UR laser lab survives Trump threat, stays in energy race

Rochester City Newspaper By Tim Louis Macaluso | May 2, 2018 The University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics is one of the most important scientific research facilities in the country. As one of several facilities that test the United States’ nuclear stockpile for readiness, it plays a critical role in deterring adversaries from attacking … Read more

Alabama Power’s Smart Neighbourhood homes sold out

Alabama Power’s Smart Neighbourhood homes sold out

Metering.com May 2, 2018 Alabama Power has announced that their Smart Neighbourhood programme is near completion, bringing together high-performance homes, energy efficient systems, connected devices and a microgrid on a community-wide scale. All the homes in the neighbourhood have been sold, with about half now occupied. The remaining homes under construction are expected to be … Read more

International fusion activities and the IAEA’s role

International fusion activities and the IAEA’s role

IAEA Nuclear energy can also be produced by fusion reactions of light nuclei. This technique promises many advantages and has attracted global research and development efforts. The IAEA has supported fusion energy research since its inception and helps Member States exchange and build knowledge on fusion science and technology. Worldwide research has made impressive progress … Read more

The Quest for Clean Energy: IAEA Challenge on Materials for Fusion

The Quest for Clean Energy: IAEA Challenge on Materials for Fusion

IAEA Modelling Damage in a Fusion Reactor Motivation Nuclear fusion is the process by which the nuclei of two light atoms combine to produce a single nucleus whilst releasing a large amount of energy. A star like our own Sun shines because of energy released from a set of fusion reactions which convert hydrogen to … Read more

Success for Europe’s ITER Toroidal Field coil cold tests

Success for Europe’s ITER Toroidal Field coil cold tests

Fusion for Energy 25 April 2018 Europe’s first Toroidal Field coil winding pack to undergo cold tests, SIMIC, port of Marghera, Italy © SIMI C Close to Venice, the final act of Europe’s Toroidal Field (TF) coil magnets will be played. The breathtaking beauty of this city has inspired authors and directors to narrate some … Read more

Closing the circle: Final JT-60SA Toroidal Field coil is installed

Closing the circle: Final JT-60SA Toroidal Field coil is installed

Fusion for Energy 20 April 2018 The last TF coil installed in JT-60SA (Photo courtesy of QST). The assembly of JT-60SA at its Naka site, Japan, has moved a step closer to completion with the installation of the eighteenth and last Toroidal Field (TF) coil. Pre-assembled together with the final sector of the vacuum vessel, … Read more

MIT’s Nuclear Cure-Alls

MIT’s Nuclear Cure-Alls

A critique of the MIT & Commonwealth Energy Compact Fusion Energy Reactor By Daniel Jassby, Ph.D. New Jersey, 3/29/2018 Prepared for the National Academy of Sciences public input on fusion energy In March 2018 a collaboration of MIT and CFS (Commonwealth Fusion Systems) announced that it would build a compact high-field experimental fusion reactor called … Read more

New testing of model improves confidence in the performance of ITER

New testing of model improves confidence in the performance of ITER

Phys.org April 21, 2018 by John Greenwald, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Physicists Brian Grierson of PPPL and Gary Staebler of General Atomics. Credit: Shaun Haskey Scientists seeking to bring fusion—the power that drives the sun and stars—down to Earth must first make the state of matter called plasma superhot enough to sustain fusion reactions. That … Read more

Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be

Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Daniel Jassby | 19 April 2017 Fusion reactors have long been touted as the “perfect” energy source. Proponents claim that when useful commercial fusion reactors are developed, they would produce vast amounts of energy with little radioactive waste, forming little or no plutonium byproducts that could be used for nuclear … Read more