Britain has joined forces with America to investigate a hi-tech new way of producing 'clean energy' - not from wind or waves, but from firing huge arrays of high-powered lasers at pellets of hydrogen.
The process causes the hydrogen atoms to fuse together into helium - the same reaction found in hydrogen bombs and stars such as our Sun - but in a controlled reaction that could power homes and businesses.
Recent experiments at America's National Ignition Facility (NIF), have produced huge bursts of energy from the technology - using a stadium-sized building housing an array of 192 lasers which fire a 500-terawatt flash at a drop of hydrogen atoms just 1mm across.
The process causes the hydrogen atoms to fuse together into helium - the same reaction found in hydrogen bombs and stars such as our Sun - but in a controlled reaction that could power homes and businesses.
Recent experiments at America's National Ignition Facility (NIF), have produced huge bursts of energy from the technology - using a stadium-sized building housing an array of 192 lasers which fire a 500-terawatt flash at a drop of hydrogen atoms just 1mm across.