Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: nuclear energy

In a feat requiring perseverance, world-leading technology, and no small amount of caution, scientists have used intense X-rays to inspect irradiated nuclear fuel. The imaging, led by researchers at Purdue University and conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, revealed a 3D view of the fuel’s interior structure, laying the groundwork for better nuclear fuel designs and models.

Until now, examinations of uranium fuel have been limited to mostly surface microscopy or to various characterization techniques using mock versions that possess little radioactivity. But scientists want to know at a deeper level how the material changes as it undergoes fission inside a . The resulting insights from this study, which the Journal of Nuclear Materials published in August 2020, can lead to that function more efficiently and cost less to develop.

To get an interior view of the uranium-zirconium fuel studied, the researchers sectioned off a bit of used fuel small enough to be handled safely—a capability developed only within the last seven years. Then, to see inside this tiny metallic sample, they turned to the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Argonne.

Read more | >

On the path to writing his Ph.D. dissertation, Lucio Milanese made a discovery—one that refocused his research, and will now likely dominate his thesis.

Milanese studies , a gas-like flow of ions and electrons that comprises 99 percent of the visible universe, including the Earth’s ionosphere, interstellar space, the , and the environment of stars. Plasmas, like other fluids, are often found in a turbulent state characterized by chaotic, unpredictable motion, providing multiple challenges to researchers who seek to understand the cosmic universe or hope to harness burning plasmas for fusion energy.

Milanese is interested in what physicist Richard Feynman called “the most important unsolved problem of classical physics”—turbulence. In this case, the focus is plasma turbulence, its nature and structure.

Read more | >

Circa 2020 radiationless laser.

One of the world’s leading specialists in laser fusion, the Australian physicist Prof. Heinrich Hora, has proposed a new type of nuclear reactor which promises to provide highly-efficient, radioactivity-free generation of electric power, with virtually unlimited reserves of fuel. The design uses ultra-high-power, ultra-short-pulsed lasers to trigger fusion reactions between nuclei of hydrogen and boron. Hora believes that a prototype of his reactor could be running within the decade.

In the previous installments of this series, Jonathan Tennenbaum introduced readers to the new reactor concept and its fascinating scientific and technological background.

It is fitting to conclude this series with an interview Tennenbaum conducted in March this year with Heinrich Hora.

Read more | >

A US company says it will have a nuclear-powered prototype vehicle on the road within two years.

Laser Power Systems from Connecticut is developing a method of propulsion that uses thorium to produce electricity to power a car engine.

Thorium is an element similar to uranium and because it is such a dense material it has the potential to produce massive amounts of heat.

According to Laser Power Systems CEO, Charles Stevens, just one gram of thorium produces more energy than 28000 litres of petrol. Mr Stevens says just eight grams of thorium would be enough to power a vehicle for its entire life.

Read more | >

O,.o kaons in action for interstellar travel: D.

Interstellar probes and future interstellar travel will require relativistic rockets. The problem is that such a rocket drive requires that the rocket exhaust velocity from the fuel also is relativistic, since otherwise the rocket thrust is much too small: the total mass of the fuel will be so large that relativistic speeds cannot be reached in a reasonable time and the total mass of the rocket will be extremely large. Until now, no technology was known that would be able to give rocket exhaust at relativistic speed and a high enough momentum for relativistic travel. Here, a useful method for relativistic interstellar propulsion is described for the first time. This method gives exhaust at relativistic speeds and is a factor of at least one hundred better than normal fusion due to its increased energy output from the annihilation-like meson formation processes. It uses ordinary hydrogen as fuel so a return travel is possible after refuelling almost anywhere in space. The central nuclear processes have been studied in around 20 publications, which is considered to be sufficient evidence for the general properties. The nuclear processes give relativistic particles (kaons, pions and muons) by laser-induced annihilation-like processes in ultra-dense hydrogen H. The kinetic energy of the mesons is 1300 times larger than the energy of the laser pulse. This method is superior to the laser-sail method by several orders of magnitude and is suitable for large spaceships.

Read more | >

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is collaborating with private industry on cutting-edge fusion research aimed at achieving commercial fusion energy. This work, enabled through a public-private DOE grant program, supports efforts to develop high-performance fusion grade plasmas. In one such project PPPL is working in coordination with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a start-up spun out of MIT that is developing a tokamak fusion device called “SPARC.”

The goal of the project is to predict the leakage of fast “alpha” particles produced during the reactions in SPARC, given the size and potential misalignments of the superconducting magnets that confine the plasma. These particles can create a largely self-heated or “burning plasma” that fuels fusion reactions. Development of burning plasma is a major scientific goal for fusion energy research. However, leakage of alpha particles could slow or halt the production of fusion energy and damage the interior of the SPARC facility.

Read more | >