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Archive for the ‘nuclear energy’ category: Page 13

May 23, 2024

Scientists use rare metal to set new record in effort to produce limitless energy: ‘It was a pretty remarkable result’

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

I found this on NewsBreak.


In a record-breaking feat, scientists injected over a billion joules of energy to sustain a nuclear fusion reaction for 6 minutes.

Continue reading “Scientists use rare metal to set new record in effort to produce limitless energy: ‘It was a pretty remarkable result’” »

May 19, 2024

Science Fiction Writer Predicted The Future

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, employment, nuclear energy, robotics/AI, solar power, space travel

The transcript features an interview with renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov, discussing his predictions and visions for the future of space exploration, computers, robotics, and humanity’s role in shaping that future. It touches on concepts like permanent space settlements, harnessing solar power, the increasing importance of computers and AI, the impacts of robotics on jobs, and taking an optimistic yet cautionary view of technological progress. It also covers some earlier inaccurate and exaggerated predictions about robots replacing humans, as well as actual technological developments in 1982 like artificial hearts and fusion reactors. The overall theme is Asimov’s hopeful but measured outlook on future scientific and technological advancements.

May 16, 2024

Researchers elucidate ultrafast laser-induced solid-to-overdense-plasma transitions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nuclear energy

The interaction of solids with high-intensity ultra-short laser pulses has enabled major technological breakthroughs over the past half-century. On the one hand, laser ablation of solids offers micromachining and miniaturization of elements in medical or telecommunication devices. On the other hand, accelerated ion beams from solids using intense lasers may pave the way for new opportunities for cancer treatment with laser-based proton therapy, fusion energy research, and analysis of cultural heritage.

May 15, 2024

Neutron-rich nuclei reveal how heavy elements form

Posted by in categories: cosmology, nuclear energy, physics

Models for how heavy elements are produced within stars have become more accurate thanks to measurements by RIKEN nuclear physicists of the probabilities that 20 neutron-rich nuclei will shed neutrons.

Stars generate energy by fusing the of light elements—first hydrogen nuclei and then progressively heavier nuclei, as the hydrogen and other lighter elements are sequentially consumed. But this process can only produce the first 26 elements up to iron.

Another process, known as rapid neutron capture, is thought to produce nuclei that are heavier than iron. As its name suggests, this process involves nuclei becoming larger by rapidly snatching up stray neutrons. It requires extremely high densities of neutrons and is thus thought to occur mainly during events such as mergers of neutron and supernova explosions.

May 11, 2024

Novel hybrid scheme speeds the way to simulating nuclear reactions on quantum computers

Posted by in categories: computing, nuclear energy, particle physics, quantum physics, security

The nuclear reactions that power the stars and forge the elements emerge from the interactions of the quantum mechanical particles, protons and neutrons. Explaining these processes is one of the most challenging unsolved problems in computational physics. As the mass of the colliding nuclei grows, the resources required to model them outpace even the most powerful conventional computers. Quantum computers could perform the necessary computations. However, they currently fall short of the required number of reliable and long-lived quantum bits. This research combined conventional computers and quantum computers to significantly accelerate the prospects of solving this problem.

The Impact

The researchers successfully used the hybrid computing scheme to simulate the scattering of two neutrons. This opens a path to computing nuclear reaction rates that are difficult or impossible to measure in a laboratory. These include reaction rates that play a role in astrophysics and national security. The hybrid scheme will also aid in simulating the properties of other quantum mechanical systems. For example, it could help researchers study the scattering of electrons with quantized atomic vibrations known as phonons, a process that underlies superconductivity.

May 9, 2024

A Tungsten Miracle Happened in the Heart of a Fusion Reactor

Posted by in categories: innovation, nuclear energy

This breakthrough in plasma stability brings the dream of endless energy even closer.

May 8, 2024

‘A dream come true’: Nuclear clock breakthrough could revolutionize study of the universe’s fundamental forces

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, physics

By nudging a thorium-229 nucleus into a higher energy state, physicists have made it possible to develop a nuclear clock that could probe the most fundamental forces in physics. However, there is still a long way to go.

May 7, 2024

Fusion Breakthrough: 6 Minutes of Plasma Sets New Reactor Record

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, sustainability

A fusion reactor in southern France, called WEST, just achieved an important milestone that brings us one step closer to clean, sustainable, nearly limitless energy.

Scientists at New Jersey’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, who collaborated on the project, announced today that the device created a super-hot material called a plasma that reached 90 million degrees Fahrenheit (50 million degrees Celsius) for 6 straight minutes.

The ultimate goal is to sustain a super-hot plasma for many hours, but 6 minutes is a new world record for a device like WEST. Other nuclear reactors similar to WEST have created hotter plasmas, but they haven’t lasted as long.

May 7, 2024

Fusion record set for tungsten tokamak WEST

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

By Rachel Kremen, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) measured a new record for a fusion device internally clad in tungsten, the element that could be the best fit for the commercial-scale machines required to make fusion a viable energy source for the world.

May 4, 2024

Fusion Breakthrough: Compact New Device Reaches Temperatures of 37 Million Degrees

Posted by in categories: innovation, nuclear energy

In the nine decades since humans first produced fusion reactions, only a few fusion technologies have demonstrated the ability to make a thermal fusion plasma with electron temperatures hotter than 10 million degrees Celsius, roughly the temperature of the core of the sun. Zap Energy’s unique approach, known as a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch, has now joined those rarefied ranks, far exceeding this plasma temperature milestone in a device that is a fraction of the scale of other fusion systems.

A new research paper, published this month in Physical Review Letters, details measurements made on Zap Energy’s Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) of 1–3 keV plasma electron temperatures — roughly the equivalent of 11 to 37 million degrees Celsius (20 to 66 million degrees Fahrenheit). Due to the electrons’ ability to rapidly cool a plasma, this feat is a key hurdle for fusion systems and FuZE is the simplest, smallest, and lowest cost device to have achieved it. Zap’s technology offers the potential for a much shorter and more practical path to a commercial product capable of producing abundant, on-demand, carbon-free energy to the globe.

“These are meticulous, unequivocal measurements, yet made on a device of incredibly modest scale by traditional fusion standards,” describes Ben Levitt, VP of R&D at Zap. “We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us, but our performance to date has advanced to a point that we can now stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the world’s pre-eminent fusion devices, but with great efficiency, and at a fraction of the complexity and cost.”

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