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A 20-foot vacuum chamber in Albuquerque takes 26 million amps from 2,160 capacitors in about 100 billionths of a second, around 200 times a year, each shot shaking the ground like a small earthquake,
Autonocion.com • • business
Key Points:
- Albuquerque’s KOB 4 aired a rare inside look at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine, the world’s most powerful pulsed-power and X-ray source, which fires around 200 times annually and creates measurable tremors in nearby mountains.
- The Z machine uses 2,160 capacitors arranged in Marx banks to deliver extremely high electrical power—about 80 terawatts in 100 nanoseconds—focused on a tiny target to generate intense X-ray bursts for nuclear weapons research and fusion experiments.
- Each shot causes mechanical shock due to exploding water switches and requires rebuilding key components, with about 200 rebuilds annually, highlighting the machine’s extreme operational demands.
- Sandia is proposing a successor machine roughly 10 times larger to the National Nuclear Security Administration to achieve conditions beyond Z’s current capabilities, but funding and timelines remain uncertain.
- Albuquerque is becoming a hub for pulsed-power technology, hosting both Sandia’s government Z machine and Pacific Fusion’s private pulsed-power project, though the successor’s future depends on federal approval and budget decisions.
