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Inside the World's Largest Fusion Reactor - Brooke Borel
At the forefront of the effort to realize fusion-based power is ITER, an international collaboration to build the world’s largest fusion reactor. At the heart of the project is a tokamak, a doughnut-shaped vessel that contains the fusion reaction. In this vessel, magnetic fields confine a plasma composed of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen, while particle beams, radio waves and microwaves heat it to 270 million degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature needed to sustain the fusion reaction. During the reaction, the deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse, producing helium and a neutron. In a fusion power plant, those energetic neutrons would heat a structure, called a blanket, in the tokamak and that heat would be used to turn a turbine to produce electricity.
Is Fusion Power Finally For Real? - Elizabeth Svoboda
If fusion works as proponents claim, it could produce enough clean energy to power the world for hundreds and hundreds of years to come. One of the first hurdles is the tiniest component, the fuel: Hydrogen isotopes, such as deuterium and tritium, adamantly resist uniting, regardless of the amount of heat and steel and funding thrown into the effort.
But this past fall, physicists at NIF, based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, made an important advance with their elaborate building and enormous laser: They fired 121 kilojoules of ultraviolet light into the $3.5 billion facility's target chamber, causing deuterium and tritium nuclei to fuse into helium atoms, releasing 300 trillion high-energy neutrons. Even though NIF and other labs have created fusion before, the achievement brings researchers a step closer to conquering the ultimate challenge: a fusion reaction that produces more energy than is required to start it.
Small Nuclear Reactor Site Planned - Randall Parker
Small nuclear reactors might be the ticket to restarting growth of the US nuclear power industry.
This week the Tennessee Valley Authority signed a letter of intent with nuclear-reactor maker Babcock & Wilcox to work together to build up to six small reactors near Clinch River, Tennessee. If the plan goes ahead, these could be the first small modular commercial nuclear power plants.
Babcock & Wilcox has a long history of making nuclear reactors for US Navy ships. This gives them an advantage in the small nuclear reactor market. Whether this advantage can translate into a competitive product remains to be seen. In theory small reactors can be made in a manufacturing plant that can reach much higher levels of productivity than a construction site for a big nuke could hope to achieve.
Small Nuclear Reactors Get a Customer - Kevin Bullis
The plan comes at a time when many nuclear projects are stalled because of safety concerns and also for reasons of cost. Babcock & Wilcox's modular reactors require less capital than conventional ones, and they have some safety advantages as well.
Forget About Wind & Solar – Natural Gas Is Our Energy Future, Says Policy Expert - Stacy Curtin
Most notable is Schwenniger's assertion that Obama's clean energy initiative, which is supposed to bolster competitiveness, create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, will actually drag on U.S. economic growth in the short- and medium-term.
He cites subsidies for clean energy programs as the main culprit for two reasons: opportunity costs and foreign investment, rather than domestic investment.
"The program subsidizes the commercialization of inefficient wind and solar technologies, many of which are produced abroad, while ignoring more efficient alternatives that would cut America's oil import bill and reduce the overall cost of energy in the United States," he writes in his report. "It makes no economic sense, for example, to subsidize the installation of imported wind turbines when natural gas fired generators can produce an equivalent amount of energy for one-third to one-half the cost." (See: What Energy Problem: U.S. Oil Exports Are on the Rise)
Using Heat to Cool Buildings - Kevin Bullis
All refrigerators and air conditioners cool by evaporating a refrigerant, a process that absorbs heat. They differ in how that refrigerant is condensed so that it can be reused for cooling. Unlike the technology inside most air conditioners, which employs electrically driven compressors to mechanically compress the vaporized refrigerant, adsorption chillers use heat to condense the refrigerant. Adsorption chillers are typically far less efficient than chillers that use electrical compressors, and are bulky and expensive. But they have the advantage of being cheap to operate, since they require very little electricity. "If you have waste heat, you can run it for free," McGrail says.
So far these chillers have been limited to applications where there is a lot of waste heat—such as industrial facilities and power plants—or where electricity isn't always available. Cutting their size and cost could make them attractive in more applications, including in homes, where they could be run using hot water from solar heaters, McGrail says.
Real Clear SciencePutting Chernobyl in Perspective - Josh Gilder
In 2006, 20 years after the accident, a group of eight UN agencies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization, assessed the damage in a study incorporating the work of hundreds of scientists and health experts from around the world.
It turns out that two decades after the fact, the death toll had not reached the tens of thousands that were predicted. In fact, fewer than 50 deaths could be directly attributable to radiation from the disaster, almost all of them among rescue workers who had been exposed to massive amounts of radiation on the disaster site at the time of the fire and its immediate aftermath. In addition, nine children in the area died of thyroid cancer that is thought to have been caused by radioactive contamination, but even among the nearby population, there was neither evidence of decreased fertility nor of congenital malformations that could be attributed to radiation exposure.
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None of this takes away from the heroism of the emergency workers at the Fukushima plants who are taking real risks to bring the reactors there under control, nor the need to take reasonable precautions for the surrounding population, especially children. But it is worth keeping in mind the other startling conclusion of the UN study, which was that alongside the radiological effects, the crippling “mental health impact” caused by widespread misinformation was “the largest public health problem created by the accident.” In other words, the most dangerous fallout form the accident is fear. The way to prevent it is for the media to present more balance in the reporting and “expert” commentary the public is currently receiving in massive doses.
Introduction To Radiation - Siju Mammen
There is a lot of confusion regarding radiation and radiation poisoning and this article will try and break it down.
New engine radically improves fuel economy, cuts emissions - Tuan C. Nguyen
But what gives the new motor an aura of potentially being truly revolutionary is that it utilizes shock wave technology, which takes fuel efficiency to a whole other level. While cars engine use about 15 percent of available fuel for propulsion, the Wave Disk Generator harnesses an impressive 60 percent. Such a vast improvement can translate to a 90 percent reduction in carbon emissions and a driving range of over 500 miles.
Developed by scientists at Michigan State University, the prototype may someday replace the internal combustion engine if it ever makes it to market. Compared to the familiar, but clunky 1,000-pound workhorse under the hood, the generator is about the the size of a cooking pot. And since the engine enables cars to operate sans transmission systems, cooling systems, emissions regulation or fluids, manufacturers can produce electric cars that are up to 30 percent lighter and require far less maintenance
