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GE's robotic inspector dives in nuclear containment vessels
Normally when workers at the Edwin Irby Hatch Power Plant in Georgia want to inspect welds on the water-filled containment tank that houses the plant's nuclear fuel, they have stick pole-mounted inspection cameras in there while potentially exposing themselves to radiation. But now that the plant has acquired a swimming inspection-bot developed by GE and Hitachi, plant workers can check the vessel's integrity at any time while avoiding all that radiation.
Japan to restart nuclear power tomorrow after energy prices soar
It's been four years since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the nuclear reactor at Fukushima, causing a meltdown and mass evacuation of the local area. The tragedy eventually saw the shut down of all of the nation's nuclear power plants, with the last facilities closing down in late 2013. This week, the country is going to start one of them back up: tomorrow, Japan will switch on reactor No.1 at the Sendai nuclear power plant.
Stuxnet worm entered Iran's nuclear facilities through hacked suppliers
You may have heard the common story of how Stuxnet spread: the United States and Israel reportedly developed the worm in the mid-2000s to mess with Iran's nuclear program by damaging equipment, and first unleashed it on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility through infected USB drives. It got out of control, however, and escaped into the wild (that is, the internet) sometime later. Relatively straightforward, right? Well, you'll have to toss that version of events aside -- a new book, Countdown to Zero Day, explains that this digital assault played out very differently.
Researchers developing reactor powered by nuclear waste
Nuclear energy could have curbed C02 emissions long ago if not for one problem: the waste is toxic for over 100,000 years. That's quite a commitment for humanity, but Hitachi thinks it has the answer: burn the spent fuel in small reactors to generate more power. That would produce manageable waste that would be harmless in a mere century or so. Hitachi has been studying such reactors for awhile with GE, and has enlisted MIT, the University of Michigan (U-M) and University of California, Berkeley (UCB) for the next phase. The goal is to re-purpose existing boiling water reactors (RBWRs), so that their turbines, safety systems and other components could be reused. Researchers could then focus on the core tech needed to burn highly refined "transuranium elements," aka spent nuclear fuel. They've enlisted the three schools to jointly analyze the safety and performance of potential core designs, with the aim of eventually building a test reactor. Commercialization is probably decades off, but the way toxic waste is building up, they may want to hustle it along.
US nuclear regulator hit by two foreign cyberattacks in three years
It's no secret that the White House is eager to protect the energy grid against cyberattacks, but it's now clear that the government is speaking from bitter, first-hand experience. Nextgov has confirmed that foreign hacker groups broke into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's systems twice within the past three years, compromising PCs and accounts by tricking users into installing malware. A third, individually-launched attack also happened during the same time frame. While investigators couldn't determine the origins due to internet providers deleting their logs, the targets suggest that the attacks were government-backed -- the NRC knows the contents and health of reactors across the US. That logically draws suspicion toward China or Russia, although these could have simply been black market operators hoping to sell to the highest bidder.
Japan is building a huge 'ice wall' to block Fukushima's fallout water
No one can blame Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) for the earthquake and tsunami that wrecked its Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011. Since then, however, the company has been accused of having a "weak sense of crisis" in responding to the accident's many knock-on effects. This includes the leakage of contaminated groundwater that passes under the damaged plant and into the Pacific Ocean -- something that is happening right now at a rate of 400 tons per day. This week, after more than a year of back and forth, TEPCO has finally managed to get the Japanese nuclear regulator's approval to create a massive wall of frozen soil to hold the groundwater back.
