NewNergy

Here's a video about the National Ignition Facility, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, employing the largest bank of laser beams in the world, to be used in an experiment designed to create fusion ignition.

Scientists are creating a system to replicate fusion by using lasers to create the high heat and pressure needed for fusion. At the center of the project is a gold cylinder the size of a dime. This gold cylinder, called the hohlraum, houses a capsule containing the hydrogen isotopes. NIF scientists will blast the hohlraum with 192 laser beams simultaneously for a few billionths of a second. The cylinder will produce x-rays that compress and heat the capsule resulting in a nuclear fusion reaction.

This experiment is not a continuous fusion reactor, it is an experimental device designed to determine whether scientists can create a fusion reaction for an instant of time, using this method.

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The anti nuclear industry is beating an old drum about fuel storage accountability

Friday, April 27, 2007 @ Atomic Insights

The post discusses the case of three nuclear plants that reported that they could not successfully account for 100% of the fuel material that had passed through their plant. The author however feels that this issue is justg an old political drum being beaten.

Read the full story and the author's response here @ Atomic Insights

Labels: nuclear

Recent Advances Demonstrate Why Nuclear Will Win

Recently, engineers have announced some relatively simple changes that will increase the safety and efficiency of nuclear plants.

For example, a group at MIT have found that by making Uranium fuel pellets hollow, like tubes it's possible to increase the fuel efficiency by 50%, says this post @ iNuclear.

One minor change, and we get a 50% pop. That's an incredible increase, compared to what is possible in other alt energy sources. This is an perfect example of why nuclear power is the long-term winner of the energy race, argues this post

Labels: nuclear

Specious Arguments Used by Opponents of Nuclear Energy

The author speaks about the pseduo-scientific arguments used by some of those opposed to nuclear energy. According to these anti-nuclear advocates, "Nuclear fission is apparently bad because splitting atoms is in conflict with all Life because it is destruction not construction".

Of course this is all utter trash; if someone is opposed to nuclear energy (or for that matter opposed to anything), he or she should be able to put forward objective and pertinent arguments. In the case of nuclear energy, both in public forums and sometimes even in scientific forums, what we hear are random thoughts from folks who are scared of the unknown.

As the author says in the post, what is wrong with splitting? "Natural radioactive decay, the kind of decay, which fuelled the primordial vents from where life first sprang, is the destruction of atoms. Metabolism is the destruction of all sorts of molecules."

Fair enough...

Read the rest of the post from here @ Freedom for Fission

Labels: nuclear

Nuclear future bright for Eunice, New Mexico

Eunice in New Mexico, population 2,700, is expected to grow by about 1,000 people in the next year or two - workers needed to build and operate the Louisiana Energy Services' $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant there that recently was approved by state and federal regulators.

Anti-nuclear critics say its a fool's bargain, but Eunice and southeastern New Mexico are betting on a future in which nuclear energy is in demand, uranium enrichment is a growth industry and some of the associated profits will flow into Eunice.

Read the full report from here @ the Albuquerque Tribune

Labels: nuclear

How Green is Nuclear Power?

By Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor

Nuclear Power is an idea that may be catching on. At least 11 new nuclear plants are in the design stage in nine states, including Virginia, Texas, and Florida, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute website.

But that carbon-free pitch has researchers asking anew: How carbon-free is nuclear power? And how cost-effective is it in the fight to slow global warming? asks this article from CSM, read the full article here @ KVOA, Tucson

Labels: climate-change, costs, environment, greenhouse-gases, nuclear

Academic to argue case for nuclear energy

NZPA | Friday, 23 March 2007

New Zealand's reliance on hydro and geothermal energy sources could be short-sighted in the face of climate change, says the European energy expert Terry Wynn, a former member of the European Parliament.

The visiting academic at Auckland University 's recently-created Europe Institute plans a public lecture at the university on the pros and cons of nuclear energy.

Read the full report from here @ Stuff.co.nz

Labels: nuclear

Reusing Soent Nuclear Fuel

A U.S. Department of Energy initiative to reprocess spent nuclear reactor fuel is trying to find a home for a facility. Fred Kight reports the Bush administration says the plan is a means to safely expand nuclear energy. Critics of the initiative say it's unsafe and unwise.

Read more from here @ GLRC

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A Step Toward Fusion Energy

March 10, 2007

Science Daily — A project by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has come one step closer to making fusion energy possible.

The research team, headed by electrical and computer engineering Professor David Anderson and research assistant John Canik, recently proved that the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX), an odd-looking magnetic plasma chamber called a stellarator, can overcome a major barrier in plasma research, in which stellarators lose too much energy to reach the high temperatures needed for fusion.

Read the full story from Science Daily

Labels: nuclear, research

Chinese Lawmaker suggests developing nuclear energy in inland areas
10 Mar 2007
From: Mathaba

BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Development of nuclear energy in China's inland areas is not only feasible but necessary, said a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature of China.

"Now China has the ability to solve safety and environmental protection problems in inland areas, where shortage of primary energy and electricity is showing up while people could afford higher power charges," said Fan Mingwu

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