“The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” Google Senior Director for Energy and Climate Michael Terrell, said in a statement.
“This agreement helps accelerate a new technology to meet energy needs cleanly and reliably, and unlock the full potential of AI for everyone,” Terrell added.
Future fusion power plants will require good plasma confinement to sustain reactions and generate energy. One way to contain plasma for fusion reactions is to use a tokamak, a device that applies magnetic fields to “bottle” plasma. However, magnetic islands, a type of instability in the plasma, can destroy the confining magnetic field if they grow large enough.
Scientists achieved a record-breaking 10 quadrillion-watt energy burst using 192 giant lasers.
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a groundbreaking result in nuclear fusion by generating an energy burst of more than 10 quadrillion watts. This was accomplished by using 192 giant lasers to target a tiny hydrogen pellet, releasing 1.3 megajoules of energy in a fraction of a second. The experiment, carried out at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), marks a significant step forward in fusion research and brings scientists closer to achieving “ignition,” where a fusion reaction generates more energy than it consumes.
In this latest experiment, conducted at the NIF, researchers focused intense beams of light from the world’s largest lasers onto a pea-sized pellet of hydrogen. The lasers delivered an immense amount of energy to the pellet, causing it to emit 1.3 megajoules of energy in just 100 trillionths of a second. This amount of energy is equivalent to about 10% of the sunlight that hits Earth at any moment and is significantly higher than the previous record of 170 kilojoules.
Although the hydrogen pellet absorbed more energy from the lasers than it released, the experiment produced approximately 70% of the energy absorbed, a dramatic improvement over past efforts. Scientists hope to eventually reach the break-even point, where the fusion reaction releases 100% or more of the energy it absorbs.
In fusion experiments, understanding the behavior of the plasma, especially the ion temperature and rotation velocity, is essential. These two parameters play a critical role in the stability and performance of the plasma, making them vital for advancing fusion technology. However, quickly and accurately measuring these values has been a major technical challenge in operating fusion reactors at optimal levels.
Fusion researchers are increasingly turning to the element tungsten when looking for an ideal material for components that will directly face the plasma inside fusion reactors known as tokamaks and stellarators. But under the intense heat of fusion plasma, tungsten atoms from the wall can sputter off and enter the plasma. Too much tungsten in the plasma would substantially cool it, which would make sustaining fusion reactions very challenging.
Researchers have captured the signal of neutrinos from a nuclear reactor using a water-filled neutrino detector, a first for such a device.
One of the key features of the eVinci microreactor is its impressive versatility. It will have the capability to generate five megawatts of electricity, produce over 13 megawatts of high-temperature heat, or operate in combined heat and power mode, according to the Saskatchewan Research Council.
To put this in perspective, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported in 2012 that a single megawatt of capacity from a conventional power plant can meet the energy needs of 400 to 900 homes in a year.
Westinghouse views the eVinci microreactor as a groundbreaking technology that holds great promise for future energy requirements.
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The group’s detector design exploits Cherenkov radiation, a phenomenon in which radiation is emitted when charged particles moving faster than light pass through a particular medium, akin to sonic booms when crossing the sound barrier. This is also responsible for nuclear reactors’ eerie blue glow and has been used to detect neutrinos in astrophysics laboratories.
The researchers proposed to assemble their device in northeast England and detect antineutrinos from reactors from all over the U.K. as well as in northern France.
One issue, however, is that antineutrinos from the upper atmosphere and space can muddle the signal, especially as very distant reactors yield exceedingly small signals—sometimes on the order of a single antineutrino per day.
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On September 29, 1901 Enrico Fermi ForMemRS was born.
On May 11, 1974, National Accelerator Laboratory was given a new name: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The eponym honors famed Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, whose accomplishments in both theoretical and experimental physics place him among the greatest scientists of the 20th century.
Many visitors to Fermilab reasonably conclude from its name that Enrico Fermi worked at the laboratory, but he never did. In fact, he died in 1954, years before scientists even officially recommended the construction of a U.S. accelerator laboratory in 1963.
In 1938, Fermi won the Nobel Prize for work that eventually led to the first controlled release of nuclear energy. He and his family then left Italy and came to the United States, where he accepted a position at Columbia University. He later moved to the University of Chicago, where he built the first atomic pile in the squash court under the university’s Stagg Field. While there, he continued investigating the nature of particles that make up the nucleus. He was also active in the design of the school’s synchrocyclotron. At the time of its completion, it was one of the most powerful atom smashers in the world.
