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☆ New technique from U.S. national lab promises to strip carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and factories at record-low cost
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Just as importantly, industrial processes such as making iron, steel, cement, fertilizer, pulp and paper, and bioenergy could all reduce their carbon dioxide emissions this new technique. "We have the technology to be able to capture carbon dioxide from those industrial point sources. PNNL's technique removes carbon dioxide at the source, rather than sucking it out of the air. The technique of vacuuming up existing CO2 out of the air is known as direct carbon capture, and is exemplified by the Swiss company Climeworks. Graphic courtesy Nathan Johnson at Pacific Northwest National LabWhat happens with the rest of the carbon dioxide?

☆ U.S. approves design for NuScale small modular nuclear reactor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Timothy Gardner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Companies Nuscale Power Corp FollowWASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power regulator has certified the design for the NuScale Power Corp's (SMR.N) small modular reactor, the first such approval in the country for the next generation technology. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval, published in the Federal Register late on Thursday, clears a hurdle for NuScale. The company plans to build a demonstration small modular reactor (SMR) power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The U.S. Department of Energy has provided more than $600 million since 2014 to support the design, licensing and siting of NuScale's power plant and other small modular reactors. "SMRs are no longer an abstract concept," said Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Energy Department.

☆ The used electric car market is starting to take off as prices slowly drop
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Alexa St. John | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

At first glance, today's product pipeline might not paint a good picture for the future of the used EV market. "If what we've produced in the last couple of years has been a rich mix, when that goes into the used market, that keeps used prices elevated as well," Dziczek said. Overall declines for used vehicle prices also generally apply to used EVs. Used EVs remain more expensive than used gas-cars, and many might not yet qualify for the used EV tax credit based on its price cap. Dealers are starting to feel incentivized to drop used EVs priced close to the cap to just below it.

☆ Map: Which states will build the most EV batteries in 2030?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Georgia, Kentucky and Michigan are going to dominate electric vehicle battery manufacturing in the United States by 2030. Each of those three states will be able to manufacture between 97 and 136 gigawatt hours' worth of EV batteries per year by 2030, according to plans they have laid out. Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee will also be key players, with planned capacity for between 46 and 97 gigawatt hours' of EV battery production per year by 2030. This planned manufacturing capacity was highlighted by the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday, based on a November 2022 report from the Argonne National Laboratory in November. To keep up with increasing demand for EVs, the total build out of EV battery manufacturing capacity in North America will go from from 55 gigawatt-hours per year in 2021 to almost 1,000 gigawatt-hours per year by 2030.

☆ Chatty AI and Protein-Predicting Algorithm Defined the Year in Emerging Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

They also built supercomputers designed to handle the growing influx of data needed for evermore complex AI applications. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Using an AI algorithm called AlphaFold, the London-based lab said it had expanded its database of predicted protein structures to 214 million, up from 1 million as of December 2021, representing all proteins known to science, including proteins found in animals, plants, bacteria and other organisms. Though researchers say the commercial application of nuclear fusion likely remains years and perhaps decades away, the technology might one day help fight climate change. In March, Sandbox AQ, a software startup developing quantum-computing and artificial-intelligence tools for commercial use, officially spun off from Alphabet’s Google to become a stand-alone company.

☆ After a Bumpy Year, Renewable Energy Looks Poised for Boom Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Dieter Holger | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +9 min

The future has never been brighter for renewable energy, as some of the snags that kept wind and solar production from going full throttle this year seem poised to ease. What is more, by early 2025, the IEA said it expects renewable energy to be the largest source of electricity in the global power mix, surpassing coal. Driving the IEA’s rosier outlook: First is the global energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that led European nations to try to build more renewable energy capacity within their borders to improve their energy security and replace Russian fuel imports. But the climate-and-spending bill’s support for growth of the solar industry should reverse the recent spikes in PPA costs, he said. GridsLong waits for permits and permissions to build new grid infrastructure remain a challenge to getting more renewable energy.

☆ Here's why the U.S. electric grid isn't running on 100% renewable energy yet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +15 min

Intermittency and transmissionOne of the biggest barriers to a 100% renewable grid is the intermittency of many renewable power sources. Wind resources in the United States, according to the the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. Solar resources in the United States, according to the the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.

☆ University of California academic workers end weeks-long strike
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Kanishka Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Academic workers at UC San Diego walk out as thousands of employees at the University of California campuses have gone on strike in an effort to secure improved pay and working conditions in San Diego, California, U.S., November 14, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File PhotoDec 23 (Reuters) - University of California (UC) academic workers ended a nearly six-week strike on Friday that unions described as the biggest work stoppage ever at a U.S. institution of higher education. Thousands of academic workers went on strike at UC campuses throughout the state on Nov. 14, forming picket lines and staging noisy protests to demand better wages for teaching assistants and others. Some 48,000 academic workers represented by the United Auto Workers will return to work in January after the winter break, union leaders said, after ratification votes by large majorities of two fractious UAW bargaining units. The thousands of striking academic workers began voting this week on whether to ratify the deal with the University of California.

