The Great Filter...

Image Source: Gizmodo and originally, Wait, But Why

Topics: Astrobiology, Carl Sagan, Climate Change, Drake Equation, Existentialism, Fermi Paradox, Nuclear Power

“The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” Carl Sagan

My First Contact scenario doesn't involve Vulcans, warp drive or impossible scenarios: it involves radio transmissions, as communication is a big part of the Drake Equation. Specifically audio, video and digital data (Internet?) of extraterrestrial origin as we would confirm before announcing to the world. Assuming the aliens developed their technology in an oxygen-nitrogen environment, the language we could hear might amount to a lot of "clicking" noises, that mathematicians - specifically specialists in cryptography, and linguists - would dive into deciphering. Eventually after coming up with a Rosetta Stone of syntax, we could translate what would amount to news, drama and sitcoms. Of specific interest might be their political climate and sectarian strife (if any). More particularly, did they successfully translate through their "Great Filter"...

...or, if they did not.

*****

I'm a big fan of Jordon Peele's incarnation of The Twilight Zone, particularly the sixth episode: "Six Degrees of Freedom." It is unfortunate that popular show title describes our current political climate.

I won't give away the intriguing ending, but Peele has mastered the macabre plot twist of Rod Serling's writing style, and (my opinion) his surreal monologue delivery. It's streaming, so you may have to pay less than you would for a single movie ticket per month to view it. I've enjoyed it and other shows so far, and I get no monetary gain for the endorsement.

"The Great Filter, in the context of the Fermi paradox, is whatever prevents dead matter from undergoing abiogenesis, in time, to expanding lasting life as measured by the Kardashev scale.[1][2] The concept originates in Robin Hanson's argument that the failure to find any extraterrestrial civilizations in the observable universe implies the possibility something is wrong with one or more of the arguments from various scientific disciplines that the appearance of advanced intelligent life is probable; this observation is conceptualized in terms of a "Great Filter" which acts to reduce the great number of sites where intelligent life might arise to the tiny number of intelligent species with advanced civilizations actually observed (currently just one: human).[3] This probability threshold, which could lie behind us (in our past) or in front of us (in our future), might work as a barrier to the evolution of intelligent life, or as a high probability of self-destruction.[1][4] The main counter-intuitive conclusion of this observation is that the easier it was for life to evolve to our stage, the bleaker our future chances probably are.

The idea was first proposed in an online essay titled "The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?", written by economist Robin Hanson. The first version was written in August 1996 and the article was last updated on September 15, 1998. Since that time, Hanson's formulation has received recognition in several published sources discussing the Fermi paradox and its implications.

Using extinct civilizations such as Easter Island as models, a study conducted in 2018 posited that climate change induced by "energy intensive" civilizations may prevent sustainability within such civilizations, thus explaining the lack of evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life.[5]" Source: Wikipedia/The Great Filter

The Great Filter is alluded to in science fiction with or without warp drive: Star Trek described global wars on Earth and the fictional Vulcan that involved their respective nuclear holocausts. For the Vulcans, recovery involved a relentless embrace of logic, or as I recall reading in a Trek novel, "reality-truth." For Earth, it essentially involved accepting help from the Vulcans after the human species was discovered warp capable through a singular genius with a funny name post self-induced Apocalypse, a Deus ex Machina plot device used since publicly performed Greek and Roman plays. We don't have warp drive, but we do have thermonuclear devices poised for Armageddon. We don't have Vulcans, but we once did have the Easter Islanders, just as once we had the Dodo.

I've often encapsulated The Great Filter in my own dictum: "intelligence is its own Entropy." I think when Carl Sagan was alive, the regressive forces we see now denying science, climate change; verifiable facts and reality were well engaged in his day of the original COSMOS. Slowly, shows like COSMOS lost their appeal to Game Shows cum Reality Shows, and as a country we reveled in our distractions, added as channels on cable and Internet multiplied like E. coli. and measles resurgence as well as our grasp of what is real and verifiable. In fact, we seek distractions in gadgets and online machinations in the constant need to fill "horror vacui."

In the east, nothing meant something, particularly in clarity of thought: Mu Shin No Shin - "the mind without mind" or more colloquially, "no mind." As translated from the martial battlefield to artists both martial and objective; and Zen philosophers, it offers a certain clarity that can be attained when not focused on minutiae detail, but accepted reality "as-is" after diligent practice. A practice like karate forms that takes years of repetition, dedication and study. That is the key to mastering anything, from martial arts to science to civics.

