Octopus Overlords

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 9:31 pm

Drazzil wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 8:45 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:16 pm You keep mixing and matching fusion and fission.

no. Fission plants in planes would be bad. Fusion plants would be too big. If you're talking about going zero carbon then you need solid state batteries capable of powering a jets lift. Am I wrong?

Right now, we're developing hybrid planes that will use jet engines for takeoff and electricity for cruising. No existing electric tech can deliver enough thrust for takeoff, nor is there anything on the horizon, but they can maintain speed and altitude after jet fuel does the literal heavy lifting. Some concepts NASA is working on.

Bipartisan support for nuclear energy continued on Capitol Hill last week as Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the committee’s ranking member, introduced the Fission for the Future Act of 2021, a measure backing the commercial deployment of advanced nuclear reactors.

Introduced on December 16, the legislation would prioritize communities affected by the closure of coal and other fossil-fueled generating facilities and assist in the reutilization of those sites to deploy advanced nuclear power plants, promoting job growth in economically depressed regions.

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 12:59 pm

Bipartisan support for nuclear energy continued on Capitol Hill last week as Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the committee’s ranking member, introduced the Fission for the Future Act of 2021, a measure backing the commercial deployment of advanced nuclear reactors.

Introduced on December 16, the legislation would prioritize communities affected by the closure of coal and other fossil-fueled generating facilities and assist in the reutilization of those sites to deploy advanced nuclear power plants, promoting job growth in economically depressed regions.

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3526/n ... mmunities/

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:16 pm

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 12:59 pm

Bipartisan support for nuclear energy continued on Capitol Hill last week as Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the committee’s ranking member, introduced the Fission for the Future Act of 2021, a measure backing the commercial deployment of advanced nuclear reactors.

Introduced on December 16, the legislation would prioritize communities affected by the closure of coal and other fossil-fueled generating facilities and assist in the reutilization of those sites to deploy advanced nuclear power plants, promoting job growth in economically depressed regions.

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3526/n ... mmunities/

IMHO, with ITER/SPARC reactors conceivably ready to go before the fission reactor approval process can complete, I think this is more backwards thinking from Congress.

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:45 pm

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 3:16 pm

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 12:59 pm

Bipartisan support for nuclear energy continued on Capitol Hill last week as Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the committee’s ranking member, introduced the Fission for the Future Act of 2021, a measure backing the commercial deployment of advanced nuclear reactors.

Introduced on December 16, the legislation would prioritize communities affected by the closure of coal and other fossil-fueled generating facilities and assist in the reutilization of those sites to deploy advanced nuclear power plants, promoting job growth in economically depressed regions.

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3526/n ... mmunities/

IMHO, with ITER/SPARC reactors conceivably ready to go before the fission reactor approval process can complete, I think this is more backwards thinking from Congress.

Yep. Sounds like pork for coal country.

In a giant donut-shaped machine known as a tokamak, scientists working in the English village of Culham, near Oxford, were able to generate a record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy over five seconds on December 21 last year. Five seconds is the limit the machine can sustain the power before its magnets overheat.

The tokamak is principally controlled by 19 magnetic coils that can be used to shape and position the hydrogen plasma inside the fusion chamber, while directing an electric current through it, Felici explained.

The coils are usually governed by a set of independent computerized controllers — one for each aspect of the plasma that features in an experiment — that are programmed according to complex control engineering calculations, depending on the particular conditions being tested. But the new AI system was able to manipulate the plasma with a single controller, he said.
...
The AI proved adept at positioning and shaping the plasma inside the tokamak's fusion chamber in the most common configurations, including the so-called snowflake shape thought to be the most efficient configuration for fusion, Felici said.

In addition, it was able to shape the plasma into "droplets" — separate upper and lower rings of plasma within the chamber — which had never been attempted before, although standard control engineering techniques could also have worked, he said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signaled that his government might consider extending the life of the country’s three remaining nuclear plants as it seeks to bolster its energy security.