Nuclear fusion drives the stars, including our sun. But on Earth, despite efforts dating to the 1940s, sustained and controlled fusion for electrical power production has never been realized. Research persists, because few ...
General Physics
Oct 20, 2011
9
0
Fermions are the building blocks of matter, interacting in a multitude of permutations to give rise to the elements of the periodic table. Without fermions, the physical world would not exist.
General Physics
May 13, 2015
1
2428
Nuclear power plants typically run either at full capacity or not at all. Yet the plants have the technical ability to adjust to the changing demand for power and thus better accommodate sources of renewable energy such as ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 25, 2018
49
139
Germany on Monday announced plans to become the first major industrialised power to shut down all its nuclear plants in the wake of the disaster in Japan, with a phase-out due to be wrapped up by 2022.
Energy & Green Tech
May 30, 2011
14
0
Offshore wind could provide abundant electricity—but as with solar energy, this power supply can be intermittent and unpredictable. But a new approach from researchers at MIT could mitigate that problem, allowing the electricity ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 26, 2013
18
0
Japan on Sunday began switching off its last operating nuclear reactor for an inspection, with no date scheduled for a restart amid strong public hostility towards atomic power.
Energy & Green Tech
Sep 15, 2013
16
0
Imagine dropping a tennis ball onto a bedroom mattress. The tennis ball will bend the mattress a bit, but not permanently—pick the ball back up, and the mattress returns to its original position and strength. Scientists ...
Materials Science
Feb 25, 2022
0
107
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that a national lab in California made a "major scientific breakthrough"—namely, that it produced a nuclear fusion reaction that resulted in a net energy gain, a condition ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 14, 2022
2
125
Approximately seventy percent of the thermal energy generated in thermal and nuclear power plants is lost as waste heat, with a temperature below the boiling point of water. In a recent report on Science Advances, Yoshitaka ...
Investigation of a possibly critical issue with twisty magnetic stellarators, promising candidates to serve as models for a U.S. fusion pilot plant, has clarified the potential impact of a largely overlooked concern.
Plasma Physics
Jul 12, 2022
0
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