英美研究人员将携手研发激光核聚变作为清洁能源。　
  英国AWE（其前身为英国原子武器发展研究中心）公司、卢瑟福·阿普尔顿实验室和美国加州劳伦斯·利弗摩尔国家实验室的科学家们表示，他们将携手研发激光核聚变作为清洁能源。 
  当氘、氚等较轻元素的原子核相遇时会聚合成较重的原子核，并释放出巨大能量，这一过程就是核聚变。人工控制的持续聚变反应可分为磁约束核聚变和惯性约束核 聚变（分为激光核聚变、粒子束核聚变和电流脉冲核聚变3类）两大类。目前，英国卡拉姆的欧洲联合环形加速器（JET）以及正在法国建设的测试反应堆的国际 热核聚变实验堆（ITER）计划使用的都是磁约束核聚变装置。磁约束核聚变使用强大的电脉冲轰炸重氢来产生等离子体。在聚变发生前，科学家们需要施加一个 强大的磁场，将等离子体牢牢限制住。然而，做到这一点很困难，因为等离子体很快会发生泄露或变得不稳定。 
   现在，科学家们计划利用激光核聚变产生电力。与磁约束核聚变相比，激光核聚变产生的温度更高、压力更大，因此，核聚变发生得更快，只需要将等离子体限制几 十亿分之一秒即可。激光核聚变是利用激光照射核燃料使之发生核聚变反应，由于其在许多方面与氢弹爆炸非常相似，所以，自上世纪60年代激光器问世以来，科 学家就开始致力于利用高功率激光使聚变燃料发生聚变反应，来研究核武器的某些重要物理问题。 
  激光核聚变反应堆不会产生大量可能会熔化的热物质。不过，核聚变中子非常危险。燃料中的氚也具有放射性，会释放出β粒子，人吸入这种粒子会有危险，而且其半衰期很长，为12.5年。 
   现今，全球最大的核聚变激光装置是位于劳伦斯·利弗摩尔国家实验室的国家点火装置（NIF），该实验室的科学家们希望到明年年底，能从核聚变中获得足够多的能量来产生激光脉冲从而实现“点火”。点火是种能自我维持的反应，可产生远超“盈亏”点的大量能量。

Transatlantic Cooperation on Laser Fusion Energy

The American National Ignition Facility (NIF) is partnering with two British entities, the Rutherford Appleton Lab and AWE, to pursue commercialization of laser fusion energy. The NIF, based out of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab, is a large facility built to test Inertial Confinement Fusion, as well as to examine and secure America’s nuclear weapons. The deal was completed at a conference put on by the British Research and Development Society Thursday.  You can read more background on how fusion is achieved in ASP’s White Paper, “Fusion Energy, An Opportunity for American Leadership and Security“.

Articles by the Daily Mail and the BBC give a good overview of the state of the NIF’s experments leading to ignition. I would also recommend listening to Dr Ed Moses, the Director of the NIF, when he went on BBC Radio 4′s “Today” program on Friday morning.

Although I don’t know the extent of the agreement – beyond ‘cooperation’ – I am confident that this could be an important step. I’m sure that the British will bring a great deal to the partnership. The Rutherford Appleton Lab was where the idea of creating fusion for energy was first proved, and AWE is the UK government’s contractor for its nuclear weapons program: meaning that they will bring much of the same expertise that the NIF has gained. Overall, the British have been leaders in fusion since the very beginning. The first fusion-related patents were filed at the University of London in 1946. More recently, they have been most active on the magnetic side. They are a part of ITER, the large-scale magnetic fusion power plant being built in the South of France, and they are hosts to the Joint European Torus (JET) reactor, the largest operational tokamak (magnetic confinement) reactor in the world. Also, in the inertial confinement field, the UK is host to the HiPER project, a laser-fusion project not unlike the NIF’s.

Achieving commercial-scale fusion is one of the most important things that the U.S. or the U.K. can do to secure their long-term energy security while also reducing the threat of climate change. This partnership could prove to be an important step in making that achievable.