Ambient office = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 71 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 136 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 152 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 138 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Romaine lettuce from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole = 1130 nanosieverts per hour

     Marvel Fusion was founded in 2019. It is one of many startups trying to develop commercial nuclear fusion power reactors. The German company is utilizing an innovative approach that employs lasers instead of magnets. So far they have raised seventy million dollars. They are still years and billions of dollars away from even constructing a prototype. The company is testing their design using computer modeling and believes that its approach will be more efficient than competing efforts.
     There are two approaches being employed by companies trying to develop commercial fusion. These are magnetic confinement and inertial confinement.
      Magnetic confinement often uses a tokamak which is a round donut shaped device with super strong magnets to confine the plasma so a fusion reaction can take place. It is a more popular choice than inertial confinement with a number of startups and a huge international collaboration in France all chasing it.
      Inertial fusion confinement takes place when the fuel is compressed so intensely and quickly that it reaches the conditions necessary for fusion. Extremely powerful lasers are usually used to compress and ignite the fuel.
      Sehila M. Gonzalez de Vicente is a nuclear fusion physicist at the International Atomic Energy Agency. She told an interviewer that “The Tokamak concept based on magnetic confinement is the most advanced fusion device. Nevertheless, laser-based concepts also represent a promising approach.
     Marvel’s approach is for the lasers to directly impact the fuel capsule. Moritz vol der Linden is a cofounder and CEO at Marvel Fusion. He said that direct drive is more efficient than the alternative which is called indirect laser fusion. He noted that, “We need considerably less energy to ignite and burn our fuel than comparable thermonuclear models that rely on high temperatures.”
     Linden spent twenty years in finance and technology. His previous work included collaboration with a physicist named Karl-Georg Schlesinger to do due diligence on another fusion company. They decided that that approach was not practical but were inspired by that work to found Marvel Fusion.
      The Marvel Fusion design depends on advanced lasers. Linden claims that their lasers are twenty years ahead of the lasers being used by the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
     Marvel Fusion plans to use hydrogen-boron 11 as the fuel. This fuel results in less waste than the deuterium-tritium fuel used in more conventional fusion devices. In the primary fusion reaction, helium nuclei will be the only by product. In one tenth of one percent of all the fusion reactions, a small number of fast neutrons are produced. Although these fast neutrons are responsible for radioactive wastes in conventional nuclear fission reactors, they are not enough to produce any long-lived radioactive wastes, according to Marvel.
     Marvel Fusion is still in its early stages and is only a computer simulation at this point. They have not raised enough money to build a prototype. Such a prototype would cost billions of dollars. They hope to have a laboratory test version of their design in five years and a prototype power plant within ten years.