France's ANDRA developing a million-year hard drive, we hope our badly-written blogs live in perpetuity
Us humans have been quick to embrace digital technology for preserving our memories, but we've forgotten that most of our storage won't last for more than a few decades; when a hard drive loses its magnetism or an optical disc rots, it's useless. French nuclear waste manager ANDRA wants to make sure that at least some information can survive even if humanity itself is gone -- a million or more years, to be exact. By using two fused disk platters made from sapphire with data written in a microscope-readable platinum, the agency hopes to have drives that will keep humming along short of a catastrophe. The current technology wouldn't hold reams of data -- about 80,000 minuscule pages' worth on two platters -- but it could be vital for ANDRA, which wants to warn successive generations (and species) of radioactivity that might last for eons. Even if the institution mostly has that pragmatic purpose in mind, though, it's acutely aware of the archeological role these €25,000 ($30,598) drives could serve once leaders settle on the final languages and below-ground locations at an unspecified point in the considerably nearer future. We're just crossing our fingers that our archived internet rants can survive when the inevitable bloody war wipes out humanity and the apes take over. [Image credit: SKB]
Scientists bend gamma rays, could neuter radioactive waste (update: more credit)
Bending most light is easy; bending it in gamma ray form, however, has often been deemed impossible given how hard it is for electrons to react to the extreme frequencies. LMU Munich scientist Dietrich Habs and his Institut Laue-Langevin teammate Michael Jentschel have proven that assumption wrong: an experiment in blasting a silicon prism has shown that gamma rays will refract just slightly through the right material. If a lens is made out of a large-atom substance like gold to bend the rays further, the researchers envision focused beams of energy that could either detect radioactive material or even make it inert by wiping off neutrons and protons. In theory, it could turn a nuclear power plant's waste harmless. A practical use of the technology is still some distance off -- but that it's even within sight at all just feels like a breakthrough. Update: The research also involved the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics' Marc Günther. Thank you, Dr. Günther.
Sandia National Laboratories generates neutrons in a radical way
The Responsive Neutron Generator Product Deployment Center (say that quickly five times) at Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, NM has discovered a way to take the conventional cylindrical tubes out of the equation and introduce a more computer-chip like, mass-produced neutron source on an astonishingly smaller scale. For those seeking lay terms, we're hearing that possible practical applications include implantation close to tumors in cancer patients to minimize time in the hospital for treatment, and sensors for contraband. Sandia Labs' technical staff has created what it calls a "neutristor," which produces one neutron per transistor, a concept that was directly inspired by the two transistors per bit on microchips. The team is currently seeking funding to ensure future viability, and well, to pay for stuff. Check out the video after the break, as well as further information at the source.
Greenpeace: Apple falling short of sourcing clean power
Environmental reports can be all over the place these days -- at times, it seems like these reports tend to be more about politics than the environment. But while Apple has always said it's leading the charge on being environmentally friendly, Greenpeace apparently isn't so sure. The group has called out Apple in a recent report for not using environmentally friendly sources to power Apple's North Carolina data center. Google, Yahoo, and Facebook all got good marks from Greenpeace's report, because their buildings are in areas that use "clean" power like wind and solar power. But Apple's center uses mostly coal and nuclear electricity, which Greenpeace looks negatively on. Apple does deserve some credit. It leads the industry in using green power, even if this specific plant, according to this report, isn't doing what Greenpeace wants. Apple also got bad marks for transparency. The company says it uses clean power, but apparently it doesn't always share the specific evidence that Greenpeace wants. At any rate, there's probably fair points on both sides here. Apple does a lot to use "green" energy in all of its work, and of course, as Greenpeace suggests, there's always more that can be done. The North Carolina data center, as you know if you've ever used iCloud or Siri, is nice to have. But it would be even nicer if it was run on power that did not as negatively affect the environment.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: i-oniq hybrid, spherical solar cell and an incredible LEGO printer
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week epic green transportation initiatives kicked off around the world as Inhabitat reported that Shenzhen, China launched the world's largest electric vehicle fleet and London's brand new Eco-Routemaster hybrid bus hit the streets for the first time. We also showcased an earthquake-proof Japanese building system capable of levitating an entire house, and we brought you sneak peeks at the hottest eco vehicles that will be unveiled at next week's Geneva Motor Show, including Hyundai's sexy i-oniq hybrid and Infiniti's Emerg-E plug-in. Audi also turned heads with its souped-up R18 E-Tron Quattro hybrid Le Mans racer, and Perave's 350 MPGe MonoTracer electric motorcycle hit the market.It was also a bright week for renewable energy with a revolutionary spherical solar cell capable of capturing light from all directions, and Austria Solar sending out a "sun-powered" annual report that only appears when exposed to sunlight. Meanwhile, we said goodbye to the polluting energy technology of the past as Midwest utilities shuttered 10 fossil fuel-powered plants and the world's oldest nuclear reactor closed up shop in the UK. Brilliant designers also chased away dark winter days with a sunflower-shaped heliostat that can flood any house with natural light and a cheap, photovoltaic Little Sun lamp for the developing world.Green tech also wired the world in exciting new ways as the Smithonian Institute announced plans to replicate and share its collection with the world using 3D printing tech and a 14-year-old boy invented an incredible LEGO printer. We also watched HP launch an all-in-one workstation that pops open for easy DIY upgrades and repairs, while Huawei unveiled a soaring Pegasus sculpture made from 3,500 smartphones. Last but not least we brought you a look at Google's new Terminator-style augmented vision goggles, and we shared a fun tutorial on geocaching with your children.
