Europe is moving forward at high speed to build ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility), to be completed by the end of the century. The location for the facility will be announced next year, possibly at the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics. Three prototype lasers are being built in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, scheduled to become operational in 2015.
ELI will be made up of 10 beams, each twice as powerful as the prototype lasers, allowing it to produce 200 petawatts of power – more than 100,000 times the power of the world's combined electricity production – for less than a trillionth of a second. At the focal point, extreme intensity is expected to shed light on 'ghostly' particles and so-called 'dark matter'.
In a related story, Dr. Evil announced yesterday that he is making significant progress on his "Death Star", but has admitted to financial hardships. His latest RO1 received a score of 8.9. "I should have provided more preliminary data", he admitted.
