incredibly high temperatures to create a sort of artificial sun which could be used to generate vast amounts of heat and steam to create electricity & low energy nuclear reaction or cold fusion which uses nickel hydrogen reactions to create large amounts of energy. Many scientists including Andrea Rossi regard LENR as a kind nuclear fission rather than nuclear fusion.