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Archive for the ‘nuclear energy’ category: Page 107

Nov 12, 2017

On the quest for the holy grail for as long as we live

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, nuclear energy, robotics/AI, virtual reality

This sort of thing is rapidly going mainstream, and de Grey, if still a fringe thinker, seems increasingly less so. At the very least, medical science has progressed to the point where “negligible senescence” — eternal youth, more or less — is something it might be a good idea to start talking about before it is suddenly upon us without our having thought through the implications. As with most of the other miracle technologies that have turned our lives inside out over the past 100 years — rampant automation, nuclear power, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and so on — this one, as Shukan Gendai points out, has its dark side.


Is death inevitable? True, everyone born before Aug. 4, 1900, has proved mortal (the world’s oldest-known living person, a Japanese woman named Nabi Tajima, was born on that date). But the past is only an imperfect guide to the future, as the effervescent present is ceaselessly teaching us.

Must we die? We ourselves probably must. But our children, our grandchildren — or if not them, theirs — may, conceivably, be the beneficiaries of the greatest revolution ever: the conquest of death.

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Nov 9, 2017

Dear Future (Trailer)

Posted by in categories: alien life, nuclear energy, robotics/AI

WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE NOW: http://bit.ly/2yuwDPF

Check out CNET’s channel: http://bit.ly/2gpeXdr

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Nov 6, 2017

“Quark Fusion” Produces Eight Times More Energy Than Nuclear Fusion

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, particle physics

Researchers, building on findings from work involving the Large Hadron Collider, have found a theoretical new form of energy: quark fusion.

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Oct 31, 2017

The Race to Create a Star on Earth

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

If the processes powering the fusion reactor at the Sun’s core could be recreated on Earth, it would be one of the most important events in the history of our species. Nuclear fusion power plants could end our dependency on fossil fuels and provide a virtually limitless, highly efficient source of clean energy.

We went to two of the world’s leading nuclear fusion research centers—Sandia National Labs in New Mexico and General Fusion outside Vancouver—to see how close we are to bringing the power of the stars down to Earth.

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Oct 31, 2017

The robots helping to clear up Fukushima

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, robotics/AI

Robots have become central to the cleaning-up operation at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, six years after the tsunami that triggered the nuclear meltdown.

It is estimated that around 600 tonnes of toxic fuel may have leaked out of the reactor during the incident.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company is using a variety of robots to explore areas too dangerous for people to go near.

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Oct 9, 2017

NASA contracts energy firm to refine nuclear thermal propulsion concepts

Posted by in categories: government, nuclear energy, space travel

As the U.S. government continues to pursue plans for a crewed mission to Mars, NASA has contracted with BWXT Nuclear Energy Inc. of Lynchburg, Virginia, to advance concepts in Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP), which could drastically reduce travel times to Mars.

This is part of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, which takes ideas from academia and industry as well as NASA and other government programs, to advance new approaches to space technologies to accommodate the changing needs of U.S. space efforts.

NTP is not a new concept, but it was abandoned in 1972 when plans for a Mars mission were shelved. NASA conducted ground tests since 1955 to determine the viability of NTP and has occasionally been revisited as a conceptual part of Mars mission feasibility studies.

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Oct 6, 2017

Putting toxic waste to good use

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

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Sep 15, 2017

A nuclear fusion reactor has been successfully tested in the UK

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

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Sep 11, 2017

UK wind electricity cheaper than nuclear: data

Posted by in categories: business, nuclear energy, sustainability

The price of electricity from offshore wind in Britain has dipped below the level guaranteed to Hinkley Point, raising questions about the construction of the vast nuclear power station.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy disclosed Monday the results of auctions for state subsidies for three new offshore farms.

Denmark’s DONG Energy won the auction to build Hornsea Two, which will become the world’s biggest offshore wind farm off the coast of Yorkshire in northern England.

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Aug 27, 2017

‘Muscle robots’ being developed to remove debris from Fukushima reactors

Posted by in categories: engineering, nuclear energy, robotics/AI

TOKYO — A joint venture between Japanese and American high-technology power houses Hitachi and General Electric is developing special robots for removing nuclear debris from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the most difficult task in decommissioning the plant’s six reactors, three of which suffered core meltdowns in the March 2011 accident.

The machines under development by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy are called “muscle robots,” as their hydraulic springs operate like human muscles. The company, based in Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, is stepping up efforts to complete the development project in time for the start of debris removal in 2021.

Hitachi-GE is testing the arms of the robots at a plant of Chugai Technos, a Hiroshima-based engineering service company, located a 30-minute drive from the center of the city. The testing is taking place in a structure with a life-size model of the primary containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima plant. The robots awkwardly move about, picking up concrete lumps standing in for fuel debris.

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