The stars are silent. Intelligence may be rare. Vulcans if existing may not be benevolent, and in the myopic attention span of the erect species of which I am member - "wise men"...fleeting in longevity.

We hope we're past The Great Filter. I'm not sure we are.

Related links:

The Great Filter Might Be What's Preventing Aliens from Reaching Us,
Joanie Faletto, Curiosity

The Reason We've Never Found Intelligent Life Might be Because We Are Already Going Extinct,
Climate change might be humanity’s "Great Filter." Karla Lant, Futurism

The Great Filter, a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox – interview with Robin Hanson
Science, Technology, Future

Slipshod and Hubris...

Operation Upshot-Knothole at the Nevada Test Site on April 18, 1953. Credit: Getty Images

Topics: Biomedicine, Commentary, Existentialism, Nuclear Power, Philosophy

As someone who recalls doing "duck and cover drills," I consider everyday a good day when this is not my sunrise.

The United States is not prepared to deal with the aftermath of a major nuclear attack, despite North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the increasing tensions between nations overall. That was the blunt assessment of public-health experts who participated in a meeting last week on nuclear preparedness, organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The gathering is “an acknowledgement that the threat picture has changed, and that the risk of this happening has gone up”, says Tener Veenema, who studies disaster nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and co-chaired the conference in Washington DC.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States’s research and preparedness efforts for a nuclear strike have focused largely on the possibility of a terrorist attack with a relatively small, improvised 1-kilotonne weapon or a ‘dirty bomb’ that sprays radioactive material.

But North Korea is thought to have advanced thermonuclear weapons—each more than 180 kilotonnes in size—that would cause many more casualties than would a dirty bomb (see ‘Damage estimates’). “Now that thermonuclear is back on the table, we’re back to people saying, ‘We can’t deal with this,’” says Cham Dallas, a public-health researcher at the University of Georgia in Athens.

U.S. Is Woefully Unprepared for Nuclear Strike, Sarah Reardon, Scientific American

Related link:

10 Chilling Facts About The MAD Doctrine – Mutually Assured Destruction, Joris Nieuwint, War History Online

A Step Closer...

Laser preamplifiers at the National Ignition Facility. (Courtesy: CC BY-SA 3.0/Damien Jemison/LLNL)

Topics: Alternative Energy, Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Power

Physicists working at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US say they have passed another important milestone in their quest for nuclear fusion energy. They have shown that the fusion energy generated by the laser implosion of a deuterium-tritium fuel capsule is twice that of the kinetic energy of the implosion. By further trebling the fusion energy, they say they will be close to the long-sought goal of an overall net energy gain.

The $3.5bn NIF trains 192 pulsed laser beams on to the inner surface of a centimetre-long hollow metal cylinder known as a hohlraum. Inside is a fuel capsule, which is a roughly 2 mm-diameter hollow sphere containing a thin deuterium-tritium layer. Each pulse lasts just a few nanoseconds and the lasers can deliver about 1.8 MJ of energy. This powerful blast causes the capsule to implode rapidly, creating immense temperatures and pressures inside a central “hot spot”, where fusion reactions occur.

The long-term goal is that the energy of neutrons given off by fusion can generate electricity. Before this is possible, NIF must show that it is possible to achieve ignition – the point at which fusion reactions generate at least as much energy delivered by the laser system. This involves self-sustaining reactions, in which the alpha particles that are also emitted during fusion give off enough heat to initiate further fusion.

Giant lasers pass new milestone towards fusion energy, Edwin Cartlidge
(science writer based in Rome), Physics World

#P4TC related links:

Laser Fusion...December 19, 2017
Nanowire Fusion...April 9, 2018

Rewind...

Image Source: Movie Pilot. Where's a benevolent Kryptonian when you need him?

Topics: Existentialism, Nuclear Power, Politics, Star Trek

One of the premises of Star Trek is we'll overcome our technological infancy, our myriad differences with one another, and somewhat Pollyannish: nuclear war. That we'll survive - in the spirit of the Drake Equation - not just long enough to communicate, but to become a space-faring species.

Some of that optimism has a limit: a 280-character limit.

The president* can launch a thermonuclear first strike or counterstrike presently without any consultation with Congress. A relic of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, speed and efficiency was encouraged when we had more rational actors in possession of the nuclear football. It takes about 5 minutes for ICBMs; 15 minutes for submarine launched missiles to be deployed once the order is given. In the event of negative findings from the Mueller investigation, he could literally have "nothing to lose." There are no calling these "dogs of war" back once they're off-the-porch.

