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Category: nuclear energy – Page 60

Americium-241 emits power for more than 400 years.

The world’s first space battery fueled by Americium-241, a nuclear-based fuel, will be developed in cooperation between the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and the U.K. Space Agency.

This project will be carried out in a brand-new laboratory in Cumbria costing £19 million ($23 million) and outfitted with cutting-edge machinery and technology, according to a joint press release by NNL and the Space Agency on Friday.

“For the past 50 years space missions have used Plutonium-238 to stop spacecrafts from freezing, but it is in very limited supply,” said professor Tim Tinsley, account director at NNL.

National Nuclear Laboratory.

This project will be carried out in a brand-new laboratory in Cumbria costing £19 million ($23 million) and outfitted with cutting-edge machinery and technology, according to a joint press release by NNL and the Space Agency on Friday.

Continue reading “World’s first space battery powered by ‘game-changing’ nuclear fuel is coming soon” | >

Year 2019 😁 nanoscale fusion.

A research team of fusion scientists has succeeded in developing “the nano-scale sculpture technique” to fabricate an ultra-thin film by sharpening a tungsten sample with a focused ion beam. This enables the nano-scale observation of a cross-section very near the top surface of the tungsten sample using the transmission electron microscope. The sculpture technique developed by this research can be applied not only to tungsten but also to other hard materials.

Hardened materials such as metals, carbons and ceramics are used in automobiles, aircraft and buildings. In a fusion reactor study, “tungsten,” which is one of the hardest metal materials, is the most likely candidate for the armour material of the device that receives the plasma heat/particle load. This device is called divertor. In any hardened materials, nanometer scale damages or defects can be formed very near the top surface of the materials. For predicting a material lifetime, it is necessary to know the types of the damages and their depth profiles in the material. To do this, we must observe a cross-section of the region very near the top surface of the material with nano-scale level.

For the observation of the internal structure of materials with nano-scale level, transmission electron microscope (TEM), in which accelerated electrons are transmitted through the target materials, is commonly used as a powerful tool. In order to observe a cross-section very near the top surface of the tungsten with TEM, we firstly extract a small piece of the tungsten sample from its surface and then fabricate an ultra-thin film by cutting the extracted sample. The thickness of the film must be below ~100 nm (nanometer) to obtain high resolution due to the high-transmission of the electron beam (IMAGE 1). However, it has been extremely difficult to fabricate such an ultra-thin film for the hard materials such as a tungsten. Therefore, it has been almost impossible to obtain the ~100 nm thickness level by using conventional thin-film fabrication technique.

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In the future humanity may build enormous structures, feats of mega-engineering that may rival planets or even be of greater scope. This episode catalogs roughly 100 major types of Megastructure, from those that are cities in space to those that rival galaxies.

