What's the point of it all? Sometimes, as I, Jack Superblack, ponder my existence, I wonder if blasting tiny atoms into oblivion might give life meaning. Well, the U.S. Department of Energy seems to think zapping atoms could at least give us a deathless future, or a future with electric bills that don't make you contemplate the void.
In their grand quest to mimic the sun—a fiery ball of eternal nuclear angst—the DOE is dishing out $42 million to three research madhouses. Lawrence Livermore Loco Lab, Colorado State's Certifiable University, and the University of Raging Rochester will become Frankenstein's workshops of fusion.
Lead fusion wrangler Scott Hsu was heard cackling over the howl of lasers, talking about underlying tech for "inertial fusion systems" while the rest of us try to invent a coffee pot that won't burn the office down.
They're betting on laser-driven cosmic implosions to power future Starbucks. Imagine: a venti latte brewed by the stars themselves. Last year, NIF, which sounds suspiciously like a goblin's name, shot a laser at a hydrogen pellet and made a star tear.
Anyway, NIF turned hydrogen into a burst of intergalactic sparkle—yay for them! It was all very exciting in a final-firework-before-eternal-darkness sort of way.
The chosen labs are now tasked with fashioning lasers like Thor's hammer but smaller, 'cause a full-sized Thor might actually bring about Ragnarok. These mini-Thors need to pulse ten times a second without getting a migraine, all while not setting fire to the lab coat you haven’t washed since the Bush administration.
While researchers like Carmen Menoni zap optics with lasers like they're trying to fend off a horde of zombies, Tammy Ma at Livermore has her plasma-coated eyes on the real prize: non-suicidal energy, which sounds delightful after battling the monthly despair of energy bills.
This $42 million might be a pittance in the grand ruinous abyss of energy R&D, but it's a start. In four years, maybe they'll have a path forward—unless the lasers get sentient first. Oh, and I'm supposed to end this on a bright note, so here's a morbid joke: If these laser fusion hubs fail, at least we'll all have an exciting, if blinding, light to walk towards when we die alone. Ha! Death.
Based on the original article "3 Laser Fusion Research Hubs Picked by Energy Department".
