For our meeting on May 1, Dr. Carmen S. Menoni, a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at CSU, summarized for us the broad range of projects in which she and her collaborators at CSU are cooperating with academic and commercial entities around the world, including the commitment to build a state-of-the-art ultra-high-intensity laser facility as an exciting step toward creation of virtually unlimited energy from nuclear fusion. This facility will operate as the essential part of RISE, a Department of Energy Inertial Fusion Energy Hub.
Dr. Menoni started her overview by reviewing the many fields in which laser technology is an important contributor. These included health (e.g., laser-driven proton therapy for tumors), materials science (including thin-film technologies and printing of semiconductor chips), radiography, and infrastructure (highlighting the creation of the ALEPH laser at CSU which can produce, for very short time spans, around 1000 times as much power as all of the power plants in the US combined). The ALEPH laser, as part of the RISE project, will be upgraded by 3X in energy and repetition rate as a step toward using lasers as an essential part of creating viable and economic nuclear fusion as a source of virtually unlimited electrical power. As these technologies are developed, some of them will be spun off through commercial companies.
The ALEPH laser is part of LaserNet US, a network of the most powerful lasers in North America, the first chair of which was Jorge Rocca, one of Dr. Menoni’s collaborators at CSU. Some 31 experiments have been completed at CSU by participants from universities and national labs throughout North America and Europe. The high intensities on targets that ALEPH can achieve have enabled experiments in electron acceleration, neutron generation with application to laser fusion, x-ray and gamma ray tomography.
In laser fusion or inertial confinement fusion, the lasers deliver extremely high energies onto a target containing hydrogen to create the appropriate conditions for hydrogen atoms to combine or fuse to produce helium with the release huge amounts of energy in the form of energetic neutrons. It is this energy that can be harvested to convert to electrical energy. In nuclear fusion the fuel is water. As an Illustration of the potential for energy generation of nuclear fusion, she said that the water displaced by a large oil tanker contains enough deuterium/tritium (two heavier isotopes of hydrogen) to generate as much energy as is contained in the oil in that tanker, but carbon free. Although commercial amounts of electrical energy from fusion are far in the future, since 2022 there have been several experiments that have produced, for a very short time, 2.5X as much energy as the laser energy that was used to make the fusion happen.
From the economic point of view, this focus on nuclear fusion is partly driven by the fact that annual demand for electricity is predicted to grow by some 38 gigawatts (some 10% of current demand) in the next five years and fusion is one of the major possible suppliers of this demand. These goals are being funded aggressively by both government and private sources. There are now three fusion energy hubs, including the one at CSU. This hub includes partnerships with XCIMER Energy and Marvel Fusion, two fusion startups and General Atomics to bring private money and expertise into the research not only to develop the necessary technologies but also to reduce costs and bring the benefits of fusion-generated electricity to the grid. These partnerships and the facility in which to make this research happen have already been approved. In addition to facilitating the research, this facility and partnerships will result in training of coming generation of diverse laser professionals. In addition, CSU in collaboration with Ionosphere has created the “FusionForge” overarching combination of organizations and programs to support entrepreneurs working to build the US fusion energy industry. CSU students graduating from this high-energy laser ecosystem are already making their marks in the broader high-energy laser economy of the world as well as the local, Colorado economy. Bringing a laser fusion focus to Colorado will contribute to expanding its leadership in sustainable energy sources.