Ambient office = 50 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

     Tokamak Energy (TE) in the U.K. recently announced that it has demonstrated a world-first with its privately funded spherical tokamak. They achieved a plasma temperature of two hundred and twelve million degrees Fahrenheit. This is the threshold necessary for commercial nuclear fusion energy.
     TE is based in Oxford, England. They said that this is “by far the highest temperature ever achieved in a spherical tokamak and by any privately funded tokamak”. It noted that while several government laboratories in the U.IK. have reported plasma temperatures above the two hundred- and twelve-degrees million degrees Fahrenheit in conventional tokamaks, TE had reached this milestone in just five years at a cost of less than sixty six million dollars in a much more compact fusion device than those found in government laboratories. TE added that the milestone of achieving two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit plasma has been verified by an independent advisory board consisting of international experts. TE said, “This achievement further substantiates spherical tokamaks as the optimal route to the delivery of clean, secure, low-cost, scalable and globally deployable commercial fusion energy.”
     The purpose of the ST40 is to concentrate on the commercial applications of fusion energy. Specifically, the goal of the ST40 is to make fusion reactors commercially viable. The spherical tokamak design is more compact that conventional tokamaks. The magnets meet in the center of the chamber to form a post. This gives the reactors an oblate shape like and apple. This allows the magnets to sit closer to the plasma stream so the magnets can be smaller and use less power. However, they are able to generate more intense fields than conventional tokamaks.
     The TE ST40 device will now undergo an upgrade. It will be used to develop technologies for future fusion energy devices. The ST-HTS will be the world’s first spherical tokamak to demonstrate the full potential of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. It is due to be commissioned in the mid-2020s. This device will demonstrate multiple advanced technologies needed for fusion energy. It will also inform the design of a world’s first fusion pilot plant which is scheduled to be commissioned in the early 2030s.
     Tokamak fusion reactors use magnets to constrain and isolate a plasma so it can be heated to the extreme temperatures at which the fusion reaction occurs. Powerful magnetic fields are necessary for tokamaks to contain the superheated fuel. Higher magnetic fields allow for the creation of smaller tokamaks. High temperature superconductors can create these stronger magnetic fields. That makes them important for commercial fusion power.
     TE grew out of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy which is based in Oxfordshire. TE is also manufacturing a complete HTS magnet system. It will be the first validation of strong magnetic fields with HTS coils in a spherical tokamak. Chris Kelsall is the CEO of TE. He said, “When combined with HTS magnets, spherical tokamaks represent the optimal route to achieving clean and low-cost commercial fusion energy. Our next device will combine these two world leading technologies for the first time and is central to our mission to deliver low-cost energy with compact fusion modules.”

Ambient office = 43 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 154 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 159 nanosieverts per hour

Mango from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

     The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station (ZNPS) is located near the city of Enerhodar, Ukraine, on the southern shore of the Kakhovka Reservoir on the Dnieper River. It was constructed by the Soviet Union and hosts six VVER-1000 pressurized light water reactors. The reactors are fueled with low enriched uranium, and each generates nine hundred and fifty megawatts. The total power generated is five hundred and seventy megawatts. The first five reactor went online between 1985 and 1989. The sixth reactor was connected to the grid in 1995. The ZNPS is the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe and generates twenty percent of the electricity for Ukraine. It is operated by Energoatom who also operates Ukraine’s other three nuclear power stations.
     When the Russia army invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February, Energoatom shut down reactors 5 and 6 to reduce risk on the 25th of February but continued to operate the other four reactors.
      On the 28th of February, Russia claimed to have captured the ZNPS. On the 3rd of March, Russian artillery strikes damaged some of the buildings at the plant. A fire broke out near reactor 1 but essential equipment was not damaged. A U.S. Energy official reported that reactor 1 was shut down safely. After an intense battle, Russians troops captured the ZNPS. They claimed at that time than there had been no increase in radiation levels. On the 4th of March, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the fire in a training building had been extinguished. The IAEA reported that the fire did not threaten reactor safety or any essential equipment.
UPDATE: A growing concern at Chernobyl which the Russians now control was that the electrical lines connecting the Chernobyl plant to the Ukrainian grid were destroyed during the fighting for the plant. The Russians took all the staff currently at the plant hostage. No one was allowed to level or come to the plant. With the power out, there was a danger that the cooling water in the nuclear fuel rod cooling pool would drain away and expose the spent nuclear fuel. This would result in spontaneous combustion leading to fire and explosions. Nuclear materials would be scattered over the landscape.
      There are nuclear treaties that prohibit attacks on nuclear power plants even in wartime. If the Russians had breached the containment vessels or the nuclear fuel cooling pools at either Chernobyl or ZNPS, it could have been a disaster not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Eastern and Western Europe. At the urging of the IAEA, the Russians are now allowing work parties to repair the electrical power lines.
      I have a list of forty-five reasons that nuclear power is a bad idea. One section of the list dealt with physical threats to nuclear power plants which could include the following. Accidental or deliberate breaching of containment, terrorists seizing nuclear power plants and threatening to blow them up or using nuclear fuel to build dirty bombs. Troops trying to barricade themselves in nuclear power plants would invite their enemy to attack the power plant. When I wrote the list years ago, these were all hypothetical scenarios. Now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made this danger very real.