The China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute (CREEI) reports that by the end of 2024, China is set to add 190GW of solar capacity and 70GW of wind. The NEA reports China added 217GW of solar power and 76GW of wind power in 2023 – to reach a total capacity of 1,050GW. China needs 15 Tesla …
The ITER (International Tokomak) fusion reactor currently being built in France will not achieve first operation until 2034 – almost a decade later than previously planned and some 50 years after the project was first conceived in 1985. The decision by ITER management to take another 10 years constructing the machine means that the first …
June 10, 2024 TerraPower, celebrated the start of construction on the Natrium reactor demonstration project. This marks the first advanced reactor project to move from design into construction in the USA. “This groundbreaking represents the beginning of the next era of nuclear energy. The Natrium reactor is more than a design, it’s a plant coming …
Using low-bandgap III-V materials such as InAsSb in nanostructured arrays to limit potential loss mechanisms, a 25x improvement in mass specific power and ten thousands times decrease in volume from a MMRTG is an early estimate, with higher performance possible depending on operating conditions. TRC technology will allow a proliferation of small versatile spacecraft with …
A breakthrough pulsed plasma rocket is getting NASA phase 2 innovative concepts funding. It will have 15 times the efficiency of chemical rockets and with high levels of thrust at the level of a medium sized chemical rocket. Howe Industries is currently developing a propulsion system that may generate up to 100,000 Newtons of thrust …
Last year, China approved 12 nuclear reactors for construction. China already had very large energy plans in order as the average wealth increases and to replace the 70% of energy from coal. However, there are two major new energy demands are emerging. There is the new need for energy for AI data centers. AI data …
Unit 2 of the Shin Hanul nuclear power plant in South Korea has entered commercial operation, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced. The unit is the second of two APR-1400 reactors at the site, with a further two planned. Georgia Power has announced the start of commercial operations at the second of the two …
The Princeton Physics Lab has built a Stellarator nuclear fusion reactor prototype using permanent magnets. This is a scientific first that enables mostly off the shelf magnet for simple and low cost experiments to test new concepts for future fusion power plants. It does not generate net energy, but it has some nuclear processes and …
Helicity Space, a commercial space company developing in-space propulsion and power technology based on fusion power, announced an investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the venture capital arm of Lockheed Martin. This latest raise from Lockheed Martin Ventures comes on the heels of a $5 million seed round of Helicity Space funding from investors including Airbus …
A new 20 Tesla Superconducting magnet reduces the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40. MIT worked with Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup with over $2 billion in funding. The funders of CFS include Temasek Holdings (Singpore), the U.S. Department of Energy, Tiger Global Management, Bill Gates, Google and …
RocketStar, a US based startup, has successfully demonstrated an electric propulsion unit for spacecraft that uses nuclear fusion-enhanced pulsed plasma. During ground tests the process did create ionizing radiation and improved the base propulsion unit’s thrust by 50%. FireStar Drive markedly improves performance, utilizing high-speed protons from ionized water vapor. When protons interact with boron …