Future Power Generation

[AnimeFan188]

Patent details for Nuclear Fusion using lasers and
ultradense deuterium:

"Researchers at the University of Gothenburg and the University of
Iceland are researching a new type of nuclear fusion process. This
produces almost no neutrons but instead fast, heavy electrons (muons),
since it is based on nuclear reactions in ultra-dense heavy hydrogen
(deuterium). The new fusion process can take place in relatively small
laser-fired fusion reactors fueled by heavy hydrogen (deuterium). They
have gotten twice the energy from what they put in and believe they can
get to 20 times the energy out as put in."

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/pat...ion-using.html

[Muryai]

How long do you think it'll take before it turn into a weapon.

[DerGilga]

The nuclear fusion method comprises the following steps:

1. bringing hydrogen in a gaseous state into contact with a hydrogen transfer catalyst configured to cause a transition of the hydrogen from the gaseous state to an ultra-dense state;

Because hydrogen is well known for doing that in the first place.

2. collecting the hydrogen in the ultra-dense state on a carrier configured to substantially confine the hydrogen in the ultra-dense state within a fuel collection portion of the carrier;

'Collect the hydrogen' written unnecessary long.

3. transporting the carrier to an irradiation location; and subjecting, at the irradiation location, the hydrogen in the ultra-dense state to irradiation having sufficient energy to achieve break-even in energy generation by nuclear fusion.

Because that is so easy. The pressure and temperature inside the sun are actually not high enought to overcome the Coulomb barrier... let that sink in for a moment.

These materials are probably both superfluid and superconductive at room temperature, as predicted for ultra-dense deuterium and confirmed in recent experiments.

My sides....

[Kafriel]

IIRC such fusors have rather low efficiency and due to the amount of fuel required are only used on a small scale.

These materials are probably both superfluid and superconductive at room temperature, as predicted for ultra-dense deuterium and confirmed in recent experiments.

Sooo is it just a theory or a certainty?

[AnimeFan188]

Solar Cells Will be Made Obsolete by 3D rectennas aiming at
40-to-90% efficiency:

"A new kind of nanoscale rectenna (half antenna and half rectifier) can
convert solar and infrared into electricity, plus be tuned to nearly any
other frequency as a detector.

Right now efficiency is only one percent, but professor Baratunde Cola
and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech,
Atlanta) convincingly argue that they can achieve 40 percent broad
spectrum efficiency (double that of silicon and more even than multi-
junction gallium arsenide) at a one-tenth of the cost of conventional
solar cells (and with an upper limit of 90 percent efficiency for single
wavelength conversion)."

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/sol...ete-by-3d.html

[AnimeFan188]

Germany is about to start up a monster machine that
could revolutionize the way we use energy:

"For more than 60 years, scientists have dreamed of a clean,
inexhaustible energy source in the form of nuclear fusion.

And they're still dreaming.

But thanks to the efforts of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics,
experts hope that might soon change.

Last year, after 1.1 million construction hours, the institute completed
the world's largest nuclear-fusion machine of its kind, called a stellarator."

See:

https://beta.finance.yahoo.com/news/...152111129.html

[AnimeFan188]

Thorium Reactors Seen As Promising For World’s Long Term
Energy Needs:

"A nuclear energy concept that was demonstrated and abandoned half a century ago is
at the heart of an effort by a Livermore physicist and several colleagues to provide
energy at affordable cost to a growing world population.

The concept, called molten salt technology, uses both thorium and uranium to produce
heat energy from a fuel configuration that is “walk-away safe,” according to Livermore
physicist, Ralph Moir."

See:

http://www.independentnews.com/news/...454b2ca22.html

&

http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-ch...clear-reactor/

YouTube

https://youtu.be/7kBCMEUuSNw

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[AnimeFan188]

The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades:

"It’s no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the
breeze as you drive down the highway. But don’t get too comfortable
with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a
radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what
you see outside your car window.

Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant
rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as
conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can
be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-...nes-no-blades/

[AnimeFan188]

The Outlook for Nuclear Power in the U.S. Really
Sucks:

"As the Paris climate summit kicked off two weeks ago, venture
capitalist Peter Thiel penned a scathing op-ed for the New York Times,
decrying the plight of nuclear power in the U.S. He cited a stagnant
regulatory environment unable to adapt to innovative new reactor
designs, and continued public hysteria over safety and radioactive
waste disposal, as the primary culprits holding us back from a bright
nuclear-powered future.

Thiel makes some valid points. But what’s really killing nuclear power
in this country is garden-variety economics: in the emerging energy
market of the 21st century, nuclear just can’t compete — particularly
with ultra-cheap natural gas."

See:

http://gizmodo.com/the-outlook-for-n...cks-1746582577

[AnimeFan188]

2013 Independent Review declares EMC2 Fusion's
progress to be most significant advances made in
plasma physics and magnetic fusion over the past
50 years:

"Nextbigfuture has obtained the independent reviews of EMC2 Fusions
work for the US Navy from 2012 and 2013. The reviews were obtained
with a Freedom of Information Act request.