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▬ Megastructure Index ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 — Intro.
03:23 — Active Support.
04:30 — Alderson Disc.
08:30 — Arcology Megatower.
09:48 — Arkship.
10:49 — Artificial Sun.
11:49 — Asteroid Colonies.
13:02 — Atlas Pillars.
14:19 — Banks Orbital.
16:29 — Bernal Sphere.
17:34 — Birch Planet.
20:48 — Bishop Ring.
22:55 — Black Hole Gravity Generator.
23:54 — Black Hole Power Generator.
25:40 — Bubble Hab.
26:36 — Buckyhabs.
28:12 — BWC Megastructures.
29:08 — Caplan Thruster.
29:46 — Carbon Nanotubes.
30:31 — Chainworlds.
31:07 — Chandelier Cities.
31:45 — Clarketech.
32:30 — Cube Worlds.
33:24 — Cylinder Habitat.
36:09 — Dark Sky Station.
36:37 — Disc Worlds & Flat Earths.
38:01 — Dyson Spheres.
40:04 — Dyson Spike.
40:45 — Dyson Swarm.
42:14 — Ecumenopolis.
42:44 — Edersphere/Ederworld.
43:52 — Fusion Candle.
44:29 — Graphene.
44:49 — Grav Plating.
45:20 — Hammer Hab.
45:48 — Helios Drive.
46:43 — Hoop World or Donut World.
47:27 — Hydroshell.
48:13 — Interstellar Black Hole Highway.
48:48 — Interstellar Laser Highway.
50:06 — Jenkins Swarm.
50:27 — Kalpana 1
51:28 — Kipping Terrascope.
52:08 — Lagite.
52:57 — Lofstrom Loop.
53:52 — Magmatter.
54:50 — Matrioshka Brain.
56:45 — Matrioshka Shellworld.
57:53 — McKendree Cylinder.
58:36 — Megatelescope Arrays.
59:25 — Mini Earth.
1:00:30 — Mushroom Habitat.
1:01:26 — Neptunian Chainsaw.
1:01:55 — Nicoll-Dyson Beam.
1:02:52 — Nova Drive.
1:03:16 — O’Neill Cylinder.
1:03:57 — Orbital Plates.
1:04:42 — Orbital Ring.
1:07:22 — Paperclip Maximizer & Grey Goo.
1:08:26 — Parabolic Habitat.
1:10:08 — Planet Brain / Jupiter Brain.
1:10:35 — Planet Ships.
1:11:25 — Planet Swarm.
1:12:21 — Planetary Cycler/Aldrin Cycler.
1:13:10 — Power Beamers.
1:13:55 — Quasar drive.
1:15:25 — Quasite.
1:16:00 — Red Globular Cluster.
1:17:14 — Relativistic Kill Missile.
1:17:55 — Ribbon Worlds.
1:19:12 — Ring Habitat.
1:20:06 — Ringworld.
1:21:36 — Rotacity or Bowl Hab.
1:22:19 — Rungworld.
1:23:25 — Shell World.
1:24:53 — Shkadov Thrusters.
1:25:37 — Sky Cities & Cloud Cities.
1:26:38 — Skyhooks.
1:27:24 — Smoke Ring.
1:28:26 — Solar Mirrors.
1:29:21 — Solar Shades.
1:30:29 — Sombrero Planet.
1:30:51 — Space Elevetors.
1:32:18 — Space Farms.
1:33:27 — Spin Gravity.
1:34:05 — Space Towers.
1:34:50 — Stanford Torus.
1:35:45 — Starlifting.
1:36:55 — Statite.
1:38:31 — Stellar Pinwheel.
1:39:00 — Stellaser.
1:40:34 — Suntower.
1:41:51 — Supramundane Worlds.
1:42:57 — Terran Ring.
1:43:58 — Topopolis.
1:45:07 — Unobtainium.
1:45:35 — Valley House.
1:45:55 — World House.
1:46:26 — Wormhole.
1:53:00 — Credits.

Credits:
The Megastructure Compendium.
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur.
Episode 346, June 9, 2022
Written & Produced by Isaac Arthur.
Narrated by Isaac Arthur & Sarah Fowler Arthur.

Editors:

Continue reading “The Megastructure Compendium” | >

Earth has been hit by an intense, unusual blast of light that could change our understanding of the universe, scientists have said.

Late last year, scientists spotted a 50-second-long blast of energy coming towards Earth, known as a gamma-ray burst or GRB, which are the most powerful explosions in the universe. Immediately, researchers started looking for the afterglow that such blasts leave behind, with that visible light being useful to find where the blast has come from.

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The animation describes the concept of launching a nuclear fusion reactor into orbit in sections for final assembly in space. The concept uses live footage of Pulsar’s existing hall effect plasma thrusters (HET) and hybrid rocket engines tested at RAF Westcott in March 2022. Pulsar is also developing LOX / Methane rocket motors to support this concept.

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The space firm has already built the most powerful electric propulsion engine in Europe.

Nuclear fusion-powered rockets might be nearer than you think. UK rocket company Pulsar Fusion has been awarded funding from the UK Space Agency to help it develop “integrated nuclear fission-based power systems for electric propulsion”, a press statement shared with IE via email reveals.

They will collaborate with the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, as well as Nuclear AMRC to make their vision of green rocket technology, in the form of fusion propulsion, a reality. Fusion / YouTube.

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Interesting Engineering sighted ‘Spot the Dog’ with construction group Balfour Beatty. Naturally, we had a chat with one of their technicians.

‘Spot the dog,’ Balfour Beatty’s first robotic employee, was sighted by Interesting Engineering (IE) at the ‘Brooklands Science Summer School event’ yesterday (Nov. 29).

Spot delivers CAT designs for derelict buildings and nuclear power plants.

Sade Agard.

IE spoke with Jay Saddington, one of the company’s personnel, to learn more about Spot’s activities and what it’s like to take care of it.

Continue reading “Spot the Dog: The robotic dog busy delivering data on dangerous construction sites for Balfour Beatty” | >

Work, conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and featured in Nature Physics, shows that ions behave differently in fusion reactions than previously expected. Credit: John Jett and Jake Long/LLNL

Ions behave differently in fusion reactions than previously expected, according to new findings by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). This discovery provides crucial insights for the future design of a laser–fusion energy source.

The findings, entitled “Evidence for suprathermal ion distribution in burning plasmas,” were featured in a new paper published in the November 14 issue of Nature Physics.

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