Lifeboat Foundation

Imagine a dust particle in a storm cloud, and you can get an idea of a neutron’s insignificance compared to the magnitude of the molecule it inhabits.

But just as a dust mote might affect a cloud’s track, a neutron can influence the energy of its molecule despite being less than one-millionth its size. And now physicists at MIT and elsewhere have successfully measured a neutron’s tiny effect in a radioactive molecule.

The team has developed a new technique to produce and study short-lived radioactive molecules with neutron numbers they can precisely control. They hand-picked several isotopes of the same molecule, each with one more neutron than the next. When they measured each molecule’s energy, they were able to detect small, nearly imperceptible changes of the nuclear size, due to the effect of a single neutron.

In 1958, Ford showed the world a car like it had never seen before, one powered by a small nuclear reactor. The Ford Nucleon, as it was christened, was envisioned as a car capable of driving more than 5000 miles between fueling stops, appealing to a postwar fixation with convenience that has dominated American consumerism since. Like some other midcentury nuclear fantasies, though, the Nucleon never came to fruition, in part due to engineering problems we still struggle with to this day.

Before we examine why the Nucleon could never be, let’s get a better grasp of the car itself, starting with its utterly comical dimensions. Ford’s press materials envisaged the Nucleon stretching 200.3 inches long and 77.4 wide, making it as long as the new Ford Maverick compact pickup, but slightly wider. Its roof was said to measure just 41.4 inches high, making it less than an inch taller than the legendarily low-slung Ford GT40.

Experts are excited by the concept of microreactors because nuclear facilities have historically relied on economies of scale — a paradigm this tech could reverse.

“Microreactors promise to turn this paradigm on its head by approaching cost competitiveness through technological learning,” Alex Gilbert from the nuclear power think tank Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told CNBC.

Oklo’s “fast reactor” plant uses energy from already-spent nuclear reactor fuel, technology that has been around since the 1950s, according to CNBC.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the early state of our Universe. At the beginning of the universe, ordinary space and time developed out of a primeval state, where all matter and energy of the entire visible universe was contained in a hot, dense point called a gravitational singularity. A billionth the size of a nuclear particle.

While we can not imagine the entirety of the visible universe being a billion times smaller than a nuclear particle, that shouldn’t deter us from wondering about the early state of our universe. However, dealing with such extreme scales is immensely counter-intuitive and our evolved brains and senses have no capacity to grasp the depths of reality in the beginning of cosmic time. Therefore, scientists develop mathematical frameworks to describe the early universe.

Continue reading “The Early Universe Explained by Neil deGrasse Tyson” »

The artificial intelligence revolution is just getting started. But it is already transforming conflict. Militaries all the way from the superpowers to tiny states are seizing on autonomous weapons as essential to surviving the wars of the future. But this mounting arms-race dynamic could lead the world to dangerous places, with algorithms interacting so fast that they are beyond human control. Uncontrolled escalation, even wars that erupt without any human input at all.

DW maps out the future of autonomous warfare, based on conflicts we have already seen – and predictions from experts of what will come next.

Continue reading “How AI is driving a future of autonomous warfare | DW Analysis” »

## GENERAL FUSION (VANCOUVER) • JUN 16, 2021.

# General Fusion to build its Fusion Demonstration Plant in the UK, at the UKAEA Culham Campus.

*Unlike conventional nuclear power, which involves fission or splitting atoms, the emerging fusion technology promises clean energy where the only emission would be helium, and importantly, no radioactive waste.*

Continue reading “General Fusion to build its Fusion Demonstration Plant in the UK, at the UKAEA Culham Campus” »

Fusion energy has the potential to supply safe, clean, and nearly limitless power. Although fusion reactions can occur for light nuclei weighting less than iron, most elements will not fuse unless they are in the interior of a star. To create burning plasmas in experimental fusion power reactors such as tokamaks and stellarators, scientists seek a fuel that is relatively easy to produce, store, and bring to fusion. The current best bet for fusion reactors is deuterium-tritium fuel. This fuel reaches fusion conditions at lower temperatures compared to other elements and releases more energy than other fusion reactions.

Deuterium and tritium are isotopes of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Whereas all isotopes of hydrogen have one proton, deuterium also has one neutron and tritium has two neutrons, so their ion masses are heavier than protium, the isotope of hydrogen with no neutrons. When deuterium and tritium fuse, they create a helium nucleus, which has two protons and two neutrons. The reaction releases an energetic neutron. Fusion power plants would convert energy released from fusion reactions into electricity to power our homes, businesses, and other needs.

Fortunately, deuterium is common. About 1 out of every 5000 hydrogen atoms in seawater is in the form of deuterium. This means our oceans contain many tons of deuterium. When fusion power becomes a reality, just one gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline.

Circa 2015 In theory this big bang laser could eventually create complex matter but would need to be pocket-size as I want it on a smartphone to make a replicator so I can make fruit or food in space 😀

The Institute of Laser Engineering (ILE), Osaka University, has succeeded to reinforce the Petawatt laser “LFEX” to deliver up to 2000 trillion watts in the duration of one trillionth of one second (this corresponds to 1000 times the integrated electric power consumed in the world). By using this high-power laser, it is now possible to generate all of the high-energy quantum beams (electrons, ions, gamma ray, neutron, positron). Owing to such quantum beams with large current, we can make a big step forward not only for creating new fundamental technologies such as medical applications and non-destructive inspection of social infrastructures to contribute to our future life of longevity, safety, and security, but also for realization of laser fusion energy triggered by fast ignition.

Background and output of research

Continue reading “World-largest petawatt laser completed, delivering 2,000 trillion watts output” »

Russia is planning to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to the grand gas giant of the Solar System, Jupiter, in 2030.

Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency, announced the plan for the mammoth 50-month journey last week. The journey will take it on a mini tour of the Solar System, taking pit stops around the Moon and Venus, dropping off spacecraft along its way, before heading on to Jupiter.

More specifically, a “space tug” with a nuclear-based transport and energy module dubbed Zeus will head towards the Moon where a spacecraft will separate from it. It will then pass by Venus to perform a gravity assist maneuver and drop off another spacecraft, before venturing towards Jupiter and one of its satellites.