The world moved closer to an existential catastrophe this year as the threat of nuclear warfare escalated, bringing the symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes away from midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said Thursday.

The move of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes away from midnight, the symbolic time at which the planet meets a world-ending disaster, represents a 30-second jump from last year. It is the closest the planet has been to midnight since 1953 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were testing hydrogen bombs.

“To call the world’s nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” said Rachel Bronson, president of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Nuclear 'Doomsday Clock' Is the Closest to Midnight It's Been Since the Cold War, TIME

Life Imitating Art...

Mars fission power system concept in the Kilopower project is shown in this undated NASA handout photo released on January 9, 2018. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS

Topics: Mars, NASA, Nuclear Power, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

...or vice-versa. This was alluded to in the novel and movie The Martian.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Initial tests in Nevada on a compact nuclear power system designed to sustain a long-duration NASA human mission on the inhospitable surface of Mars have been successful and a full-power run is scheduled for March, officials said on Thursday.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration and U.S. Department of Energy officials, at a Las Vegas news conference, detailed the development of the nuclear fission system under NASA’s Kilopower project.

Months-long testing began in November at the energy department’s Nevada National Security Site, with an eye toward providing energy for future astronaut and robotic missions in space and on the surface of Mars, the moon or other solar system destinations.

A key hurdle for any long-term colony on the surface of a planet or moon, as opposed to NASA’s six short lunar surface visits from 1969 to 1972, is possessing a power source strong enough to sustain a base but small and light enough to allow for transport through space.

“Mars is a very difficult environment for power systems, with less sunlight than Earth or the moon, very cold nighttime temperatures, very interesting dust storms that can last weeks and months that engulf the entire planet,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA‘s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

U.S. tests nuclear power system to sustain astronauts on Mars, Will Dunham, Reuters Science

The Minutes...

Image Source: Giphy.com

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Nuclear Power, Politics

70 years...1947 to 2017.

Clearly in my fifth decade of life, I have vivid disturbing memories of the world post Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945:

"Duck and cover drills": the most asinine exercise to bend-over-and-kiss-your-ass-goodbye I recall with a certain level of disdain.

The Red Scare: Post the McCarthy era, ALL things Russian were bad. COINTELPRO used the scare as raison d'être to infiltrate Civil Rights organizations like the Black Panther Party of Self Defense, the Congress Of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.), the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (S.N.C.C.). We lived through The Cold War, the possibility of a conflict with Gog and Magog loomed in every ROTC and Sunday School class. Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth practically dripped with it.

M.A.D.: Mutual (or Mutually) Assured Destruction. When you've each reduced the planet to a crisp cinder, what victory does ANYONE left alive sanely claim?

The Doomsday Clock was meant to be figurative only. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have always used it to foster a continual public debate (when you debate, you cannot war) regarding the existentialism question Shakespeare through Hamlet posed:

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Source: Monologue Archive: Hamlet by William Shakespeare

At least...it USED TO BE figurative, only.

The Bulletin: It is two and a half minutes to midnight
2017 Doomsday Clock Statement
Science and Security Board
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Editor, John Mecklin

Fusion Breeding...

Image Source: Binus University Research Interest Group

Topics: Alternative Energy, Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

Abstract

This article is an editorial, which makes the case that fusion breeding (that is using fusion neutrons to breed nuclear fuel for use in conventional nuclear reactors) is the best objective for the fusion program. To make the case, it reviews a great deal of plasma physics and fusion data. Fusion breeding could potentially play a key role in delivering large-scale sustainable carbon-free commercial power by mid-century. There is almost no chance that pure fusion can do that. The leading magnetic fusion concept, the tokamak, is subject to well-known constraints, which we have called conservative design rules, and review in this paper. These constraints will very likely prevent tokamaks from ever delivering economical pure fusion. Inertial fusion, in pure fusion mode, may ultimately be able to deliver commercial power, but the failure to date of the leading inertial fusion experiment, the National Ignition Campaign, shows that there are still large gaps in our understanding of laser fusion. Fusion breeding, based on either magnetic fusion or inertial fusion, greatly relaxes the requirements on the fusion reactor. It is also a much better fit to today’s and tomorrow’s nuclear infrastructure than is its competitor, fission breeding. This article also shows that the proposed fusion and fission infrastructure, ‘The Energy Park’, reviewed here, is sustainable, economically and environmentally sound, and poses little or no proliferation risk.

