With a Memorandum of Understanding signed, officials at the China General Nuclear Power Corp. confirmed that the company is targeting Poland as a potential market for nuclear power exports. Nuclearstreet.com

The U.S. intelligence community now believes North Korea could have a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear warhead by sometime next year, U.S. intelligence officials tell CBS News. Cbsnews.com

This year, for the first time in the modern nuclear era, renewable energy has surpassed nuclear power as a percentage of U.S. energy generation. Fortune.com

Advanced nuclear technology brought to fruition could produce electricity at an average levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) roughly 40% lower than conventional pressurized water reactors, according to a July 25 study by the Energy Innovation Reform Project and Energy Options Network (EON). “At these costs, nuclear would be effectively competitive with any other option for power generation. At the same time, this could enable a significant expansion of the nuclear footprint to the parts of the world that need clean energy the most—and can least afford to pay high price premiums for it,” the report says. Powermag.com

       I have been blogging about nuclear fusion lately as a source of energy. In nuclear fusion, light nuclei like hydrogen and helium are fused into heavier nuclei. An enormous amount of energy is released when nuclei fuse.      Nuclear fusion research has absorbed billions of dollars over the last sixty years but has yet to yield a commercial power generation system. If nuclear fusion can be made into practical system for the generation of electricity, a lot of current problems involving energy generation will be reduced or eliminated. These include pollution, dangerous waste, carbon dioxide release and the danger of accidents at power plants.

      In fusion reactors, ionized gas called a plasma is subjected to great pressure and temperature to trigger the fusion reaction. One of the big problems is controlling and stabilizing the confinement of the heated plasma. There are various approached to solving this problem but they all must deal with non-linear behavior including turbulence which can dissipate the plasma and interfere with the fusion.

       Google which is famous for advanced artificial intelligence research and a fusion research company named Tri Alpha Energy have joined forces to work on the problem of dealing with non-linear behavior in plasmas. Together they have developed something called the Optometrist algorithm. The basic idea is to combine advanced AI and power computation with human judgement in order to develop better solutions to these complex problems. The computer presents the human with options and the human makes an intuitive choice. This works in much the same way as a human being at  an Optometrist’s making a choice on which lense shows a clear version of a letter.

       The new system was used by Tri Alpha Energy on their C2-U experimental machine and resulted in accomplishing in a few hours what would have previously taken a month. The algorithm allowed the operators to discover new and unexpected ways of handling the plasma in the machine. They were able to cut energy losses in half and increase total plasma energy. The president of Tri Alpha said “Results like this might take years to solve without the power of advanced computation.”

       The C2-U machine operated on a cycle of once each eight minutes. Inside the machine, the plasma was subjected to a beam of hydrogen atoms which kept it spinning in a magnetic field for up to ten milliseconds. The purpose of the series of experiments was to see if the actual behavior of the plasma matched the theoretical models developed by the researchers. The use of the new algorithm led to the discovery of a configuration in which the cooling losses in the machine were balanced by the hydrogen beam. This resulted in an increase in the total energy of the plasma for around two milliseconds.

        The C2-U machine has been replaced with a more complex and powerful machine called “Norman.” It began operations this month. If the experiments with the Optometrist algorithm are successful in the Norman machine, the next step will be to work on a prototype power generator. Tri Alpha Energy hopes to be able to actually produce electricity from a commercial fusion reactor within ten years.

       The CEO of the Tokamak Energy has said with respect to the Tri Alpha fusion project, “While publicly funded laboratories excel at fundamental research, the private sector can innovate and adopt new technologies much more rapidly.” 

Tri Alpha Energy logo.jpg

Japan’s cabinet last week approved the draft Basic Concept on Nuclear Energy Use developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC). The concept – which will guide the country’s future nuclear energy policy – calls for the promotion of the benefits of nuclear energy while minimising the risks of its use. World-nuclear-news.org

The Kazakhstan Tokamak for Material testing, or KTM, will undergo “real-mode” testing from November, according to the draft of an updated research program approved last week by the Commission of CIS Member States on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced the approval yesterday. World-nuclear-news.org

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined a pair of workers weren’t planning mayhem by using a single security badge to get into a Massachusetts nuclear power plant; one worker had simply forgotten his badge. Usnews.com

A new proposal could lead to a nuclear power plant in the UK that literally shoots rainbows into the sky. UK-based master planning firm,One Creative Environments, submitted a landscape design proposal for Cumbria’s Moorside Power Plant that is equipped with two large glass towers that would use light and mist to create a continual arching rainbow over the site. Inhabitat.com

       I have blogged about the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada for spent nuclear fuel before. The project was cancelled by the Obama Administration in 2009. There is now building momentum for restarting the project. Spent nuclear fuel is accumulating at nuclear power plants around the country and definitely needs to be dealt with.

