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Archive for the ‘nuclear energy’ category: Page 107

Dec 29, 2018

New Calculations May Finally Make Fusion Energy a Reality

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

But despite all our advances, we’re not a whole lot closer to creating net-positive nuclear fusion. Put simply, that’s because these machines just take so much energy to generate plasma.

In fact, Wendelstein 7-X isn’t even intended to generate usable amounts of energy, ever. It’s just a proof of concept.

But for years, Hora and her team have been working on alternative designs. And in this study, they tested them out experimentally as well as through simulations.

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Dec 27, 2018

Scientists Create New Method of Fusion Energy, Without the Old Complications

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

A once-impossible new technique creates fusion energy with powerful lasers and without radioactive fuel.

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Dec 26, 2018

How Cargo Ships Can Go Green

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, sustainability, transportation

New rules will require investing in solar, biofuels and maybe even nuclear power.

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Dec 5, 2018

Meet the renegades building a nuclear fusion reactor in your neighbourhood

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

A growing number of start-ups want to create and commercialise nuclear fusion, to generate clean energy for all. Can they succeed where the big guns have failed?

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Dec 2, 2018

India Will Be the Second Country in the World To Use a Novel Nuclear Technology

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

A new type of nuclear reactor will bring clean energy to India.

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Nov 27, 2018

A Bill Gates-backed energy company is developing what could be a game-changing nuclear reactor

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

TerraPower, a nuclear-energy company founded by Bill Gates, is building a molten-chloride fast reactor that could help lower carbon-dioxide emissions.

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Nov 26, 2018

Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor keeps its cool en route to record-breaking results

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

Scientists toiling away on the cutting edge Wendelstein 7-X nuclear fusion reactor in Germany have pulled together results from their latest round of testing, with a few records to be found amongst them. Following a series of upgrades, the team is reporting the experimental device has achieved its highest energy density and the longest plasma discharge times for device of this type, marking another step forward in the quest for clean fusion power.

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Nov 18, 2018

China’s ‘artificial sun’ is now hot enough for nuclear fusion

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

On Tuesday, a team from China’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science announced that its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor — an “artificial sun” designed to replicate the process our natural Sun uses to generate energy — just hit a new temperature milestone: 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit).

For comparison, the core of our real Sun only reaches about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit — meaning the EAST reactor was, briefly, more than six times hotter than the closest star.

Continue reading “China’s ‘artificial sun’ is now hot enough for nuclear fusion” »

Nov 17, 2018

A new lead on a 50-year-old radiation damage mystery

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, particle physics

For half a century, researchers have seen loops of displaced atoms appearing inside nuclear reactor steel after exposure to radiation, but no one could work out how.

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Nov 17, 2018

Treated superalloys demonstrate unprecedented heat resistance

Posted by in categories: materials, nuclear energy

Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have discovered how to make “superalloys” even more super, extending useful life by thousands of hours. The discovery could improve materials performance for electrical generators and nuclear reactors. The key is to heat and cool the superalloy in a specific way. That creates a microstructure within the material that can withstand high heat more than six times longer than an untreated counterpart.

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