Yearly Archives: 2022

How close are we actually to fusion energy powering society? : NPR

How close are we actually to fusion energy powering society? : NPR

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Energy from nuclear fusion has been a part of science fiction for generations. (SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE) DANIEL DAE KIM: (As Raymond) Doctor, we have a successful fusion reaction. ROBERT DOWNEY JR: (As Tony Stark) Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining, clean energy. MARK HAMILL: (As Luke Skywalker) Ready for some power? BEN BURTT: (As R2D2, beeping). HAMILL: (As Luke Skywalker) OK. BRUCE GREENWOOD: (As Christopher Pike) Spock detonated a cold fusion device. MICHAEL J FOX: (As Marty McFly) What are you doing, doc? CHRISTOPHER LLOYD: (As Dr. Emmett Brown) I need fuel. SHAPIRO: Well, yesterday, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced that scientists had reached a real-life… Source link

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Two Mormons Walk Into a Coffee Shop … | Opinion

Two Mormons Walk Into a Coffee Shop … | Opinion

Two Mormons walk into a coffee shop. No Wilson, this isn’t a joke—but it could be. They order lattes but the Gentile barista turns them away because she doesn’t embrace their beliefs. The religious freedom/civil rights conflict is central to the Culture Wars and a pending U.S. Supreme Court case—303 Creative v. Elenis—where a Colorado designer and Evangelical, Lori Smith, refused to create a wedding website for a same-sex couple. … Source link

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“Near-limitless Energy” from Nuclear Fusion? Not so Fast! – Skepchick

“Near-limitless Energy” from Nuclear Fusion? Not so Fast! – Skepchick

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca! Transcript: “Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’”, reports the well-respected Guardian newspaper this week. “Researchers managed to release more energy than they put in: a positive gain known as ignition.” Wow! That’s incredible! I mean that literally, that is so huge that it is not credible. I do not believe it.  Okay, let me start by saying that I am NOT a nuclear physicist. In fact I am no kind of physicist at all. I took calculus my senior year of high school and I remember NOTHING. I think I got a B? I also got what I suspect is the only bachelor of science degree in the United States that does not require graduates… Source link

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Britain is in prime position to commercially exploit this week’s nuclear fusion breakthrough

Britain is in prime position to commercially exploit this week’s nuclear fusion breakthrough

One of the most important stories of the year, certainly the one with the greatest potential, concerns the efforts to recreate nuclear fusion, the power source of the stars. American researchers say that for the first time they have produced more energy from the process than they have put in. It is a small but greatly encouraging breakthrough after decades of experimentation. Although the latest development took place in California, Britain has been in the vanguard of this research since the Joint European Torus (JET) opened at Culham near Oxford in 1984. Cynics will point out that the technical hurdles that need to be overcome are formidable, possibly insuperable. There have also been setbacks, as when two scientists in 1989 claimed to have discovered cold fusion only for their… Source link

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Energy from nuclear fusion? Utah has been there, not done that

Energy from nuclear fusion? Utah has been there, not done that

News of ‘hot’ fusion success recalls Utah’s infamous claims of ‘cold’ fusion 33 years ago. (Doug Pizac | AP) Martin Fleischmann, left, of the University of Southampton, England, talks to reporters about cold fusion as University of Utah chemist B. Stanley Pons listens in Los Angeles, May 9, 1989. The pair of scientists claimed they achieved nuclear fusion, but that claim could never be proven and the university was widely ridiculed.   | Dec. 13, 2022, 1:00 p.m. A nuclear fusion experiment that generates more energy than it consumes? For old timers in Utah, news that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have produced such an experiment harkens back to 1989, when the University of Utah made a claim that jolted the world. Livermore scientists are… Source link

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The Energy Report: Cold Fusion

The Energy Report: Cold Fusion

How Cold is it? How cold is it going to get? Pons and Fleishman rejoice! Cold fusion is back! It’s time to give up the oil gig because we will have an endless supply of cheap and clean energy. Way back in 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that they created a machine that produced anomalous heat (“excess heat”) of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. It was cold fusion. Yet they were later dismissed and even ridiculed because others were not able to duplicate that experiment until maybe now. The FT reports that US government scientists have made a breakthrough in the pursuit of limitless, zero-carbon power by achieving a net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time, according to… Source link

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The Energy Report: Cold Fusion

The Energy Report: Cold Fusion

How Cold is it? How cold is it going to get? Pons and Fleishman rejoice! Cold fusion is back! It’s time to give up the oil gig because we will have an endless supply of cheap and clean energy. Way back in 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that they created a machine that produced anomalous heat (“excess heat”) of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. It was cold fusion. Yet they were later dismissed and even ridiculed because others were not able to duplicate that experiment until maybe now. The FT reports that US government scientists have made a breakthrough in the pursuit of limitless, zero-carbon power by achieving a net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time, according to… Source link

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N-fusion: The clean energy the world needs, but may not get soon enough | Latest News India

N-fusion: The clean energy the world needs, but may not get soon enough | Latest News India

In the quest for perfecting the science of nuclear fusion in practice (the theory is well understood), the energy produced has never matched the energy that has gone into the effort. Until now, going by media reports. {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} There is much excitement around the US energy department’s expected announcement of a “major scientific breakthrough” on Tuesday, which follows reports, first by the Financial Times and then by several other publications and news agencies, that the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Library (LLNL) has achieved a “net energy gain” from a fusion reactor. While an energy output higher than the input would be a breakthrough in scientific terms, the question that… Source link

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