From PPPL Lab: “US ITER is a strong contributor in plan to enhance international sharing of prime ITER real estate”

March 28, 2013
Lynne Degitz

“When the ITER experimental fusion reactor begins operation in the 2020s, over 40 diagnostic tools will provide essential data to researchers seeking to understand plasma behavior and optimize fusion performance. But before the ITER tokamak is built, researchers need to determine an efficient way of fitting all of these tools into a limited number of shielded ports that will protect the delicate diagnostic hardware and other parts of the machine from neutron flux and intense heat. A port plug integration proposal developed with the US ITER diagnostics team has helped the international ITER collaboration arrive at a clever solution for safely housing all of the tokamak diagnostic devices.

‘Before horizontal or vertical modules were proposed, diagnostic teams were not constrained to any particular design space. When we started working on this, we suggested that there be some type of modular approach,’ said Russ Feder, a US ITER diagnostics contributor and Senior Mechanical Engineer at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. ‘Originally, we proposed four horizontal drawers for each port plug. But then analysis of electromagnetic forces on these horizontal modules showed that forces were too high and the project switched to the three vertical modules.’”

The proposal has been formalized by two ITER procurement agreements in late 2012 between US ITER, based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the ITER Organization; other ITER partners are expected to make similar agreements this year.”

PPPL’s Russell Feder, left, and David Johnson developed key features for a modular approach to housing the extensive diagnostic systems that will be installed on the ITER tokamak. (Photo credit: Elle Starkman/PPPL Office of Communications)

See the full article here.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From SLAC: “Materials Scientists Make Solar Energy Chip 100 Times More Efficient”

March 19, 2013
Mike Ross

“Scientists working at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) have improved an innovative solar-energy device to be about 100 times more efficient than its previous design in converting the sun’s light and heat into electricity.

‘This is a major step toward making practical devices based on our technique for harnessing both the light and heat energy provided by the sun,’ said Nicholas Melosh, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and a researcher with SIMES, a joint SLAC/Stanford institute.

Nick Melosh (left), associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and a researcher with SIMES, and graduate student Jared Schwede. (Credit: Brad Plummer / SLAC)

The new device is based on the photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) process first demonstrated in 2010 by a group led by Melosh and SIMES colleague Zhi-Xun Shen, who is SLAC’s advisor for science and technology. In a report last week in Nature Communications, the group described how they improved the device’s efficiency from a few hundredths of a percent to nearly 2 percent, and said they expect to achieve at least another 10-fold gain in the future.”

Part of a 2-inch-diameter gallium-arsenide wafer used as a base for photon-enhanced thermionic emission chips. (Credit: Brad Plummer / SLAC)

This is exciting news for Clean Energy. See the full article here.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the DOE’s Office of Science.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From SLAC Lab: “Breakthrough Research Shows Chemical Reaction in Real Time”

March 14, 2013
No Writer Credit

“The ultrafast, ultrabright X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) have enabled unprecedented views of a catalyst in action, an important step in the effort to develop cleaner and more efficient energy sources.

How LCLS views surface chemistry (Credit: Hirohito Ogasawara / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used LCLS, together with computerized simulations, to reveal surprising details of a short-lived early state in a chemical reaction occurring at the surface of a catalyst sample. The study offers important clues about how catalysts work and launches a new era in probing surface chemistry as it happens.

‘To study a reaction like this in real time is a chemist’s dream,’ said Anders Nilsson, deputy director for the Stanford and SLAC SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis and a leading author in the research, published March 15 in Science. ‘We are really jumping into the unknown.’”

See the full article here.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the DOE’s Office of Science.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From PPPL: “Rajesh Maingi adds a new strategic dimension to fusion and plasma physics research”

March 14, 2013
John Greenwald

“Physicist Rajesh Maingi remembers nearly everything. Results of experiments he did 20 years ago play back instantly in his mind, as do his credit card and bank account numbers.

Rajesh Maingi. (Photo credit: Elle Starkman )

Maingi brings his expertise to the new position of manager of edge physics and plasma-facing components at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The recently created post calls for coordinating all Laboratory research on the volatile edge of the plasma, which must be carefully controlled for fusion to take place, and on the crucial boundary between the plasma and the interior surfaces of a tokamak.

Tokamak

At PPPL

The strategic position adds a new dimension to research at PPPL. ‘We’ve decided to pull all our activities in this area together and plan how to use them to make an impact in the fusion community and the world,’ said Michael Zarnstorff, deputy director for research at the Laboratory. ‘Rajesh is well-known around the world, particularly in tokamak physics. He has experience and perspective and strategic vision, and we see him as a great opportunity for the Lab.’”

See the full article here.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University.

ScienceSprings is powered by Maingear computers

FRom PPPL: "A fast new method for measuring hard-to-diagnose 3D plasmas in fusion facilities"

March 12, 2013
John Greenwald

“Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan have developed a rapid method for meeting a key challenge for fusion science. The challenge has been to simulate the diagnostic measurement of plasmas produced by twisting, or 3D, magnetic fields in fusion facilities. While such fields characterize facilities called stellarators, otherwise symmetric, or 2D, facilities such as tokamaks also can benefit from 3D fields.

