Review on Recent Developments in Laser Driven Inertial Fusion

Discovery of the laser in 1960 hopes were based on using its very high energy concentration within very short pulses of time and very small volumes for energy generation from nuclear fusion as “Inertial Fusion Energy” (IFE), parallel to the efforts to produce energy from “Magnetic Confinement Fusion” (MCF), by burning deuterium-tritium (DT) in high temperature plasmas to helium. Over the years the fusion gain was increased by a number of magnitudes and has reached nearly break-even after numerous difficulties in physics and technology had been solved. After briefly summarizing laser driven IFE, we report how the recently developed lasers with pulses of petawatt power and picosecond duration may open new alternatives for IFE with the goal to possibly ignite solid or low compressed DT fuel thereby creating a simplified reactor scheme. Ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks after irradiation of picosecond (PS) laser pulses of around terawatt (TW) power in the range of 1020 cm/s2was discovered by Sauerbrey (1996) as measured by Doppler effect where the laser intensity was up to about 1018 W/cm2. This is several orders of magnitude higher than acceleration by irradiation based on thermal interaction of lasers has produced.

Effect on silage intake and milk production of incorporating maize silage in dairy cow rations based on grass silage of either average or high energy concentration

Following the introduction of milk quota many farmers attempted to place greater reliance on home grown forage as a means of decreasing concentrate inputs and thus reducing input costs. As a high energy forage, maize silage should have the potential to increase forage intake and influence milk yield and quality. The objective of the current trial was to examine the effect on forage intake and milk production of incorporating maize silage into rations based on grass silage with average or high energy concentration.Sixty-three multiparous and 28 primiparous Friesian cows were used in a trial lasting 20 weeks. Following a two week covariate period cows were allocated to treatment. Treatments were based on forage mixtures of maize silage and grass silage of either average (A) or high (H) energy value in which maize formed 0, 25, SO or 75% of the forage mixture DM.