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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Practical Fusion, or Just a Bubble?
Kenneth Chang, The New York Times
Brian Kappus, a physics graduate student at U.C.L.A., tipped the clear cylinder to trap some air bubbles in the clear liquid inside. He clamped the cylinder, upright, on a small turntable and set it spinning. With the flip of another switch, powerful up-and-down vibrations, 50 a second, started shaking the cylinder.
A bubble floating in the liquid – phosphoric acid – started to shine, brightening into an intense ball of light like a miniature star.
The shining bubble did not produce any significant energy, but perhaps someday it might, just like a star. A few small companies and maverick university laboratories, including this one at U.C.L.A. run by Seth Putterman, a professor of physics, are pursuing quixotic solutions for future energy, trying to tap the power of the Sun – hot nuclear fusion – in devices that fit on a tabletop.
(27 Feb 2007)
Is Nuclear Power a Viable Option for Our Energy Needs?
Martin Sevior, The Oil Drum/University of Melbourne
In the middle of the last year it became clear to me that the Australian Government was interested in having a debate about Nuclear Energy for Australia. I decided that we, in the School of Physics, could make a positive contribution to the debate and organized a study group to investigate this.
We constructed a wiki-based website (nuclearinfo.net) where we placed our findings. We went live in December, 2005 and have updated the website as we’ve learned more about energy issues and Nuclear Power.
In this post I draw heavily on website and restrict myself to talking about light water fission reactors. There are a variety of different and more advanced reactor schemes that could be addressed in a future post. There are more details on our website on all of the topics covered here.
Conclusions:
Technically, there appear to be no show stoppers for a considerable expansion of Nuclear Power throughout the world. It is a low carbon energy source with abundant fuel supplies. The technology works and has much potential for improvement. Whether or not a large scale expansion eventuates depends on how it competes with Coal on economic grounds and with the public on political grounds. This in turn will be determined by the performance of the nuclear industry over the next few years as these purportedly cheaper and safer plants are built.
(1 March 2007)
Professor Goose of TOD writes:
“This is an updated/edited repost by Martin Sevior, Associate Professor, School of Physics, University of Melbourne. We thought this a worthy topic for discussion as nuclear power keeps coming up in many of our threads.”
PM denies nuclear inquiry linked to Walker’s plans
Staff, ABC
The Prime Minister has denied any connection between a discussion with businessman Ron Walker and his decision to commission an inquiry into the viability of nuclear power in Australia.
The opposition parties are on the attack over Prime Minister John Howard’s discussion with his party’s former treasurer, Mr Walker, about his plans to register the business Australian Nuclear Energy.
But Mr Howard says the phone call did not influence his decision to order a study into nuclear power. “I didn’t decide to have the inquiry because of that,” he said. He says there is nothing unusual about speaking to a businessman.
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has also revealed he had a conversation with Mr Walker about his plans. “I think I said good luck,” he said. ..
(28 Feb 2007)
I believe it is not actually legal to build nuclear power stations in Australia. Much as the Labour Party will enjoy playing up the appearance of corruption, Crikey’s Stephen Mayne may be right about “relevance deprivation syndrome”.-LJ
