Lifeboat Foundation

I suggest two responses to this difficult challenge for the United States and its allies: At the time of attack, the allies should respond with nonnuclear retaliation as long as politically feasible, in order to prevent further nuclear escalation. However, this will be difficult given the likely post-strike panic and hysteria. So, in preparation, the US should deconcentrate its northeast Asian conventional footprint, to reduce North Korean opportunities to engage in nuclear blackmail regarding regional American clusters of military equipment and personnel, and to reduce potential US casualties and consequent massive retaliation pressures if North Korea does launch a nuclear attack.

North Korean first-use incentives. The incentives for North Korea to use nuclear weapons first in a major conflict are powerful:

Operationally, North Korea will likely have only a very short time window to use its weapons of mass destruction. The Americans will almost certainly try to immediately suppress Northern missiles. An imminent, massive US-South Korea disarming strike creates an extreme use-it-or-lose-it dilemma for Pyongyang. If Kim Jong-Un does not use his nuclear weapons at the start of hostilities, most will be destroyed a short time later by allied airpower, turning an inter-Korean conflict into a conventional war that the North will probably lose. Frighteningly, this may encourage Kim to also release his strategic nuclear weapons almost immediately after fighting begins.

MIT researchers and colleagues have demonstrated a way to precisely control the size, composition, and other properties of nanoparticles key to the reactions involved in a variety of clean energy and environmental technologies. They did so by leveraging ion irradiation, a technique in which beams of charged particles bombard a material.

They went on to show that nanoparticles created this way have superior performance over their conventionally made counterparts.

“The materials we have worked on could advance several technologies, from fuel cells to generate CO₂-free electricity to the production of clean hydrogen feedstocks for the chemical industry [through electrolysis cells],” says Bilge Yildiz, leader of the work and a professor in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

A year ago, scientists generated net energy with a fusion reactor. This is what’s happened since then.

Now that’s cool but you will probably only see rich people flying in it for a while, if it comes to be.

The supersonic, nuclear-powered plane concept flies nearly twice the speed of Concorde and could get from London to New York in less time than a soccer game.

The nuclear fusion industry witnessed tremendous developments in 2023. The year 2022 drew its curtains with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab producing a fusion reaction in the laboratory that yielded more energy than was absorbed by the fuel to initiate it. The reaction yielded 1.3 megajoules of energy, about five times the 250 kilojoules that were absorbed by the capsule. This scientific breakthrough sparked an increase in investments in 2023 with new companies joining the race.

The Fusion Industry Association, or FIA, compiled the “Global Fusion Industry Report” of 2023. Pressing for fusion energy to take over as a cleaner source of energy, FIA presented a comprehensive overview of the advancements made in the second quarter of the year in this report. It highlights the effect of a successful ignition or net energy gain in nuclear fusion and its economic consequences.

FIA observed a net increase in investments in the fusion power industry. With $1.4 billion more than the previous year, 27 companies in fusion were able to draw $46 billion in investment. The ignition inspired the emergence of newer and smaller companies which contributed the majority share of the surge in investments. There are two reported big chequeholders securing funding over $100 million in the 2nd quarter—TAE Technologies in California and ENN in China.

“There is a whole new discussion at least posing the question of the carbon footprint of particle physics.”

A particle collider, sometimes referred to as an atom smasher, is a type of high-energy physics apparatus used to investigate the fundamental particles and forces that exist in the cosmos. Subatomic particles, such as protons, electrons, or other charged particles, are accelerated to extremely high speeds and collide at extremely high energies in particle colliders.

Scientists use them to study the core components of matter and the fundamental forces of existence such as the nature of dark matter, the properties of quarks and leptons as well as the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear… More.

Continue reading “Energy efficient particle collider concept could revolutionize physics” »

Scientists showcased the application of machine learning in the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR).

Machine learning technology has the potential to transform nuclear reactor operations, according to a team of experts from the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, who demonstrated how it may improve security and efficiency.

They showcased the application of machine learning in the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), a specialized cutting-edge nuclear reactor.

Japan’s JT-60SA tokamak will test technologies put to use in ITER.

Cinefootage Visuals.

Nuclear fusion offers a non-polluting and less risky method to meet the world’s energy demands. While the process has been ongoing on the Sun for billions of years, humanity is still trying to perfect how it can replicated on Earth.