[1/3] A view of the land repair work underway at site of an oil spill from Keystone Pipeline, located north of Washington, Kansas, U.S December 15, 2022. Erwin Seba/REUTERSCompanies TC Energy Corp FollowDec 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. pipeline regulator launched a review this year of its special permits that waive certain operating requirements for pipelines, following a government report into spills on TC Energy's Keystone oil pipeline, a source familiar with the matter said. The most recent major spill occurred this month in rural Kansas along Keystone, the only U.S. oil pipeline with a special permit to operate at higher pressure. PHMSA commissioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy research institution, to review special permits following a 2021 report on Keystone accidents, the source said. The latest Keystone spill raises doubts about whether PHMSA adequately assesses risk in granting special permits, said Don Deaver, a pipeline consultant.

☆ University of California's striking academic workers begin vote on labor deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The proposed contract agreement was hailed by union and university supporters as a landmark labor deal that would set a new national standard boosting wages and working conditions for graduate students employed at public universities. The walkout dragged on for weeks as the fall term drew to a close, disrupting final exams, study sessions and grading of papers throughout California's flagship university system. In terms of workers involved, it ranked as larger than any previous strike at a U.S. academic institution, union leaders said. Two other UAW locals negotiating on behalf of 12,000 post-doctoral scholars and researchers ratified a separate settlement and returned to work earlier this month. Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Muralikumar AnantharamanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Here's how the US government is developing 5G for underwater Navy sensors and bomb disposal on land
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Clara Mcmichael | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The US government is working to integrate 5G into technology that addresses environmental hazards. The Navy is working with an Energy Department subsidiary on 5G tech meant to detect marine life. This article is part of "How 5G Is Changing Everything," a series about transformational 5G tech across industries. The lab collaborates with other government agencies to weave the latest 5G technology into their operations and has worked on projects ranging from underwater sensors to land-based bomb-disposal robots. The Navy is particularly interested in working on 5G underwater, where it could enable faster data collection and analysis, more efficient environmental monitoring, and better communication with the Navy's underwater assets.

☆ When Will Fusion Be Ready for Prime Time? Watch These Three Numbers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Josh Zumbrun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. Energy Department this past week announced a breakthrough in research on nuclear fusion, after a controlled reaction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory produced more energy than it consumed. Fusion offers the potential for virtually limitless, clean energy. How long before this breakthrough can deliver on that promise? To get an idea, it’s helpful to know three simple numbers in the science and economics of fusion representing key “break-even points.”

☆ When Will Nuclear Fusion Energy Be Ready for Prime Time? Watch These Three Numbers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Josh Zumbrun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Nuclear Fusion Energy: What to Know About the Latest Scientific Breakthrough
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Aylin Woodward | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Energy Department said Tuesday that scientists had achieved a breakthrough in research on nuclear fusion, bringing them one step closer to possibly changing the future of clean energy. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., where the milestone known as fusion ignition was achieved, have been studying nuclear fusion for more than a decade. The broad appeal of nuclear fusion to researchers, as well as investors and companies, stems from its potential as a clean-energy alternative to sources that involve the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases.

☆ Emergency-response technology with a 5G upgrade is having an impact in places like hurricane-battered Florida
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Clara Mcmichael | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's likely to become commonplace that tools used by first responders and police will run on 5G networks. This article is part of "How 5G Is Changing Everything," a series about transformational 5G tech across industries. In June, from a remote farmer's field in Missouri, where cows wandered through the grass, AT&T tested its first 5G drone. Helped along by 5G, new technology designed to speed up disaster response is under development. In the meantime, though, networks and companies say they're continuing to innovate and expect 5G to have a profound impact on disaster response.

☆ Fusion power is still decades and billions of dollars away, even after this week's major scientific breakthrough
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The nuclear fusion breakthrough heralded on Tuesday was a historic event, culminating decades of research. At the same time, fusion power will not be contributing electricity to any power grid for at least a decade, according to most industry watchers. "We got out 3.15 megajoules, we put in 2.05 megajoules in the laser," said Mark Herrmann, a program director at Lawrence Livermore, on Tuesday. All of that energy went into the laser fusion reaction that showed net gain of about 1.1 megajoules — enough energy to boil a teakettle maybe two or three times. "This is a science achievement, not a practical one," Omar A. Hurricane, a chief scientist at Lawrence Livermore, told CNBC.

U.S. scientists have achieved “ignition” — a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create — a critical milestone for nuclear fusion and a step forward in the pursuit of a nearly limitless source of clean energy, Energy Department officials said Tuesday. The process imploded a tiny capsule inside the hohlraum that is filled with deuterium and tritium, creating a fusion reaction. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory"We have taken the first tentative steps toward a clean energy source," said Jill Hruby, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. The Inflation Reduction Act provided millions in new funding for fusion projects and the White House this year convened the first fusion summit and developed a 10-year plan to commercialize fusion technology. A technician reviews an optic inside the preamplifier support structure at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., in 2012.

