Lifeboat Foundation

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After successful recommissioning in autumn 2022, the Greifswald nuclear fusion experiment has surpassed an important target. In 2023, an energy turnover of 1 gigajoule was targeted. Now the researchers have even achieved 1.3 gigajoules and a new record for discharge time on Wendelstein 7-X: the hot plasma could be maintained for eight minutes.

Continue reading “Power plasma with gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes” »

The move uses a loophole in the NPT and prompts fears of nuclear proliferation.

The U.S. will lend its advanced nuclear propulsion technology to build nuclear-powered submarines for Australia as it looks to counter the rising influence of China in the Indo-Pacific region. This is the first major agreement under the AUKUS pact, a trilateral arrangement that was set up 18 months ago with the U.K., the U.S., and Australia as signatories.

Continue reading “US to transfer nuclear submarine technology to Australia under new AUKUS deal” »

Reliable carbon-free power for the world — michelle catts, senior vice president, nuclear programs, ge-hitachi nuclear energy.

Michelle Catts is the Senior Vice President of Nuclear Programs at GE-Hitachi (GEH — https://nuclear.gepower.com/) located in Wilmington, NC.

Continue reading “Michelle Catts — SVP, Nuclear Programs, GE-Hitachi — Reliable Carbon-Free Power For The World” »

Retro Biosciences’ mysterious backer has finally been revealed!

In 2021 the longevity industry received one of its largest investments to date, with a $180m investment being made into the pharmaceutical start known as Retro Biosciences, or Retro Bio for short. Not only was this investment cause for celebration within the field of regenerative medicine, but it also came with a tantalising mystery, as the backer, or indeed backer, did not make themselves publicly known. It was assumed that due to the secrecy involved, it was likely that this investment had come from a small number of individuals, potentially just a single backer. This mystery backer, combined with the notable capital investment, led to much media attention at the time, and has since garnered a significant amount of interest in Retro Bio from both the general public and future potential financial backers. That was until last week, when the mystery backer finally decided that now was the right time to reveal their identity to the general public.

In an interview with MIT Technology review, American entrepreneur Sam Altman revealed that he was the sole backer for the pharmaceutical start-up, who single handily provided the entire $180m investment. Sam Altman, who primarily made his fortune in the tech industry (specifically through social media companies such as Loopt) has become somewhat of an angel investor for a slew of world changing, innovative companies which are involved in everything from artificial intelligence to nuclear energy. It is hoped that this significant single investment marks the beginning of a longevity tech boom, similar to what was seen during the dot-com boom (but hopefully without the disastrous ending).

A research team’s milestone could help realize efficient electrical grids, better battery life for cellphones and improving nuclear fusion.

A water-based detector has been used to spot antineutrinos from nuclear reactions hundreds of kilometres away. It could be used to monitor distant nuclear activities.

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

A new test finally ignited a nuclear fusion reaction that unleashed more energy than it took in. This raises hopes that someday the reaction that powers the sun could also cleanly power activities here on Earth.

The experiment took place at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif. The U.S. Department of Energy announced its achievement on December 13.

“This is a monumental breakthrough,” says Gilbert Collins. This physicist works at the University of Rochester in New York and did not take part in the new research. “Since I started in this field, fusion was always 50 years away,” Collins says. “With this achievement, the landscape has changed.”

As fusion developers around the world race to commercialize fusion energy, TAE Technologies has pioneered the pursuit of the cleanest and most economical path to providing electricity with hydrogen-boron (also known as p-B¹¹ or p¹¹ B), an abundant, environmentally sound fuel. Today the company is announcing, in collaboration with Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), a noteworthy research advancement: the first-ever hydrogen-boron fusion experiments in a magnetically confined fusion plasma.

In a paper published by Nature Communications, scientists explain the outcome of the nuclear fusion reaction of hydrogen-boron in an experiment in NIFS’ Large Helical Device (LHD). This paper describes the experimental work of producing the conditions necessary for hydrogen-boron fusion in the LHD plasma and TAE’s development of a detector to make measurements of the hydrogen-boron reaction products: helium nuclei, known as alpha particles.

The finding reflects years of collaborative international scientific fusion research, and represents a milestone in TAE’s mission to develop commercial fusion power with hydrogen-boron, the cleanest, most cost-competitive, and most sustainable fuel cycle for fusion.

Researchers have captured the signal of neutrinos from a nuclear reactor using a water-filled neutrino detector, a first for such a device.

In a mine in Sudbury, Canada, the SNO+ detector is being readied to search for a so-far-undetected nuclear-decay process. Spotting this rare decay would allow researchers to confirm that the neutrino is its own antiparticle (see Viewpoint: Probing Majorana Neutrinos). But while SNO+ team members prepare for that search, they have made another breakthrough by capturing the interaction with water of antineutrinos from nuclear reactors [1]. The finding offers the possibility of making neutrino detectors from a nontoxic material that is easy to handle and inexpensive to obtain, key factors for use of the technology in auditing the world’s nuclear reactors (see Feature: Neutrino Detectors for National Security).

The SNO+ detector was inherited from the earlier Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiment. Today the detector is filled with a liquid that lights up when charged particles pass through it. But in 2018, to calibrate the detector’s components and to characterize its intrinsic radioactive background signal after the experiment’s upgrade, it contained water. The antineutrino signal was observed when, after completing those measurements, the researchers took the opportunity to carry out additional experiments before the liquid was switched out.