Meta has signed a 20-year agreement to buy nuclear power from Constellation Energy, continuing the wave of tech giants teaming up with the industry.
Category: nuclear energy – Page 3
Information entropy untangles vortices and flows in turbulent plasmas
Turbulence in nature refers to the complex, time-dependent, and spatially varying fluctuations that develop in fluids such as water, air, and plasma. It is a universal phenomenon that appears across a vast range of scales and systems—from atmospheric and oceanic currents on Earth, to interstellar gas in stars and galaxies, and even within jet engines and blood flow in human arteries.
Turbulence is not merely chaotic; rather, it consists of an evolving hierarchy of interacting vortices, which may organize into large-scale structures or produce coherent flow patterns over time.
In nuclear fusion plasmas, turbulence plays a crucial role in regulating the confinement of thermal energy and the mixing of fuel particles, thereby directly impacting the performance of fusion reactors. Unlike simple fluid turbulence, plasma turbulence involves the simultaneous evolution of multiple physical fields, such as density, temperature, magnetic fields, and electric currents.
MRI method maps blood flows in reverse for deeper insight into brain physiology
The venous system maintains the health of our brains by removing deoxygenated blood and other waste products, but its complexity and variability have made scientific study difficult. Now, a UC Berkeley-led team of researchers has developed an innovative MRI technique that may expand our understanding of this critical system.
In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers demonstrate how their new imaging method, Displacement Spectrum (DiSpect) MRI, maps blood flows “in reverse” to reveal the source of blood in the brain’s veins. This approach could help answer long-standing questions about brain physiology as well as provide a safer, more efficient way to diagnose disease.
Like some current MRI methods, DiSpect uses the water in our blood as a tracing agent to map perfusion, or blood flow, in the brain. The water’s hydrogen atoms possess a quantum mechanical property called spin and can be magnetized when exposed to a magnetic field, like an MRI scanner. But what makes DiSpect unique is its ability to track the “memory” of these nuclear spins, allowing it to map blood flow back to its source.
A new type of X-point radiator that prevents tokamaks from overheating
Nuclear fusion reactors are highly powerful technologies that can generate energy by fusing (i.e., joining) two light atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus. These fusion reactions release large amounts of energy, which can then be converted into electrical power without emitting greenhouse gases.
One of the most reliable and promising fusion reactor designs is the so-called tokamak. Tokamaks are devices that use a doughnut-shaped magnetic field to confine and heat plasma (i.e., superhot, electrically charged gas) for the time necessary for fusion reactions to take place.
Despite their potential for the generation of large amounts of clean energy, future reactor tokamaks may face huge challenges in managing the intense heat produced by fusion reactions. Specifically, some of the confined plasma can interact with the walls of the reactors, damaging them and adversely impacting both their durability and performance.
How Magnetic Reconnection Jolts Electrons
An analysis using unprecedented satellite observations reveals important information about how electrons get heated throughout the Universe.
What connects solar flares that induce space weather, geomagnetic storms that cause auroras, and magnetic disruptions that spoil confinement in magnetically confined fusion devices? All these events rapidly convert stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy of surrounding electrons and positively charged ions in the plasma state of matter. The energy conversion occurs via a fundamental process called magnetic reconnection [1]. But some aspects of reconnection remain poorly understood, despite decades of scrutiny through theoretical studies, ground-and satellite-based observations, lab experiments, and numerical simulations [2]. A key unresolved problem is determining how much of the released magnetic energy goes to the electrons and how much goes to the ions, and by what physical mechanisms this energization occurs.
Plan to harvest helium-3 from lunar surface reaches prototyping milestone
A US startup is looking to our closest satellite to fill a resources gap here on Earth. Helium-3 is rare on terra firma, but is thought to be abundant in the regolith of the Moon. Interlune has now revealed a full-scale excavator prototype that forms a key component of its lunar Harvester.
The shortage of helium-3 – a stable isotope of helium important for applications ranging from energy production to medical research – was first identified in the US toward the middle of 2008. The US government officially recognized the issue in early 2009, and mitigation efforts put in place.
“The United States supply of 3He comes from the decay of tritium (3H), which the Nation had in large quantities because of our nuclear weapons complex; however, the tritium stockpile has declined in recent years through radioactive decay and is expected to decline in the future because of reduced demand for tritium,” read the intro to a National Isotope Development Center newsletter from 2014.
Scientists make game-changing breakthrough that could drive futuristic nuclear energy facilities: ‘This provides crucial technical support’
A research team from the University of South China has developed a set of algorithms to help optimize radiation-shielding design for new types of nuclear reactors.
Their achievement, which was published in the journal of Nuclear Science and Techniques and shared by TechXplore, will help engineers meet the difficult demands for next-gen reactors, including transportable models, as well as those intended for marine and space environments.
Safety is of paramount concern when it comes to nuclear energy, especially considering the public’s perception of this clean energy source following some notable accidents over the past 68 years.