A cutaway view of the ITER Project Tokamak reactor.

Researchers led by PPPL physicist Sam Lazerson have now created a computer code that simulates the required diagnostics, and have validated the code on the Large Helical Device stellarator in Japan. Called ‘Diagno v2.0,’ the new program utilizes information from previous codes that simulate 3D plasmas without the diagnostic measurements. The addition of this new capability could, with further refinement, enable physicists to predict the outcome of 3D plasma experiments with a high degree of accuracy.

A simulated plasma in the Large Helical Device showing the thin blue saddle coils that researchers used to make diagnostic measurements with the new computer code. (Photo credit: Graphic by Sam Lazerson)

Lazerson and co-authors Satoru Sakakibara and Yasuhiro Suzuki of NIFS have published their paper online in the February issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/55/2/025014. The journal also is using a Lazerson graphic of a simulated plasma on the cover of its print edition. “

See the full article here.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University.

ScienceSprings is powered by Maingear computers

From SLAC: “Unexpected Allies Help Bacteria Clean Uranium From Groundwater”

March 7, 2013
Lori Ann White

“Since 2009, SLAC scientist John Bargar has led a team using synchrotron-based X-ray techniques to study bacteria that help clean uranium from groundwater in a process called bioremediation. Their initial goal was to discover how the bacteria do it and determine the best way to help, but during the course of their research the team made an even more important discovery: Nature thinks bigger than that.

From left to right: Sam Webb, John Bargar and Juan Lezama-Pacheco used X-rays from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to discover Nature’s housecleaning secrets. Since the housecleaning involves uranium, their curiosity may have important benefits. (Credit: Matt Beardsley)

The researchers discovered that bacteria don’t necessarily go straight for the uranium, as was often thought to be the case. The bacteria make their own, even tinier allies – nanoparticles of a common mineral called iron sulfide. Then, working together, the bacteria and the iron sulfide grab molecules of a highly soluble form of uranium known as U(VI), or hexavalent uranium, and transform them into U(IV), a less-soluble form that’s much less likely to spread through the water table. According to Barger, this newly discovered partnership may be the basis of a global geochemical process that forms deposits of uranium ore.

And it’s all done using one of the most basic types of chemical reactions known: oxidation and reduction, commonly known as ‘redox.’ Redox reactions can be thought of as the transfer of electrons from donor atoms to atoms that are hungry for electrons, and they are a primary source of chemical energy for both living and non-living processes. Photosynthesis involves redox reactions, as does cell respiration. Iron oxidizes to form rust; batteries depend on redox reactions to store and release energy.

‘Redox transitions are a very fundamental process,’ Bargar said. ‘It’s the stuff of life. It’s how you breathe.’”

The study, published Monday in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted at the Old Rifle site on the Colorado River, a former uranium ore processing site in the town of Rifle, Colo. The aquifer at the site is contaminated with uranium and is the focus of bioremediation field studies conducted by a larger team of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research. As part of their study, the LBNL team added acetate – essentially vinegar – to the aquifer in a series of injection wells to “feed the bugs,” as Bargar put it, allowing acetate to flow throughout the aquifer around the wells.

See the full article here.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the DOE’s Office of Science.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From Livermore Lab: “National Academies recommend high priority for work on Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility”

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

02/21/2013
Breanna Bishop

“ A report issued by the National Research Council highlights the significant impact of successful development of inertial fusion energy (IFE), and recommends priorities for future research in this area.

A view from the bottom of the chamber. Pulses from NIF’s high-powered lasers race toward the Target Bay at the speed of light. They arrive at the center of the target chamber within a few trillionths of a second of each other, aligned to the accuracy of the diameter of a human hair.

As noted in this National Academies’ report, ‘The potential benefits of inertial confinement fusion energy (abundant fuel, minimal greenhouse gas emissions, limited high-level radioactive waste requiring long-term disposal) provide a compelling rationale for establishing inertial fusion energy R&D as part of the long-term U.S. energy R&D portfolio.’

Research into IFE is a key objective of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) — the world’s premier research facility in this area of science and technology. The NIF was built by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) primarily to provide data in support of its defense programs, but also has broad applications in basic science and fusion energy.

The National Academies state that ‘The National Ignition Facility, designed for stockpile stewardship applications, also is of great potential importance for advancing the technical basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE) research,’ and that the target physics programs on the NIF (and related facilities) ‘should receive continued high priority.’”

See the full article here.

Operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security
Administration

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From Brookhaven Lab: “Dopants Dramatically Alter Electronic Structure of Superconductor”

Brookhaven Lab

Findings explain unusual properties, but complicate search for universal theory.

