In 1998, the Department of Energy approved the construction of the ATLAS facility: the world’s most powerful pulsed-power compression system. ATLAS simulates the implosion of plutonium in nuclear warheads, and will be used in place of underground nuclear testing. During testing, all capacitors will be charged to 30 million amps at 60kv, then simultaneously discharged. This will fling intense bursts of electrical currents at a small target in the center, imploding small samples of plutonium.