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Category: nuclear energy – Page 38

Fusion energy is basically just smashing things together to make energy. Grossly oversimplified? Yes, but still accurate. First Light Fusion in the UK has a unique approach to fusion energy that takes that “smashing things together” to another level. I had a chance to see their facility first hand and talk to them about their current progress, as well as what’s to come at their new demonstrator plant. Are privately funded companies, like First Light Fusion, the path towards our fusion energy future?

This is the second video in my “UK nuclear tour.” In my first video, I visited the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Science Center, which is the hub of the UK government’s fusion research. That’s where you find the JET and MAST-U tokamaks, but what’s interesting is that the UKAEA isn’t just about publicly funded research. They’re also working with private companies, like First Light Fusion, to offer support to accelerate all kinds of approaches towards fusion energy. First Light just recently announced that they’re building Machine 4 at the Culham Science Center, but I’ll get to more on that in a bit.1

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Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia has sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus, which borders Ukraine. Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia, which has more nuclear weapons than any other country, will use all means to defend itself. Russia has a huge numerical superiority over the united states and the nato military alliance when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons. The united states believe Russia has around 2,000 such working tactical warheads. Reports say, the united states has around 200 tactical nuclear weapons, half of which are at bases in Europe. Remember, Belarus has borders with 3 nato members — Poland, Lithuania & Latvia. The treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, signed by the soviet union, says no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or tech to a non-nuclear power.

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Based upon a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data recently released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), utility-scale solar and wind have apparently each added more new electrical generating capacity during the first four months of 2023 than the new Vogtle-3 nuclear reactor that just came on-line after nearly 14 years of construction and major cost overruns.

FERC had earlier reported in its monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report for December 2022 that installed U.S. utility-scale solar generating capacity had reached 80,400 megawatts (MW) by the end of last year.

However, in its most recent report, with data through April 30, 2023, FERC cites 85,790-MW of installed solar generating capacity… and that does not include new small-scale distributed PV systems. Meanwhile, FERC listed 143,280-MW of installed wind generating capacity at the end of 2022 but, four months later, that figure had been increased to 146,900-MW.

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Understanding the behavior of nuclear matter—including the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei—is extremely complicated. This is particularly true in our world, which is three dimensional. Mathematical techniques from condensed matter physics that consider interactions in just one spatial dimension (plus time) greatly simplify the challenge.

Using this two-dimensional approach, scientists solved the complex equations that describe how low-energy excitations ripple through a system of dense nuclear matter. This work indicates that the center of stars, where such dense nuclear matter exists in nature, may be described by an unexpected form.

Being able to understand the quark interactions in two dimensions opens a new window into understanding neutron stars, the densest form of matter in the universe. The approach could help advance the current “golden age” for studying these exotic stars. This surge in research success was triggered by recent discoveries of gravitational waves and electromagnetic emissions in the cosmos.

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Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer talks about Oppenheimer and about his Alternate History book: The Oppenheimer Alternative.

Where to find ‘The Oppenheimer Alternative” book?
Robert J. Sawyer’s website: https://sfwriter.com.

* Trinity moment — AI vs. Nuclear.
* ‘Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’
* The Jewish connection to the Manhattan project and the Nazi nuclear program.
* Nuking Japan.
* Oppenheimer personality.
* Nuclear as a Double Edge Sword. Existential risk of a nuclear Holocaust.
* Thermonuclear — the rivalry with Edward Teller.
* Alternate History — the end of the world by 2030
* Military driven science vs. science driven by scientists.
* Nuclear energy in space.
* The Orion project — Nuclear Impales propulsion.
* Controversy of Wernher von Braun.
* Role of science fiction.

Channel inks:

Continue reading “Oppenheimer — with Robert J. Sawyer” | >

A new kind of starship.

The huge distances between Earth and the nearest star make it necessary for us to conceive of extremely high-velocity starships if interstellar travel is to be possible with durations less than a human lifetime. In practise this means accelerating the starship to some percent of lightspeed. The problem with doing this, of course, is that truly phenomenal amounts of power are required to boost a ship to such velocities.[1]

Various propulsion schemes have been proposed, from nuclear fusion to antimatter to laser sails. Until recently, laser sailing seemed like the most economical and easiest way, even though it still requires that we build lasers that draw more power than all of human civilization is now capable of producing. [Author’s note: since I first wrote this a method has been proposed that could amplify a laser launcher’s power by factors of tens of thousands. So I guess laser launch is back on the table.].

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Is Senior Vice President of the Energy Systems business unit of Westinghouse Electric Company, which is the nuclear power unit of.
Westinghouse, where her core focus is in leading the team developing and.
deploying their AP300 Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Portals/0/about-2020/lea…UL22.pdf).

Dr. Baranwal recently served Chief Technology Officer of the organization, where she led the company’s global research and development investments, spearheading their technology strategy to advance the company’s nuclear innovation, and drove next-generation solutions for existing and new markets.

Dr. Baranwal’s appointment to this CTO role in 2022 marked a return to Westinghouse where she worked for nearly a decade in leadership positions in the Global Technology Development, Fuel Engineering, and Product Engineering groups.

Prior to rejoining Westinghouse, Dr. Baranwal served as Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy where she directed the R&D portfolio across current and advanced nuclear technologies while collaborating across nuclear utilities, national labs, reactor developers, academia and government stakeholders. She has also held senior leadership roles with the Idaho National Laboratory as Director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN), and most recently was the Chief Nuclear Officer and Vice President of Nuclear for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Continue reading “Dr. Rita Baranwal, Ph.D. — Senior Vice President, Energy Systems, Westinghouse Electric Company” | >

They managed to achieve temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius. That is hotter than the sun’s core temperature!

Nuclear fusion reactions generate large amounts of energy. An example of nuclear fusion is the reactions happening in the sun’s core. Harnessing fusion energy has long been a goal of scientists and researchers as it produces no greenhouse gas emissions or long-lived radioactive waste.

However, there are several bottlenecks to producing fusion energy, such as the requirement of high temperatures and pressures, plasma instability, cost, scalability, and finding energy balance.

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