Of Interest archive
2013
15 Sep 2013
Of interest
Is this the Bill Gates of energy?: Meet nuclear entrepreneur Taylor Wilson (18)
Forbes reports that at the recent Halifax International Security Forum, which brought together an impressive array of…
14 Sep 2013
Of interest
Waiting on ignition at NIF
The National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, has been called a modern-day moon-shot, a project of "revolutionary science,…
13 Sep 2013
Of interest
Poland's fusion program concentrating on Wendelstein 7-X
Now successfully completed is the first of several cooperation projects that are to involve Poland's fusion research program in Wendelstein…
12 Sep 2013
Of interest
EU budget: Where the money goes
There are various proposals for the size of the EU's next seven-year budget, beginning in 2014. The sum of EUR 973 billion euros (£782.5bn;…
11 Sep 2013
Of interest
Poland to invest 12.5 billion euros in shale gas by 2020
Poland will invest 50 billion zlotys (EUR 15.5 billion) in the exploration of shale gas by 2020, Finance Minister Mikolaj Budzanowski said…
10 Sep 2013
Of interest
Stop the Parade!
Should we be wasting our dwindling supply of helium on floating cartoon characters? For Americans, the fourth Thursday in November can mean…
9 Sep 2013
Of interest
In defense of sustained research on fusion
Stewart C. Prager, the director of the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and a professor of astrophysical sciences…
8 Sep 2013
Of interest
Lab astrophysics aims for the stars
The giant orange magnets were built decades ago to confine hydrogen nuclei in the quest for fusion energy. But since 1998, Jan Egedal, a…
7 Sep 2013
Of interest
1,000 underwater turbines deep in the Channel
French utilities EDF and GDZ Suez are planning to install between 1,000 and 1,500 underwater turbines in the English Channel by 2030. The…
6 Sep 2013
Of interest
Watch a colossal loop of glowing red plasma shoot out from the sun
The sun unleashed a monster eruption of super-hot plasma Friday in back-to-back solar storms captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft. The…
5 Sep 2013
Of interest
International Atomic Energy Agency holds conference on fusion roadmap
Seventy participants from 16 countries and international groups gathered at the University of California at Los Angeles under the auspices…
4 Sep 2013
Of interest
Enthused with fusion, team targets what drives the sun
Hotter than the centre of the sun, the hydrogen plasma—suspended in a magnetic field in the ANU's H-1 heliac device—rotates at 1km per…
3 Sep 2013
Of interest
Ignition switch
On a breezy day in 2009, action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor of California, took to the stage to dedicate the National…
2 Sep 2013
Of interest
How much is the Moon worth?
Helium-3 is part of the solar wind that has buffeted the solar system for billions of years. Since the moon has no magnetic field or…
1 Sep 2013
Of interest
A magic lamp for the thermonuclear genie
The terrible and awe-inspiring power of thermonuclear reactions in mankind's Cold War past may translate into a much-needed supply of…
31 Aug 2013
Of interest
ORNL debuts Titan supercomputer
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory launched a new era of scientific supercomputing today with Titan, a…
30 Aug 2013
Of interest
Tracking the future
Very rarely is a research area as dependent on 3D-measurement technology in the set-up of its major experiments as fusion plasma physics…
29 Aug 2013
Of interest
Oscillating electrons revealed
Researchers from KVI (Groningen, The Netherlands), Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla MO, USA) and CONICET-Universidad…
28 Aug 2013
Of interest
The kid who has ideas on how to make fusion work
When he was 14, Wilson built a nuclear-fusion reactor. Then, a bomb-sniffing device that impressed even the president. Now 18, the prodigy…
27 Aug 2013
Of interest
What happens when the Sun runs out of fusion fuel?
Researchers who specialize in stellar evolution have long known that the inner planets are in danger. The trouble starts in the…