NuScale Power and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) announced that they are canceling the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP). The subscription rates by customers for the Carbon Free Power Project did not meet the threshold needed to continue. Prices for utilities per kWh had those customers drop out. The Carbon Free Power Project’s was …
Nuclear fusion startup, Fuse, is trying to make a mass production version nuclear fusion system based upon the Sandia Z Machine. The Sandia Z-Machine is a pulsed-power facility and X-ray generator at Sandia National Laboratories. It’s the world’s most powerful electrical device and can create short pulses of electrical energy. The Z-Machine uses electricity to …
Japan’s JT-60SA tokamak nuclear fusion reactor has achieved first plasma which makes it the world’s largest operating nuclear fusion reactor. The JT-60SA uses magnetic fields from superconducting coils to contain a blazingly hot cloud of ionized gas, or plasma, within a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel, in hope of coaxing hydrogen nuclei to fuse and release energy. …
There are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 390 GWe. In 2021 these provided 2653 TWh, about 10% of the world’s electricity. About 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 15 countries, notably China, India and Russia. There is 8-12 GW of new …
The U.S. conducted a high-explosive experiment at a nuclear test site in Nevada hours after Russia revoked a ban on nuclear weapons testing. Wednesday’s test used chemicals and radioisotopes to validate new predictive explosion models”\ that can help detect atomic blasts in other countries, Bloomberg reported, citing the Department of Energy. Russian lawmakers announced their …
Over 43 startups companies are working on nuclear fusion and they have received over $6 billion in funding. This does not include the international and national Tokomak fusion programs. The IEEE Spectrum reviewed five of the nuclear fusion companies that are working on Aneutronic fusion. 1. TAE (TriAlpha Energy) is working towards Proton-Boron fusion. 2. …
Matloff and Joseph Meany conceptualize a large solar sail made of aerographite which would only use the Sun to power a long term interstellar mission. It is based on an inflatable, hollow-body sail. This is updating concepts that goes back at least to the 1980s. Matloff and Meany set up an aerographite-graphene variant using a …
China has completed a 600 Megawatt fast neutron reactor. They had Russian help and it is part of the plan to have Uranium, plutonium and nuclear energy independence. They will close the nuclear fuel cycle in the 2040s and use the nuclear waste which is 95% Uranium 238 by mass. China first commercial scale large-capacity …
New nuclear fission technology is being developed but over 50 nuclear reactors involves over $200 billion of development. China is developing over $100 billion of new nuclear fission power. China can afford to complete two CFR600 sodium fast gen IV reactors and a molten salt nuclear program. China also completed a commercial high temperature pebble …
The official IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Nuclear energy forecast, which gets insider information on all of the funded nuclear energy projects and national programs, has increased its 2050 projections low-medium and high cases by about 12%. Europe has to get reliable energy and cannot use Russian oil and gas. This has led to an …
Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has won a contract from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to develop and demonstrate a nuclear-powered spacecraft. The in-space flight demonstration of a nuclear thermal rocket engine vehicle will take place no later than 2027. The project is called Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO). DARPA partnered with NASA’s …