Fusion tests set at new Livermore facility LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Bruno Vanwonterghem, operations manager, for the National Ignition Facility in front of the target chamber, where 192 laser beams are focused on a small target. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory dedicates the National ignition Facility today in Livermore, Calif. on Friday May 29, 2009. less Bruno Vanwonterghem, operations manager, for the National Ignition Facility in front of the target chamber, where 192 laser beams are focused on a small target. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory dedicates ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Fusion tests set at new Livermore facility 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Outside a concrete slab of a building 10 stories high that holds the most powerful array of lasers and high-precision optics ever assembled, the scientists, engineers and workers who created the massive structure at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory celebrated its dedication Friday.

The celebration in a heavily guarded section of the Lawrence Livermore lab marked the fact that research and tests are about to start at the new $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility, or NIF. It will be an unprecedented, years-long physics experiment, and the outcome is by no means certain.

It's purpose is to focus the immense energy in an array of 120 laser beams onto a tiny glass target the size of a BB shot, which is filled with hydrogen. This is all done under immensely high pressure to make the target heat like the fiery interior of a star at a 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.

At that instant - theory says but experiments have yet to achieve - the hydrogen isotope atoms inside the target would fuse to become helium and release more energy in a trillionth of a second than it took to produce the blast in the first place.

To scientists that outcome is called "ignition," a self-sustaining split-second of thermonuclear fusion that would - if successful - serve three vital functions:

-- Enable the keepers of America's nuclear warheads to make sure that, after decades in storage, those elderly weapons are still "safe, secure and reliable," as their keepers hope.

-- Enable astrophysicists and other scientists to study for the first time what kind of matter lies inside exploding stars, as well as in the deep high-pressure interior of Earth and its sister planets.

-- Finally, if the coming years of experiments, which start next year, are successful, a truly limitless supply of clean electrical energy with no carbon waste would be created using the limitless hydrogen fuel in the world's oceans.

Friday's ceremony was attended by members of Congress who had pushed for NIF's construction, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several other dignitaries. Outside the lab's gates, members of the advocacy group Tri-Valley CARES demonstrated against the project. They argued that it is grossly over budget, far behind schedule, a danger to the area and a covert project to train younger physicists to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons.

NIF's completion is, in fact, behind schedule and far beyond its original budget, but the charge that new H-bombs would be under development has been denied repeatedly by everyone from the highest levels in Washington to the scientists and engineers at the Livermore lab.

On Friday, there were only words of wonder inside the Lawrence Livermore grounds.

George Miller, director of the Livermore lab, said he was sure that when the experiments reach peak power the NIF "will miniaturize the sun."

Edward Moses, director of the new national facility, said it would answer the question: "Can you bring star power to Earth?"

Thomas D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, called Friday "a great day for science and a great day for national security, with expectations that will now be put to the test." He said NIF's most urgent test is assuring that it works to validate computer codes so American nuclear weapons need never again be tested by explosions underground or anywhere else.

Schwarzenegger voiced his amazement that "we can create the stars right here" - while "creating 1,000 high-tech jobs for California."