February 17, 2013
No Writer Credit

“Over the last quarter century, scientists have discovered a handful of materials that can be converted from magnetic insulators or metals into ‘superconductors‘ able to carry electrical current with no energy loss—an enormously promising idea for new types of zero-resistance electronics and energy-storage and transmission systems. At present, a key step to achieving superconductivity (in addition to keeping the materials very cold) is to substitute a different kind of atom into some positions of the ‘parent’ material’s crystal framework. Until now, scientists thought this process, called doping, simply added more electrons or other charge carriers, thereby rendering the electronic environment more conducive to the formation of electron pairs that could move with no energy loss if the material is held at a certain chilly temperature.

Scientists have found that the substitution of cobalt atoms into the crystal framework of an iron-based material—which is required to convert the material from a magnet into a superconductor—also introduces elongated impurity states at each cobalt atom (note the directional alignment of “twin” peaks around each cobalt atom in the electronic structure map). These elongated impurities then scatter electrons in an asymmetric way that explains many of the material’s unusual properties, and could eventually lead to the design of new types of superconductors for practical applications in energy transmission and storage.

Now, new studies of an iron-based superconductor by an international team of scientists—including physicists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cornell University—suggest that the story is somewhat more complicated. Their research, published online in Nature Physics February 17, 2013, demonstrates that doping, in addition to adding electrons, dramatically alters the atomic-scale electronic structure of the parent material, with important consequences for the behavior of the current-carrying electrons.

‘The key observation—that dopant atoms introduce elongated impurity states which scatter electrons in the material in an asymmetric way—helps explain most of the unusual properties, said J.C. Séamus Davis, the study’s lead author, who directs the Center for Emergent Superconductivity at Brookhaven Lab and is also the J.G. White Distinguished Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University. ‘Our findings provide a new starting point for theorists trying to grapple with how these materials work, and could potentially point to new ways to design superconductors with improved properties,’ he said.

J.C. Séamus Davis (photo courtesy of Cornell University)

See the full article here.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From Berkeley Lab: “Hitting the Sweet Spot for Advanced Biofuel Technologies”

Berkeley Lab

January 25, 2013
Lynn Yarris

“Earth’s atmosphere and the American economy would greatly benefit from the commercial development of clean, green and renewable domestic biofuels. Advanced biofuels, capable of a gallon-for-gallon replacement of petroleum-based fuels, are by definition, capable of exploiting common engine designs and using today’s fuel distribution infrastructures. Studies show advanced biofuels have a carbon life cycle that produces low or net-zero green house gases. Helping to commercialize advanced biofuels is the primary mission of Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU), the West Coast’s only state-of-the-art facility providing industry-scale test beds for laboratory discoveries in advanced biofuels research.

‘At ABPDU we can fill an important niche when it comes to the commercialization of advanced biofuel technologies,’ says James Gardner, the ABPDU’s Operations Manager. ‘There’s a term in the fuels world called the Valley of Death, where something that looks fantastic at the research scale, fails to pass through the gauntlet of scale-up testing that allows it to go on to the commercial scale. We can help nascent technologies navigate this valley and lower the barriers to market entry by providing a pilot plant that is very flexible and open-ended.’

James Gardner

Read a news release about the ABPDU opening here.”

And, see the full current article here. Our problems of inefficient use of resources and a deteriorating environment for ourselves and our children are not going to go away until we research them away.

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Operated by the University of California

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers

From Argonne Lab via Medill Reports: “Out from the shadows: Argonne’s quest to demystify nuclear energy

Dec 12, 2012
Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Argonne National Laboratory is trying to set the record straight on nuclear energy as a clean fuel that can be generated safely. No carbon emissions and no need for imports.
But the scientists working inside it want the world to know they’ve got nothing to hide.

Argonne grew out of the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb at a secret location in New Mexico during World War II. ‘Argonne has really been the reactor laboratory,’ [Argonne nuclear engineer Roger] Blomquist said. Now Argonne scientists are putting the cabash on the nuclear-related stigma and promoting public awareness of the reality and potential of nuclear energy. ‘We’ve never done bombs, nuclear weapons—anything like that,’ he said.

Argonne National Laboratory

The lab, focusing on nuclear energy, alternative energy and battery development among a long list of interdisciplinary research programs, is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Argonne’s dedication to public education is especially pertinent in society’s current interest in nuclear energy as a potentially green solution, according to Tom Ewing, Associate Division Director of Argonne’s Nuclear Engineering Division.

During a private tour of a nuclear energy museum on Argonne’s campus, Blomquist explained that the laboratory’s work includes reactor materials construction and safety, fuel recycling and general reactor safety. Argonne developed the world’s first nuclear reactor able to produce electricity and then produced the first prototype reactor used to power the whole town of Arco, Idaho, as part of proving the stability of boiling-water reactors.

‘We’re not trying to do something secretive here,’ said Emily Wolters, also an Argonne nuclear engineer, in an interview. ‘We’re just trying to show people it’s a safe technology.’”

See the full article here.

Medill Reports is written and produced by graduate journalism students at Northwestern University’s Medill school.

ScienceSprings is powered by MAINGEAR computers