In our July 5, 2013, report, the review committee stated, “The EMC2
team is finally at the threshold of success or failure with the Polywell /
Wiffle Ball fusion power concept. The focus of EMC2 efforts has
sharpened considerably and is now totally concentrated on
experimentally producing a so-called Wiffle Ball (WB) plasma in a
Polywell magnetic field configuration and diagnosing it in detail to
verify its confinement properties, a step that is essential to the success
of their fusion power concept.”"

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/201...2-fusions.html

[AnimeFan188]

Uranium Seawater Extraction Makes Nuclear
Power Completely Renewable:

"America, Japan and China are racing to be the first nation to make
nuclear energy completely renewable. The hurdle is making it
economic to extract uranium from seawater, because the amount of
uranium in seawater is truly inexhaustible. James Conca at Forbes
describes the latest developments with uranium seawater extraction.

James has some update from Nextbigfuture's April coverage of the
uranium extraction from seawater research.

And it seems America is in the lead. New technological breakthroughs
from DOE’s Pacific Northwest (PNNL) and Oak Ridge (ORNL) national
laboratories have made removing uranium from seawater within
economic reach and the only question is – when will the source of
uranium for our nuclear power plants change from mined ore to
seawater extraction?"

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/ura...ion-makes.html

[AnimeFan188]

Super controversial Brilliant light Power aka blacklight
power claims to be generating bursts of megawatt power
and claim independent validation:

"The SunCell® was invented and engineered to harness the clean
energy source from the reaction the hydrogen atoms of water
molecules to form a non-polluting product, lower-energy state
hydrogen called “Hydrino” wherein the energy release of H2O fuel is
100 times that of an equivalent amount of high-octane gasoline at an
unprecedented high power density. The compact power is manifest as
tens of thousands of Sun equivalents that can be directly converted to
electrical output using commercial photovoltaic cells."


"BrLP’s safe, non-polluting power-producing system catalytically
converts the hydrogen of the H2O-based solid fuel into a non-polluting
product, Hydrino, by allowing the electrons to fall to smaller radii
around the nucleus. The energy release is over 200 times that of
burning the equivalent amount of hydrogen with oxygen. Due to this
extraordinary energy release, H2O may serve as the source of
hydrogen fuel to form Hydrinos and oxygen. Moreover, the SunCell® is
compact, light-weight and autonomous with a projected capital cost of
1% to 10% that of any other form of power. The anticipated cost is so
low that BrLP intends to provide autonomous individual power for
essentially all stationary and motive applications untethered to the grid
or any fuels infrastructure. Dr. Mills announced, “This is the end of the
age of fire, the internal combustion engine, and centralized power and
fuels.”"

See:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/sup...ant-light.html


============================


This sounds too good to be true. Are we looking at another "Cold
Fusion" type fiasco?

[DerGilga]

^
"A ground state below the ground state"

How about we stop posting news from that site?

[AnimeFan188]

General Atomics' $40-million gamble on small nukes:

"The scientists and engineers at General Atomics think the future of
nuclear energy is coming on the back of a flatbed truck.

The leadership at the San Diego company, which has been developing
nuclear technologies for more than 60 years, has already spent $40
million in the expectation that its ambitious plans for the next
generation of reactors will actually work.

“We have technology that we think is going to qualitatively change the
game," said Christina Back, vice president of nuclear technologies and
materials at General Atomics.

Called the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM² (EM-squared), the concept
is still in the development stage but promises to produce electricity
more cheaply, safely and efficiently than the nation’s current fleet of
nuclear plants."

See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...nap-story.html

[DerGilga]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

General Atomics' $40-million gamble on small nukes:

"The scientists and engineers at General Atomics think the future of
nuclear energy is coming on the back of a flatbed truck.

The leadership at the San Diego company, which has been developing
nuclear technologies for more than 60 years, has already spent $40
million in the expectation that its ambitious plans for the next
generation of reactors will actually work.

“We have technology that we think is going to qualitatively change the
game," said Christina Back, vice president of nuclear technologies and
materials at General Atomics.

Called the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM² (EM-squared), the concept
is still in the development stage but promises to produce electricity
more cheaply, safely and efficiently than the nation’s current fleet of
nuclear plants."

See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...nap-story.html

From the Source:

"It's a material that's like the ceramic in your coffee mug," Back said. "It doesn't melt and that means you can go up to much higher temperatures without failing."

despite what the reactor is made of, the critical point of water remains the same. As such you can't go to higher temperatures without destroying your reactor. I assume people know how a thermic power plant works.

and

Unlike so-called light-water reactors in use, the EM² design uses helium to cool its core, and the inert gas flows through the plant's turbines to make electricity. That eliminates the need to locate a plant near a large water supply, giving EM² the advantage of operating virtually anywhere.

