In 1899 Nicola Tesla was experimenting with a worldwide power - communication system. He was researching high voltage coils and had one operating at 12 million volts. Everytime that it was switched off he would notice small fireballs that were produced and lasting for many seconds afterwards. Intrigued he wrote several pages in his journals describing the effect and noted that it would be worth while to investigate further but after his death, these experiments were not replicated again until 70 years later.

During the seventies, two scientists had been researching Tesla's earlier work and over a ten year period, Robert Golka succeeded in recreating the high voltage machine as well as the fireballs. His prototype built at Wendover Air Force Base in Utah even generated a higher output. Around the same time, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa with the backing of the former soviet government was developing similar concepts in nuclear fusion. Fusion generates heat by pushing hydrogen-deuterium atoms together unlike fission reactors that generate heat by splitting heavy atoms apart. Fission reactors leave all kinds of radioactive nuclear particles that can stay that way for thousands of years.

The Fireball Fusion Reactor creates Helium, a non radioactive gas and mathematical modelling shows that it could produce and sustain temperatures of a billion degrees then the fusion process takes over and is maintained. Golka's device proposal was to use 5 high powered carbon dioxide lasers, chosen to produce a particular wave length of light in the far infrared frequencies.

One laser is beamed to the focal point of four other tedrahedrally spaced lasers inside a one foot spherical tank filled with hydrogen-deuterium under high pressure. The high concentration of light energy causes the plasma to explode, resonate and absorb energy from the lasers. Once one billion degrees has been reached, the lasers can be switched off and the fireball sustains itself.

Each pair of hydrogen-deuterium atoms that fuse together create a helium atom and shoot off two neutron particles at high speeds. The tank has an inside water jacket and when some of the neutrons reach the water they convert some of it to deuterium and heat it as well, generating steam to run turbines, either to be used directly or to break down water to hydrogen and oxygen. If this type of fusion reactor could be perfected, it would not require any magnetic fields to keep the plasma in place. The hot gases are held together by an electron-ion effect similar to the surface tension of a water bubble.

Don't forget that Tesla's original experiments were carried out using today's equivalents of "stone knives and copper plates". His research had massive coils and huge voltages to recreate the fireball effect. If only he had access to today's high powered lasers, computers and other technology advances, imagine what other amazing devices could of been spawned from his prolific genius. He detailed many of his early experiments in "The Colorado Springs Tesla Diary of 1899" on display at the Nicola Tesla Museum in Beograd in the former Yugoslavia.

Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television had done extensive research on this phenomena as well and had likened them to "virtual anodes" and "virtual cathodes", later naming them "the Farnsworth effect".

By 1981 Robert Golka had prepared a $4 million dollar funding proposal for the USDOE's consideration using the laser technique in place of the high voltage coils of Tesla's early work.