Aestus Ajith

Germany's massive nuclear fusion machine just produced its first hydrogen plasma This is huge. German scientists have just switched on the Wendelstein 7-X (W7X) stellarator - the largest nuclear fusion machine of its kind - to successfully produce and sustain hydrogen plasma for the first time. Why is this such a big deal? The production of hydrogen plasma is key to harnessing the clean, limitless energy of nuclear fusion - the process that powers our Sun. If we can achieve controlled nuclear fusion, it would quite literally change the world, because it would replace fossil fuels and nuclear fission facilities as a cheaper, more efficient, and more sustainable source of energy.  "It’s a very clean source of power, the cleanest you could possibly wish for. We’re not doing this for us, but for our children and grandchildren," one of the team, physicist John Jelonnek from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,  told the Associated Press . Nuclear fission...

Thorium nuclear reactor trial begins, could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy At a test site in Norway, Thor Energy has successfully created a thorium nuclear reactor — but not in the sense that most people think of when they hear the word thorium. The Norwegians haven’t solved the energy crisis and global warming in one fell swoop — they haven’t created a cold fusion thorium reactor. What they have done, though, which is still very cool, is use thorium instead of uranium in a conventional nuclear reactor. In one fell swoop, thorium fuel, which is safer, less messy to clean up, and not prone to nuclear weapons proliferation, could quench the complaints of nuclear power critics everywhere. In a conventional nuclear reactor, enriched uranium fuel is converted into plutonium and small amounts of other transuranic compounds. There are ways to recycle plutonium, but for many countries, such as the USA, it is simply a waste product of nuclear power — a waste product t...