Speaker
Description
Nuclear fusion energy powers the Sun. The objective of harnessing this seemingly abundant potentially non-radioactive source of energy on Earth has a widespread interest. I will discuss: Nuclear fusion in stars and in the Universe; conventional approaches to realize it on Earth including the ITER experimental plasma reactor under construction, and the very big inertial confinement laser at NIF. However, these large efforts require tritium: The unstable tritium fuel generates lethal weapon-grade neutrons and needs to be artificially created. I will refocus attention and discuss the pros and cons of three modern fusion paths operating outside of thermal equilibrium constraints: Muon catalyzed nuclear fusion; Laser-driven proton acceleration used to spark micro-explosion fusion; and laser-driven coherent plasmon field-induced fusion. The last two approaches are relying on alternative light element fuels available for mining and are operating in an aneutronic manner.
