Lawrence Livermore Labs, aka “terrifying military-industrial complex facility hated by all Bay Area hippies,” has apparently just created a miniature star. They plan to use these to solve the energy crisis. Makes about as much sense as building a freaking Hardon Hadron Collider…
It may be an American project, but it has the potential to greatly affect not only the EU, but the entire planet. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory believe they have come up with a way to permanently cure the planet’s energy woes - to create a star on Earth.
Now immediately, the entire plan sounds like ‘science-fiction gone mad’ and throws up some rather important questions - how can you create a star on Earth? Won’t having a sun so close essentially toast the planet? And how is this possibly a good idea? However the scientists at the government lab in California are entirely serious.
Using the world’s largest laser, which is the size of three football fields, the scientists propose to “set off a nuclear reaction so intense that it will make a star bloom on the surface of the Earth.”
If that didn’t sound terrifying enough, the group are hoping to go ahead with the plan late this summer with the aim of harnessing the energy generated by the mini-star to solve the global energy crisis.
While nuclear fusion has been pitched as a ‘miracle power source’ for almost half a century, scientists have yet to sufficiently harness it. To make things worse for the team, the US Government Accountability Office has stated in an audit that delays and mismanagement may delay the fusion reaction this year.