Laser Fusion - divide and conquer the safe way
The Guardian runs a story today about nuclear fusion laser tech, that should be the safe, clean way to produce nuclear energy in the future.
The British-led project, which has been earmarked by the EU as a priority, is designed to leapfrog an American-funded project called the National Ignition Facility (Nif) in Livermore, California. When that is built in 2010, physicists are confident that the Nif laser will be powerful enough to start a fusion reaction. Experiments in the Nevada desert in the 1980s with underground explosions of nuclear weapons have already shown how much energy they will need to deliver with the laser. Mike Dunne, director of the Central Laser Facility at a publicly funded research site in Oxfordshire that houses Vulcan, the most powerful laser in the world, said: “The trick now is, can we get it to work without throwing a nuclear bomb at the thing?”
That is what Nif is designed to do.
Click the page to read the entire story.
Organic food which has been flown into Britain could be stripped of its status under Soil Association proposals to cut the environmental impact of the food industry. More than half of the organic food eaten in Britain comes from abroad. Soft fruit, including strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, would be especially affected by any change in status. The Soil Association, which licences 85 per cent of Britain’s organic produce, has suggested that food which has been transported by air might be classed on a par with being non-organic. Oxfam has said the loss of organic status would threaten the livelihoods of poor farmers in Africa and Central America, because organic food is more highly prized, writes the Daily Telegraph today.
South Korea plans to break ground for the world’s biggest solar power plant as it tries to diversify its power sources and use cleaner energy, the government and developers said. The $170 million plant, being built in Shinan, near the southwestern tip of South Korea, is part of an effort to seek new and renewable energy sources and is scheduled to be completed by late 2008. The plant will produce more than 27,000 megawatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 6,000 to 7,000 households, said Kim Ji Hun, president of the Korean subsidiary of SunTechnics, the German solar power company that will build the plant.