Nuclear clocks could be 60x as accurate as atomic counterparts, less prone to errors
For years, atomic clocks have been considered the most accurate devices for tracking the slow march towards obsolescence, a subatomic particle vibrating a given number of times per second with relatively few issues. Now the reliability crown might be passed to the nuclear clock, which in addition to sounding gnarly, could prove to be less susceptible to errors from outside stimuli. It goes like this: although an atomic clock will measure a certain number of vibrations per second, external forces such as ambient electric and magnetic fields affect the electrons used in atomic clocks, causing mishaps. The particles used in nuclear clocks that are measured for vibrations -- and thus timekeeping -- can be excited with a relatively low-energy ultraviolet light, allowing for fewer variations from the aforementioned fields. To wit, Corey Campbell and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have devised a scheme that uses lasers to carefully control the spatial orientation of the electron orbits in atoms. A nuclear clock containing a thorium nucleus controlled in this way would drift by just one second in 200 billion years, the team claims. Before nuclear clocks become a reality, researchers must identify the precise frequency of light needed to excite thorium nuclei; but this is what grad students are for, right? [Image credit: University of Colorado / Science Daily]
Bomb-sniffing crystals may save us from nuclear Armageddon, tea leaves agree
Worried that a nuclear attack might wipe out all of American civilization? You needn't be, because the scientific community's crystal ball says crystal balls may save humanity. Last week, the Department of Energy awarded a $900,000 grant to Fisk University and Wake Forest, where researchers have been busy exploring the counter-terrorist capabilities of strontium iodide crystals. Once laced with europium, these crystals can do a remarkably good job of picking up on and analyzing radiation, as the team from Fisk and other national laboratories recently discovered. Cost remains the most imposing barrier to deploying the materials at airports or national borders, though soothsaying scientists claim it's only a matter of time before they develop a way to produce greater crystalline quantities at an affordable price. The only thing Miss Cleo sees is a glistening press release, in your very near, post-break future.
Microsoft manager teams up with teens to build a fusion reactor in his garage (video)
Normally, if a grown man talks about building a fusion reactor and wants your 13-year-old to hang out in his garage, we'd expect you to smile, back away slowly, and perhaps alert the authorities. But, if that man is Microsoft program manager Carl Greninger there's no need to run. The science fanatic recruited a team of teens, as young as 13, and worked with them to build a Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor -- a (comparatively) simple nuclear reactor that smashes together atoms and produces neutrons. Check out the nearly 20-min video after the break to watch a bunch of high school kids generate ball of ionized plasma. And to think, all that's in your garage is that '65 Mustang you swear you're gonna restore one day.
Nuclear fusion startup gets Jeff Bezos backing, won't be dropping any bombs
Here's a phrase we never though we'd utter: Bezos is the bomb! Okay, so maybe a nuke reference isn't exactly appropriate here, considering Jeff Bezos is actually backing a company that's looking to create cheap energy through nuclear fusion, but we couldn't resist. General Fusion, a nuclear fusion startup, released a statement today saying that it has completed a $19.5 million round of funding that included backing by the Amazon founder's Bezos Expeditions. According the company's website, General Fusion's approach to generating "safe and plentiful" energy employs a concept created about 30 years ago called "magnetic target fusion," and expects commercialization of its process could come before the end of the decade. Full PR after the break.
