Miracle Light: Can Lasers Solve The Energy Crisis?

An artist's rendering of laser beams entering both ends of a capsule containing a pea-sized pellet of deuterium and tritium at the Energy Department's National Ignitition Facility in Livermore, Calif. National Ignition Facility/MCT

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Next year will mark the 50th birthday of the laser, one of the most productive and widely used mega-inventions of the last century. Scientists hope that 2010 also will see the launch of laser technology's greatest challenge: creating an inexhaustible supply of clean, carbon-free energy.

In the five decades since lasers were developed, they've found a host of applications — from the everyday to the exotic — in industry, science, medicine, entertainment and national security.

Read more ....