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Since 2016, engineering firm NuScale has been working toward getting approval for a first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor, and late last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave it the green light. The company’s pint-sized nuclear reactor has numerous safety benefits over larger reactors, and the small size makes it possible to build them at a centralized facility before shipping them to their final destination.

Nuclear power seems to flip between savior and boogeyman every few years. As climate change escalates due to the use of fossil fuels, nuclear is seen as a way to reduce carbon emissions while maintaining high electricity generation. However, all it takes is one accident like Fukushima or a reminder that Chernobyl is still incredibly dangerous decades later to make people second-guess the construction of new fission generators.

NuScale, which has been anticipating approval of this design since the last technology review in 2020, says its small modular reactor (SMR) addresses these concerns. It’s based on a “Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor” developed at Oregon State University in the early 2000s. It has a compact uranium nuclear core along with helical coil steam generators inside the same steel reactor vessel. So, it generates power through the same mechanism as a traditional reactor (no fancy uranium or thorium salts here), but each SMR only produces about 50 MWe (megawatts electrical) compared with 1,000 or more in existing reactor designs.

Continue reading “US Regulators to Certify First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Design” | >

A detailed 3D study of a massive electrical discharge that rose 50 miles into space above an Oklahoma thunderstorm has provided new information about an elusive atmospheric phenomenon known as gigantic jets. The Oklahoma discharge was the most powerful gigantic jet studied so far, carrying 100 times as much electrical charge as a typical thunderstorm lightning bolt.

The gigantic jet moved an estimated 300 coulombs of electrical charge into the ionosphere—the lower edge of space—from the thunderstorm. Typical bolts carry less than five coulombs between the cloud and ground or within clouds. The upward discharge included relatively cool (approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit) streamers of plasma, as well as structures called leaders that are very hot—more than 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We were able to map this gigantic jet in three dimensions with really ,” said Levi Boggs, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the paper’s corresponding author. “We were able to see very high frequency (VHF) sources above the cloud top, which had not been seen before with this level of detail. Using satellite and , we were able to learn where the very hot leader portion of the discharge was located above the cloud.”

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TAE’s latest backers include the likes of Google and Chevron

TAE has earned the backing of forward-thinking investors and, so far, has raised a total of $1.2 billion for its commercial fusion development thanks to a track record of exceeding milestones and performance capability. TAE’s mission is to provide a long-term solution to the world’s rapidly increasing electricity demand while ensuring global energy independence and security.

To that end, the company recently closed its Series G-2 financing round, in which it secured $250 million from investors in the energy, technology, and engineering sectors. By avoiding carbon and particulate emissions, TAE’s safe, non-radioactive method minimizes any negative effects on the environment or the effects of climate change.

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After decades of inertial confinement fusion research, a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ) was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) for the first time on Aug. 8, 2021, putting researchers at the threshold of fusion gain and achieving scientific ignition.

On the one-year anniversary of this historic achievement, the scientific results of this record experiment have been published in three peer-reviewed papers: one in Physical Review Letters and two in Physical Review E. More than 1,000 authors are included in one of the Physical Review Letters paper to recognize and acknowledge the many individuals who have worked over many decades to enable this significant advance.

“The record shot was a major scientific advance in research, which establishes that fusion ignition in the lab is possible at NIF,” said Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for LLNL’s inertial confinement fusion program. “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”

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Bill Gates is funding more research into dimming the sun! Check out how solar geoengineering works.

Bill Gates is a man who recently suggested the world should eat 100% synthetic beef, has argued that bitcoin is bad for the planet, co-founded Microsoft, and remains one of the richest people in the world.

He is also very interested in dimming the light from the sun to reduce or delay the effects of climate change, according to a forthcoming study from the Bill Gates-backed Harvard University Solar Geoengineering Research Program — which aims to evaluate the efficacy of blocking sunlight from reaching our planet’s surface.

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Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures co-led a $44 million funding round for a startup that aims to accelerate solar far construction.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate change solution-focused VC firm backed by the likes of Bill Gates, has joined a $44 million backing of solar startup Terabase Energy, a press statement reveals.

The VC firm co-led the Terabase deal alongside investor Prelude Ventures, and is known for its backing of Amp Robotics and Lime. The round brings Terabase Energy’s total funding to $52 million.

Continue reading “Bill Gates-backed startup is using robots to build enormous solar farms” | >

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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that there’s a 93 percent chance that one year between now and 2026 will be the hottest on record. Not only will these record high temperatures have an impact on our environment and lives, but they are also expected to change the way in which we safeguard technology. For example, how do you cool data centers while the outside temperature keeps getting higher and higher?

This problem has been discussed previously before due to several failings of data centers around the world caused by cooling failures. That weather shift will have an impact on all human-made infrastructure—including the data centers that keep our planet’s collective knowledge online. According to wired.com, 45 percent of US data centers have experienced an extreme weather event that threatened their ability to operate.

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REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — A volcano in southwest Iceland began erupting Wednesday, the country’s meteorological authorities said — just eight months after its last eruption officially ended.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office urged people not to go near the Fagradalsfjall volcano, which is located some 32 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.

The eruption in an uninhabited valley is not far from Keflavik Airport, Iceland’s international air traffic hub. The airport remained open and no flights were disrupted.

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