Of Interest archive

2013

22 Sep 2013

Black hole jets might be molded by magnetism

Black hole jets might be molded by magnetism   Even though black holes—by their definition and very nature—are the ultimate hoarders…
21 Sep 2013

MIT team sees the very first stars

MIT team sees the very first stars   Researchers at MIT, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California at…
20 Sep 2013

National Ignition Facility seeks new cash

National Ignition Facility seeks new cash The US Congress had set the end of this year as the deadline for "ignition" at…
19 Sep 2013

Cost of third-generation French nuclear plant rises again

Cost of third-generation French nuclear plant rises again   French utility provider Electricité de France announced on 3…
18 Sep 2013

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is engineering a future for high-tech work

A recruitment drive has been launched by a leading research centre to attract the next generation of hi-tech engineers and scientists. The…
17 Sep 2013

Praise and suggestions for fusion research from a utility industry think tank

Research to develop fusion energy has shown "significant progress" in many areas, according to a new report from the Electric Power…
16 Sep 2013

Fusion images shine at awards

Fascinating images of fusion have captured the judges' hearts in the 2012 German Prize for Science Photography — two of the five prizes…
15 Sep 2013

Is this the Bill Gates of energy?: Meet nuclear entrepreneur Taylor Wilson (18)

Forbes reports that at the recent Halifax International Security Forum, which brought together an impressive array of…
14 Sep 2013

Waiting on ignition at NIF

The National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, has been called a modern-day moon-shot, a project of "revolutionary science,…
13 Sep 2013

Poland's fusion program concentrating on Wendelstein 7-X

Now successfully completed is the first of several cooperation projects that are to involve Poland's fusion research program in Wendelstein…
12 Sep 2013

EU budget: Where the money goes

There are various proposals for the size of the EU's next seven-year budget, beginning in 2014. The sum of EUR 973 billion euros (£782.5bn;…
11 Sep 2013

Poland to invest 12.5 billion euros in shale gas by 2020

Poland will invest 50 billion zlotys (EUR 15.5 billion) in the exploration of shale gas by 2020, Finance Minister Mikolaj Budzanowski said…
10 Sep 2013

Stop the Parade!

Should we be wasting our dwindling supply of helium on floating cartoon characters? For Americans, the fourth Thursday in November can mean…
9 Sep 2013

In defense of sustained research on fusion

Stewart C. Prager, the director of the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and a professor of astrophysical sciences…
8 Sep 2013

Lab astrophysics aims for the stars

The giant orange magnets were built decades ago to confine hydrogen nuclei in the quest for fusion energy. But since 1998, Jan Egedal, a…
7 Sep 2013

1,000 underwater turbines deep in the Channel

French utilities EDF and GDZ Suez are planning to install between 1,000 and 1,500 underwater turbines in the English Channel by 2030. The…
6 Sep 2013

Watch a colossal loop of glowing red plasma shoot out from the sun

The sun unleashed a monster eruption of super-hot plasma Friday in back-to-back solar storms captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft. The…
5 Sep 2013

International Atomic Energy Agency holds conference on fusion roadmap

Seventy participants from 16 countries and international groups gathered at the University of California at Los Angeles under the auspices…
4 Sep 2013

Enthused with fusion, team targets what drives the sun

Hotter than the centre of the sun, the hydrogen plasma—suspended in a magnetic field in the ANU's H-1 heliac device—rotates at 1km per…
3 Sep 2013

Ignition switch

On a breezy day in 2009, action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor of California, took to the stage to dedicate the National…