This is beyond stupid.... here the critical point of helium : −239.95 °C (33.20 K) 12.8 atm (1,300 kPa) Source

[AnimeFan188]

Microwave oil recovery could unlock trillions of barrels of oil
and drinkable water from Oil shale and oil sands:

"Producers would microwave oil shale formations with a beam as powerful as 500
household microwave ovens, cooking the kerogen and releasing the oil. It also would turn
the water found naturally in the deposits to steam, which would help push the oil to the
wellbore. “Once you remove the oil and water,” Kearl continues, “the rock basically
becomes transparent” to the microwave beam, which can then penetrate outward farther
and farther, up to about 80 feet from the wellbore. It doesn’t sound like much, but a
single microwave-stimulated well, which would be drilled in formations on average nearly
1,000 feet thick, could pump about 800,000 barrels. Qmast plans to have its first
systems deployed in the field in 2017 and start producing by the end of that year.

Qmast estimates his pumping costs will be about $9 per barrel, which is only about $2
more than conventional wells."

See:

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12...ld-unlock.html

[AnimeFan188]

Nuclear thorium molten salt experiments started in Europe:

"Researchers at NRG, a Dutch nuclear materials firm, have begun the first tests of
nuclear fission using thorium salts since experiments ended at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in the early 1970s."

"The team at NRG is testing several reactor designs on a small scale at first. The first
experiment is on a setup called a molten-salt fast reactor, which burns thorium salt and
in theory should also be able to consume spent nuclear fuel from typical uranium fission
reactions.”"

See:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/0...in-europe.html

[AnimeFan188]

Scientists in the U.S. and Japan Get Serious About
Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions:

"It’s been a big year for low-energy nuclear reactions. LENRs, as they’re known, are a
fringe research topic that some physicists think could explain the results of an
infamous experiment nearly 30 years ago that formed the basis for the idea of cold
fusion. That idea didn’t hold up, and only a handful of researchers around the world
have continued trying to understand the mysterious nature of the inconsistent, heat-
generating reactions that had spurred those claims.

Their determination may finally pay off, as researchers in Japan have recently
managed to generate heat more consistently from these reactions, and the U.S. Navy
is now paying close attention to the field.

In June, scientists at several Japanese research institutes published a paper in the
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy in which they recorded excess heat after
exposing metal nanoparticles to hydrogen gas. The results are the strongest in a long
line of LENR studies from Japanese institutions like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries."

See:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuc...lear-reactions

[AnimeFan188]

DOE Funds 2022 First Demo for Factory Mass Producible Nuclear Power:

"The late 2020’s could see the start of a new age of factory mass produced
nuclear power. The DOE is putting most of its first of its kind funding ($13 million
out of $19 million) for advanced nuclear power research into the Westinghouse 25
MWe eVinci nuclear reactor. The funding will prepare Westinghouse’s 25-MWe
eVinci micro-reactor for nuclear demonstration readiness by 2022.

The eVinci will be mostly solid-state with very few moving parts. It will be using
many heat pipes to transfer heat instead of water or steam. Eventually, these
microreactor modules will be made in one month in a factory. They could be
produced like airplane engines by the thousands. They will be walk-away safe and
operate more efficiently and at lower-cost than existing nuclear reactors. They are
targeting $2 per watt of electricity which means a cost of $20 million for a 10 MWe
reactor that fits on truck. A 25 MWe nuclear reactor would cost $50 million. Forty
such microreactors would be equal to a Gigawatt reactor and cost $2 billion. This is
four times cheaper than current western nuclear reactors and as cheap as natural
gas."

See:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/0...ear-power.html

[AnimeFan188]

US report finds sky is the limit for geothermal energy beneath us:

"Advancing enhanced geothermal techniques alone could produce 45 gigawatts of
electricity by 2050. Add in the more conventional plants, and you’re at 60
gigawatts—26 times more than current geothermal generation. And in a scenario
where natural gas prices go up, making geothermal even more competitive, we could
double that to 120 gigawatts. That would be fully 16 percent of the total projected
2050 generation in the US.

Additionally, that electricity can be generated around the clock and can even be flexibly
ramped up or down, making it an excellent pairing with intermittent forms of renewable
energy like wind and solar.

On the heating (and cooling) side, there are two main areas of opportunity. Traditional
ground-source heat pumps circulate fluid through loops in the ground to provide cooling
in the summer and heating in the winter, and they could be much more widely adopted
with minimal effort. The report estimates that installations could increase 14 times over,
to 28 million homes by 2050, covering 23 percent of national residential demand.
Accounting for limitations in how quickly the market could realistically change brings the
number down to 19 million homes—still a massive increase.

There’s even more potential for district heating systems, where a single, large
geothermal installation pipes heat to all the buildings in an area. There are only a handful
of such systems operating in the US today (Boise, Idaho, has an example), but the
report finds more than 17,000 locations where it would make sense, covering heating
needs for 45 million homes."

See:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019...-grid-by-2050/