For half a century, researchers have seen loops of displaced atoms appearing inside nuclear reactor steel after exposure to radiation, but no one could work out how.
Category: nuclear energy – Page 147
Treated superalloys demonstrate unprecedented heat resistance
Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have discovered how to make “superalloys” even more super, extending useful life by thousands of hours. The discovery could improve materials performance for electrical generators and nuclear reactors. The key is to heat and cool the superalloy in a specific way. That creates a microstructure within the material that can withstand high heat more than six times longer than an untreated counterpart.
Destroying nuclear waste to create clean energy? It can be done
If not for long-term radioactive waste, then nuclear power would be the ultimate “green” energy. The alternative to uranium is thorium, a radioactive ore whose natural decay is responsible for half of our geothermal energy, which we think of as “green energy.” More than 20 years of research at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), the birthplace of the internet and where Higgs boson was discovered, demonstrate that thorium could become a radically disruptive source of clean energy providing bountiful electricity any place and at any time.
Coal and gas remain by far the largest sources of electricity worldwide, threatening our climate equilibrium. Non-fossil alternatives, such as solar power, use up a forbidding amount of land, even in sunny California, plus the decommissioning will pose a serious recycling challenge within 20 years. Solar is best used on an individual household basis, rather than centralized plants. Wind requires an even larger surface area than solar.
As Michael Shellenberger, a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment”, recently wrote: “Had California and Germany invested $680 billion into nuclear power plants instead of renewables like solar and wind farms, the two would already be generating 100% or more of their electricity from clean energy sources.” Correct, but the disturbing issue of long-term nuclear waste produced by conventional, uranium based, nuclear plants still remains.
China’s “Artificial Sun” Is Now Hot Enough for Nuclear Fusion
Tokamaks like EAST could help us do just that. They’re devices that use magnetic fields to control plasma in a way that could support stable nuclear fusion, and it’s this plasma that EAST heated to such an incredible temperature.
Going Nuclear
Not only is EAST’s new plasma temperature milestone remarkable because, wow, it’s really hot, it’s also the minimum temperature scientists believe is needed to produce a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction on Earth.
Fusion breakthrough as China’s “artificial sun” reaches 100 million degrees
The day of clean, limitless energy from nuclear fusion has taken another step closer thanks to China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). During a four-month experiment, the “Chinese artificial sun” reached a core plasma temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius – that’s more than six times hotter than the interior of the Sun – and a heating power of 10 MW, enabling the study of various aspects of practical nuclear fusion in the process.
‘Unlike us, Elon Musk is using old tech’: Russia shows off reusable NUKE ENGINE for Mars mission
A leading Russian space research center has posted a video of its nuclear-powered rocket, that will be able to land on Mars after seven months, and can be re-launched into space just 48 hours after landing.
“A mission to Mars is possible in the very near future, but that’s not an aim in itself. Our engines can be the foundation for a whole range of space missions that currently seem like science fiction,” Vladimir Koshlakov, who heads Moscow’s Keldysh Research Center told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The institute, which is famous for developing the Katyusha rocket launched during World War II, has been working on what it says is a “unique” propulsion system since 2009. From past descriptions, it comprises a gas-cooled fission reactor that powers a generator, which in turn feeds a plasma thruster.
Chinese fusion experiment generates an electron temperature of over 100 million degrees
A team of Chinese researchers has conducted an experiment that is nicknamed the “Chinese artificial sun” using the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion device. The EAST device has been conducting a four-month-long experiment with the goal of seeing how hot the electron temperature inside the fusion device could be. The scientists were able to achieve an electron temperature in the core plasma of over 100 million degrees.
Russia ‘tests’ key piece of nuclear space engine to revolutionize long-range missions
Nuclear engine (aka YaEDU):
A key component of Russia’s future nuclear space propulsion system, which may revolutionize long-range exploration of the solar system, has been successfully tested, RIA Novosti reported.
Since at least 2009, Russian space and atomic engineers have been developing a special space propulsion system, which uses a 1 megawatt nuclear fusion reactor as source of energy. According to a work competition report, published on a website tracing public spending in Russia and reviewed by the news agency, one of the crucial elements of the system, which is responsible for cooling down the reactor, has been successfully tested.
The nuclear engine, which is known by its abbreviation YaEDU (Nuclear Propulsion and Power Engine System) consists of a small fast-neutron nuclear reactor, an electricity generator fed by the reactor’s heat and space thrusters powered by the generator.
