UK joins US laser fusion project

BBC : The UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment and its Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have formed a partnership with the US Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility (NIF). The three labs will work together to develop a means for generating electricity from laser-powered fusion. The UK leads High-Power Laser Energy Research (HiPER), a European project aimed at moving laser fusion technology toward a commercial plant. Begun in 2005, HiPER is now in the midst of a detailed design phase. The primary goals of NIF, which has been in operation since 2009, are to achieve fusion with high energy gain and to study the conditions that prevail in hydrogen bombs. Speaking about the new partnership, David Willetts, the UK’s science minister, said, “This is an absolutely classic example of the connections between really high-grade theoretical scientific research, business, and commercial opportunities, and of course a fundamental human need: tackling pressures that we’re all familiar with on our energy supply.”