A team of researchers at Penn State are subjecting an old, worn sheet of aluminum to a particle beam from the heart of a nuclear reactor in the hopes of cracking the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. Source: https://www.livescience.com/amelia-earhart-nuclear-reactor-puzzle.html
Tag: Nuclear Reactor
Rolls Royce Plans 16 Mini-Nuclear Plants For UK
A consortium led by Rolls Royce has announced plans to build up to 16 mini-nuclear plants in the UK. The BBC reports: It says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England over the next five years. The prime minister is understood to be poised to announce at least 200 million pounds for the…
NuScale’s Small Nuclear Reactor Gets US Safety Approval
tomhath shares a report from Ars Technica: On Friday, the first small modular reactor received a design certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meaning that it meets safety requirements and could be chosen by future projects seeking licensing and approval. The design comes from NuScale, a company birthed from research at Oregon State University that has received some substantial Department…
Last Fall a Drone Swarm Surveilled America’s Largest Nuclear Reactor — Twice
America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission honored a document request from a UFO group — which has inadvertently revealed a very real incident last fall at America’s largest nuclear reactor in Arizona, reports Forbes: Documents gained under the Freedom of Information Act show how a number of small drones flew around a restricted area at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant on two successive…
America Wants to Build Nuclear Power Plants on the Moon and Mars
“The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that,” reports Time magazine:
The U.S. Department of Energy put out the formal request to build what it calls a fission surface power system that could allow humans to…
Mould from Chernobyl nuclear reactor tested as radiation shield on ISS
A radiation-absorbing fungus discovered in Chernobyl blocked harmful cosmic rays on the International Space Station and may help protect future Mars colonies Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2249784-mould-from-chernobyl-nuclear-reactor-tested-as-radiation-shield-on-iss/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Coming Soon: Open-Source Blueprints for a Tiny Nuclear Reactor
“A nonprofit startup is offering an open-source nuclear plant plan,” reports Popular Mechanics: A mechanical engineer-turned-tech entrepreneur has plans to, well, empower people around the world to build their own 100-megawatt nuclear power reactors. That’s much larger than some of the modular reactors designed by nuclear startups, but still much smaller than operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. The Energy…
NASA Showcases Its New Mars Rover, Calls It Precursor to Humans on Mars
“The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle.” An anonymous reader quotes Agence France-Presse: The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in…
Ohio Neighborhood Temporarily Evacuated Over Misplaced Fears of a Homemade Nuclear Reactor
“A 911 call Thursday led to a precautionary evacuation of an entire street in a Northwest Side neighborhood in Columbus over concerns about a possible small nuclear reactor and alpha waves reported by a resident who said he sustained burns in his garage on the device,” acocrding to the Columbus Dispatch. Slashdot reader k6mfw shared their report: In the end, authorities…
Lessons From the Cyberattack On India’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant
Dan Drollette shares an article by two staffers at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “Indian officials acknowledged on October 30th that a cyberattack occurred at the country’s Kudankulam nuclear power plant,” they write, adding that “According to last Monday’s Washington Post, Kudankulam is India’s biggest nuclear power plant, ‘equipped…