T-Hawk UAV enters Fukushima danger zone, returns with video
We'd love to head on down to Fukushima with a DSLR and some iodide pills, but that's obviously not going to happen. Sending in a flying robot seems to be the next best thing, though, and that's exactly what Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has done. T-Hawk, a US-made MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) commonly used to search for roadside bombs in Iraq, made its Japanese debut last week when it photographed the nuclear plant from above, providing a detailed look at the interior damage a month after iRobot's visit. Small enough to fit in a (rather large) backpack, officially the T-Hawk is named for the tarantula hawk wasp species, but could just as easily have been named for the T. Hawk Street Fighter character, who also swoops in to attack his opponents from above. As expected, things look pretty nasty at ground zero, so head past the break for a video of the damage.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: magic airplane skin, Japan's nuclear leak, and the circuit board table
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. As the nuclear crisis at Japan's Fukushima power plant continues to devastate the region and one reactor sprung a leak releasing tons of radioactive water, this week Inhabitat reported that green algae could play a critical role in cleaning up the spill. We also brought you Japan's latest radiation-detecting robot, and we took a look at how fallout from the controversial crisis is affecting energy policy around the world -- China is cutting plans for future reactors in favor of solar fields while Germany may trade 17 nuclear plants for wind farms. In other news, green transportation went from the soaring skies to the deep blue sea this week as we looked at NASA's self-healing "magic skin" that will protect planes from lighting, and Sir Richard Branson unveiled a streamlined eco sub that will explore the ocean's depths. We also learned that the European Union is set to kick off an electric F1 racing championship just as Tesla took top place in the 5th Monte Carlo Alternative Energy Rally. Finally, we looked at two innovative technologies for enabling human movement -- a robotic exoskeleton that gives paraplegics the ability to walk and a prosthetic suit that lets people swim like mermaids. This week we also spotted several awesome example of green gadgetry - a colorful Legotron camera made out of everyone's favorite building bricks and a geek chic binary table constructed entirely from vintage circuit boards. We also spotted a concept for an energy-generating playground that harnesses the literal power of play.
iRobot, QinetiQ machines to assist in Japan relief effort
A few weeks ago, it looked like robots would play a relatively small role in recovery efforts following the earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan, but as concern grows over radiation leaks, robotics companies are positioning their mechanical offspring to do jobs deemed unsafe for humans. We've already heard of Aldebaran's plans for a fleet of rescue bots, and now QinetiQ and iRobot are lending automated assistance to the cause. QinetiQ plans to send in a set of Robotic Applique Kits -- used to convert Bobcat loaders into unmanned vehicles -- along with sensor machines like the TALON and Dragon. Meanwhile, iRobot's enlisted two each of its PackBots and Warriors to help aid in recovery -- the former is used by the US military for bomb disposal. Both companies have already deployed teams to Japan for training.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: LAVA's geodesic home, solar skyscraper glass and fear of nuclear power
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat showcased several groundbreaking feats of high-tech architecture - starting with plans to transform the United States' tallest skyscraper into a soaring solar farm. We also saw a vision for a geodesic home of the future that is popping up in China this year, and we learned that scientists in Qatar are developing a series of solar-powered artificial clouds that will cool the country's stadiums during the 2022 World Cup. It was a big week for energy news as well as Germany and Italy announced plans to abandon nuclear power in the wake of the crisis in Japan. Tata & MIT also announced a breakthrough technology for generating power from water, and we saw solar energy reach new heights as Suntech set off to install the world's tallest solar plant on the Tibetan Plateau. Speaking of soaring green designs, we watched a brand new electric vehicle take to the skies as the solar-powered Elektra One airplane successfully completed its maiden flight. This week we also showcased several cutting-edge examples of wearable technology including an app that instantly transforms any drawing into a made-to-measure dress. We also learned that Virgin Atlantic now offers passengers bespoke shoes while they wait, and we took a look at a futuristic pregnancy belt that offers an inside look at the womb. Finally, we saw several amazing examples of recycled design - Chinese artist Wing Wah has created a set of scrap metal transformer robots that look just like the movies, and designer Mati Karmin has transformed defused land mines into an edgy set of interior furnishings.
Monirobo measures radiation following nuclear crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant
According to a report by a Japanese news agency, a radiation monitoring robot, aptly named Monirobo, is the first non-human responder to go on-site following the partial meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The machine, which was developed by Japan's Nuclear Safety Technology Centre to operate at lethal radiation levels, reportedly began work Friday, enlisting a 3D camera, radiation detector, and heat and humidity sensors to monitor the extent of the damage. A second Monirobo, used to collect samples and detect flammable gases, is expected to join its red counterpart soon -- both robots are operated by remote control from distances up to one kilometer away. They join the US Air Force's Global Hawk drone in unmanned surveillance of the crisis.
