Lifeboat Foundation

Nuclear power has a controversial history, but many energy experts say it has a major role to play in our energy future. Some in the industry are working to make standard fission power safer and cheaper. Others are pursuing the holy grail of energy — nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun and the stars. If we figure out how to harness that power here on earth, it would be a huge game-changer.

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Continue reading “Is Nuclear Fusion The Answer To Clean Energy?” »

Nuclear fusion is a widely studied process through which atomic nuclei of a low atomic number fuse together to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing a large amount of energy. Nuclear fusion reactions can be produced using a method known as inertial confinement fusion, which entails the use of powerful lasers to implode a fuel capsule and produce plasma.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Delaware, University of Rochester, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Imperial College London, and University of Rome La Sapienza have recently showed what happens to this implosion when one applies a strong magnetic field to the fuel capsule used for inertial confinement fusion. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, demonstrates that strong magnetic fields flatten the shape of inertial fusion implosions.

“In inertial confinement fusion, a millimeter-size spherical capsule is imploded using high-power lasers for nuclear fusion,” Arijit Bose, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “Applying a magnetic field to the implosions can strap the charged plasma particles to the B-field and improve their chances of fusion. However, since magnetic field can restrict plasma particle motion only in the direction across the field lines and not in the direction along the applied field lines, this can introduce differences between the two directions that affect the implosion shape.”

The way she uses dots and strokes looks a bit like ones and zeroes.

Artificial intelligence is playing a huge role in the development of all kinds of technologies. It can be combined with deep learning techniques to do amazing things that have the potential to improve all our lives. Things like learning how to safely control nuclear fusion (opens in new tab), or making delicious pizzas (opens in new tab).

Continue reading “AI robot painter holds an exhibition and her art is really cool” »

Ultra Safe Nuclear’s radioisotope battery would power orbiting satellites.

Whatever you are doing, whether it is driving a car, going for a jog, or even at your laziest, eating chips and watching TV on the couch, there is an entire suite of molecular machinery inside each of your cells hard at work. That machinery, far too small to see with the naked eye or even with many microscopes, creates energy for the cell, manufactures its proteins, makes copies of its DNA, and much more.

Among those pieces of machinery, and one of the most complex, is something known as the nuclear pore complex (NPC). The NPC, which is made of more than 1,000 individual proteins, is an incredibly discriminating gatekeeper for the cell’s nucleus, the membrane-bound region inside a cell that holds that cell’s genetic material. Anything going in or out of the nucleus has to pass through the NPC on its way.

Nuclear pores stud the surface of the cell’s nucleus, controlling what flows in and out of it. (Image: Valerie Altounian)

Ford is a mediocre car company. Or at least, it can be at times, especially these days. But there was a time, years and years ago, when Ford dipped their fingers into many other fields besides automotive.

During my research, preparing my next presentations, i found this beautiful speech by Krafft Ehricke, in 1984, before he passed away.

Every single word is a precious teaching, a beautiful lecture on natural philosophy.

Continue reading “Krafft Ehricke: ‘Lunar Industrialization & Settlement—Birth of Polyglobal Civilization’” »

AI For Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation — Angela Sheffield, Senior Program Manager, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy.

Angela Sheffield is a graduate student and Space Industry fellow at the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School. She is on detail from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), where she serves as the Senior Program Manager for AI for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development.

Continue reading “Angela Sheffield — AI For Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation — National Nuclear Security Admin (NNSA)” »

A recent experiment showed this virtually limitless form of clean power is possible on Earth. Now, one of the most complex energy projects in history aims to make nuclear fusion a reality for the whole planet.