       Stepping back from questions about the safety of the Yucca Mountain site, there is the issue of transporting spent nuclear fuel from all over the country to Nevada for disposal if the Yucca Mountain Repository is actually built. Nuclear materials being transported are especially vulnerable to accidents and terrorists. If work on the Yucca Mountain repository goes forward, it is certain that there will be debates and lawsuits over the routes that the waste will take on the way to Nevada.

       Yucca Mountain is in the southwest corner of the almost three billion acre Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) operated by the U.S. Air Force. The Secretary of the Air Force has raised issues about the transportation of spent nuclear fuel across the NTTR. She said in an interview with a Las Vegas newspaper “If Yucca Mountain becomes a storage area it needs to operate without impacting the ability of the country to defend itself. There is no route across the NTTR that would not impact testing and training. We do night operations. We train people to go to war. I don’t think my concerns are any different than what has already been expressed by my predecessors. … We still have a very high need to be able to use the Nellis training area for both training and tests.”

        In 2003, in response to a proposed Chalk Mountain rail transportation route across the NTTR, the then Secretary of the Air Force wrote to the House Armed Services that such a route would affect mission-critical systems evaluations as well as air combat training. Three quarters of all of the Air Force live munitions testing takes place at the NTTR. The ability of stealth aircraft to evade radar is also tested at the NTTR. He pointed out that any routes along the edges of the NTTR would also cause problems with Air Force testing as would any over-flight restrictions imposed on the NTTR because of spent fuel shipments.

        The twelve thousand square mile NTTR is the biggest contiguous air-and-ground space for military training in the U.S. or any of its allies. Unfortunately, due to the increased speed of new military jets, the NTTR is no longer big enough to conduct the necessary tests and the Air Force would like to expand the NTTR, not shrink and/or restrict it which would be the result of the completion of the Yucca Mountain Repository.

        If the Yucca Mountain Repository is completed and put into service to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, it will solve one of the major problems of the nuclear power industry. But it will severely impact the ability of the Air Force to test planes and munitions at the NTTR. If the Repository is not built at Yucca Mountain, then the Air Force will be able to continue testing at the NTTR but the spent nuclear fuel will continue to pile up at the nuclear power plants. Either way, there will be pain consequences.

yucca_map1203_.jpg

Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility, is notifying customers that it wants to raise its rates by more than 9 percent over the next several years, in part to cover “costs associated with nuclear construction.” Thenerve.org

President Trump has a different view of climate change than the previous administration. His decision to disassociate the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords has received the lion’s share of recent publicity in this regard. Now the President’s March 28th Executive Order (EO) could harm the U.S. nuclear power industry (although we doubt that was his intent). Oilprice.com

A whistleblower is making some of the same complaints against the Obama administration over its record of providing congressionally mandated payouts to nuclear workers as Barack Obama did about the George W. Bush administration’s. freebeacon.com

On July 7th the United Nations General Assembly approved a historic treaty banning nuclear weapons by a vote of 122 yea, 1 Nay, 1 abstention. This treaty will enter into force 90 days after 50 nations have ratified the document. The nine nuclear armed nations (plus the nations covered by nuclear weapon alliances) boycotted these negotiations and now claim it does not apply to them. Under Article 6 of this Treaty, nations (as well as non-state actors) are prohibited from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, transferring, deploying, stationing, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Azdailysun.com

Three new nuclear power reactors in China have passed significant pre-operational tests and inspections. Sanmen 1 passed a comprehensive safety check ahead of fuel loading, while a containment integrity test was completed at Haiyang 2. Meanwhile, cold function tests were completed at Yangjiang 5. World-nuclear-news.com

All contracting parties to the international Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) have now made their national reports on the implementation of their obligations publicly available, the first time this has happened since the convention was established in 1996. World-nuclear-news.com

South Korea’s new energy minister on Monday said he plans to support the country’s push to sell nuclear reactors overseas, even as the nation curbs nuclear power at home. Reuters.com

The nuclear sector is flailing under mounting competition from the natural-gas industry. Incapable of competing on the open market, Exelon now wants a handout from Pennsylvania ratepayers and taxpayers. Philly.com