Lifeboat Foundation

What could the UK’s recent investment announcement mean for the future of sustainable energy?
» Subscribe to Seeker!http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker
» Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist

There are many directions we could go when it comes to the future of sustainable energy—but the UK made a bold move when it announced a huge investment (220 million pounds huge) in a prototype fusion power facility that could be functioning as a commercial power plant by 2040.

Continue reading “The UK Is Racing to Build the World’s First Commercial Fusion Power Plant” »

After at least a decade of preparations, coal-reliant Poland may be one step away from embarking on its biggest power project ever, with talks on securing the $60 billion in financing entering the final stretch.

The structure that will house one of the largest and most ambitious energy experiments in history is now complete, with engineers working on the ITER Tokamak Building swinging their last pylon into place in readiness for the nuclear fusion reactor’s assembly stage. Nine years in the making, the facility is built to host the type of super-hot high-speed reactions that take place inside the Sun, and hopefully advance our decades-long pursuit of clean and inexhaustible nuclear fusion energy.

In the works since 1985, ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is a type of nuclear fusion reactor known as a tokamak and is a collaborative project involving thousands of scientists and engineers from 35 countries. These donut-shaped devices are designed to accommodate circular streams of plasma consisting of hydrogen atoms, which are compressed using superconducting magnets so that they fuse together and release monumental amounts of energy.

There are key technological challenges to overcome when it comes to tokamak reactors. Chiefly, these center on bringing them up to the required temperatures and keeping the streams of plasma in place long enough for the reactions to take place.

:3

There’s no telling what you can do when you put your mind to it. Take Richard Hull, he built a small-scale fusion reactor—in a shed, in his backyard. A retired electronics engineer, Hull took a special interest in nuclear fusion. He lives in Lakeside, Virginia, with his cats and likes to pass on his knowledge and collaborate with others on projects. So he invites amateur scientists from all over the United States to meet at his home once a year to check out his reactor and share their inventions.

Continue reading “This Amateur Physicist Built a Fusion Reactor in His Backyard” »

“There are a number of critical technologies that have to be assessed and tested before we go to Mars,” he told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald.

His short-list includes reusable landers, new space suits, mining gear, water and fuel production plants and safe nuclear power sources that could be used to power habitats and equipment on the red planet.

Continue reading “How we’ll get to Mars — what’s the biggest challenge, money or technology?” »

Two days after rumors of a malware infection at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant surfaced on Twitter, the plant’s parent company confirms the security breach.

A new way to calculate the interaction between a metal and its alloying material could speed the hunt for a new material that combines the hardness of ceramic with the resilience of metal.

The discovery, made by engineers at the University of Michigan, identifies two aspects of this interaction that can accurately predict how a particular alloy will behave—and with fewer demanding, from-scratch quantum mechanical calculations.

“Our findings may enable the use of machine learning algorithms for alloy design, potentially accelerating the search for better alloys that could be used in turbine engines and nuclear reactors,” said Liang Qi, assistant professor of materials science and engineering who led the research.

After initial denial, company says report of “malware in system” is correct.

To go where no man has gone before (and to get back) will require quite a bit of oomph. All that energy must come from somewhere. Traditional chemical rocket fuels could work for some missions, but nuclear-based propulsion systems have several advantages.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) rockets use a nuclear reaction to heat liquid hydrogen. When the hydrogen is heated, it expands and is forced through a nozzle to produce thrust. This is similar to how air can stream out of the stem of a balloon and cause it to fly across the room. With rockets, this happens with much greater speed and force.

These hydrogen propelled rockets are designed for space exploration, not for use on Earth, and subsequently would not be turned on (i.e. brought critical) until after they left Earth. Although the specific type of fuel for these applications has not been formally selected, the fuel envisioned for use in an NTP environment is uranium fuel.