☆ Nuclear-Fusion Breakthrough Accelerates Quest to Unlock Limitless Energy Source
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Aylin Woodward | Jennifer Hiller | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Energy Department said Tuesday that scientists at a federal research facility had achieved a breakthrough in research on nuclear fusion, long seen as a potential source of clean, virtually limitless energy. A controlled fusion reaction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., produced more energy than it consumed, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other government officials said during a press conference from DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C.

☆ Nuclear fusion breakthrough: Scientists generate more power than used to create reaction
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Fusion is the way that the sun makes power, but recreating a useful fusion reaction here on earth has eluded scientists for decades. The National Ignition Facility target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is where scientists shoot lasers and watch and measure what happens when those lasers collide on a fuel source. Reaching ignition means the fusion experiment produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy that used to drive the reaction. "For the first time on Earth, scientists have confirmed a fusion energy experiment released more power than it takes to initiate, proving the physical basis for fusion energy. But it's proven extremely challenging to sustain a fusion reaction here on earth, and scientists have been trying for decades.

☆ How nuclear fusion works, and why it's a big deal for green energy that scientists made a 'breakthrough'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

US Department of Energy scientists produced a nuclear fusion reaction with a net energy gain. The US Department of Energy officially announced the milestone in fusion energy research on Tuesday. For the first time, researchers created a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than they put into it. What is fusion energy and why is it a big deal? This illustration shows how lasers heat a target to the necessary conditions for nuclear fusion to occur.

☆ U.S. to announce scientific breakthrough on fusion energy -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Companies U.S. Department of Energy FollowWASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy will announce on Tuesday that scientists at a national lab have made a breakthrough on fusion energy, the process that powers the sun and stars that one day could provide a cheap source of electricity, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a net energy gain for the first time, in a fusion experiment using lasers, one of the people said. Other methods of fusion use magnets instead of lasers. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is slated to hold a media briefing on Tuesday at 10:00 EST (1500 GMT) on a "major scientific breakthrough." Private industry secured more than $2.8 billion dollars last year for fusion, according to the Fusion Industry Association for a total of about $5 billion in recent years.

Researchers for decades have attempted to recreate nuclear fusion – replicating the fusion that powers the sun. Nuclear fusion happens when two or more atoms are fused into one larger one, a process that generates a massive amount of energy as heat. Scientists across the globe have been inching toward the breakthrough, using different methods to try to achieve the same goal. This heat can then be used to warm water, create steam and power turbines to generate power. “The opposing argument is that this result is miles away from actual energy gain required for the production of electricity,” he said.

☆ Thomas Zacharia Knows the Power of Innovation
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Emily Bobrow | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Thomas Zacharia describes his story as uniquely American. When he came to the U.S. from India in 1981, he had a degree in mechanical engineering and $8 in his pocket. Today he runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), America’s largest science and energy laboratory, overseeing more than 6,000 staffers and an annual budget of more than $2.4 billion. “To be leading such a prestigious, history-making organization is unthinkable in any other country for an immigrant,” he says over video from his office in Oak Ridge, Tenn.At the end of the year, Dr. Zacharia, 65, will retire after 35 years at ORNL, which was founded as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. When he assumed the top job in 2017, he was inspired by the lab’s history as a place where scientists from all over the world came to invent the nuclear-reactor technology that helped to win the war, generate new energy sources and enable new insights into the fundamental laws of the universe.

☆ Why Silicon Valley is so hot on nuclear energy and what it means for the industry
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

Pallava Bagla | Corbis News | Getty ImagesVenture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing money in nuclear energy for the first time in history. This surge of private investment will be a positive for the industry, agrees John Parsons, an economist and lecturer at MIT. Nuclear energy is "a very complex science, and it's been supported by the federal government and at these national labs. In the 1960s and 1970s, large conglomerates constructed big nuclear power plants, and those projects often ran over budget. New generations of nuclear reactors will have different sizes, different coolants and different fuels, explained Matt Crozat, senior director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

☆ Silicon Valley chip startup Cerebras unveils AI supercomputer
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Startup Cerebras System's new AI supercomputer Andromeda is seen at a data center in Santa Clara, California, U.S. October 2022. Rebecca Lewington/Cerebras Systems/Handout via REUTERSOAKLAND, Calif. Nov 14(Reuters) - Silicon Valley startup Cerebras Systems, known in the industry for its dinner plate-sized chip made for artificial intelligence work, on Monday unveiled its AI supercomputer called Andromeda, which is now available for commercial and academic research. Andromeda is built by linking up 16 Cerebras CS-2 systems, the company's latest AI computer built around the over-sized chip called the Wafer-Scale Engine 2. This is less than $35 million,” said Andrew Feldman, founder and CEO of Cerebras when asked about the Frontier supercomputer. Feldman said Andromeda is owned by Cerebras and built at a high performance data center in Santa Clara, California called Colovore.

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