Introduction

The fusion program, both short term and long term, is in trouble, certainly in the United States, and likely worldwide. In addition to large cost overruns and failures to meet milestones, surely another reason is that pure fusion has almost no chance of meeting energy requirements on a time scale that anyone alive today can relate to. Hence the assertion of this article is that fusion breeding of conventional nuclear fuel is a likely way out of fusion’s current and future difficulties. Fusion breeding substantially reduces the requirements on the fusion reactor. It significantly reduces the necessary Q (fusion power divided by input power), wall loading, and availability fraction. The capital cost of a reactor, estimated based on ITER’s capital cost, is affordable for fusion breeding, but definitely is not for pure fusion. It is likely that fusion breeding can produce fuel at a reasonable cost by mid century. The entire fusion and fission infrastructure would be sustainable, economical, environmentally sound, and have little or no proliferation risk. This article’s mission then, is to hopefully convince a much larger portion of the fusion establishment to make this case. At the very least it hopes to broaden the discussion in the fusion community from where we are now, where one prestigious review committee after another insists that every existing project is absolutely vital, nothing can be changed; except give us more $$$. The inevitable result of this process is that one fusion project after another gets knocked off.

RD Springer: Fusion Breeding for Mid-Century Sustainable Power, Wallace Manheimer

Diamonds Are Forever...

Image Source: Entrepreneur.com, a similar photo is also at the link below.

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

Well, not exactly forever, but at least past our lifetimes.

Scientists from the University of Bristol Cabot Institute are hitting two birds with one stone, thanks to their lab-made diamond that can generate electricity and is made from upcycled radioactive waste.

In nuclear power plants, radioactive uranium is split in a process called nuclear fission. When the atoms are split, heat is generated, and that heat then vaporizes water into steam that turns electricity-generating turbines.

A severe downside of this process is the creation of dangerous radioactive waste, which ultimately deposits in the graphite core that it is housed in. Today, this nuclear contamination is safely stored away until it stops being radioactive…and with a half-life of 5,730 years, that takes quite a while.

The scientists found a way to heat the radioactive graphite to release most of the radioactivity in a gaseous form. The gas is subjected to high temperature and low pressures that turn it into a man-made diamond.

Futurism:
Diamond Batteries Made of Nuclear Waste Can Generate Power For Thousands of Years
Author: Jess Vilvestre, Editor: Patrick Caughill

Half-Life...

Image Source: Hiroshima Peace Media

Topics: Existentialism, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

The fear of entrusting "the nuclear codes" has always been casually thrown about without much understanding of the stakes.

There's a cartoon understanding of the power of nuclear weapons, even on science-friendly shows like Star Trek. The 22nd, 23rd and 24th Centuries are pristine, clean and pollution free. Human lifespan extended by almost one-hundred years, and the Third World War was fought in their fictional timeline of the 21st Century with a remarkable lack of radiation, fallout or uninhabitable areas of the globe.

We of course, in the real world, entered the nuclear age in World War II with the Enola Gay dropping the first of its kind weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war ended with this savagery, and we were briefly the dominate and only nuclear power.

That of course changed rapidly. Our previous wartime allies - then the Soviet Union - developed their own weapons, which ushered in what became known as The Cold War and along with it spy statecraft. Popular franchises like Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 movies, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the original Jason Bourne novels by Robert Ludlum capitalized on our collective cultural angst with Armageddon.

The creation of nuclear weapons is likely one of physics, and by extension science's most regrettable sins. It is often pointed to as example of its usage for evil; fuel for the disdain of acquiring knowledge, encouraging inquiry, trusting facts and reality. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer put this regret in words, poignantly quoting the Bhagavad Gita:

What Dr. Oppenheimer described was an atomic weapon only, not to dismiss the destructiveness of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man." To further escalate the possibility of a human extinction-level event self-imposed, the Teller-Ulam design increased the megaton yield to unimaginable, dystopian levels.

Image Source: Thermonuclear Weapon on Wikipedia

Excerpts from The Atomic Archive:

All present nuclear weapon designs require the splitting of heavy elements like uranium and plutonium. The energy released in this fission process is many millions of times greater, pound for pound, than the most energetic chemical reactions. The smaller nuclear weapon, in the low-kiloton range, may rely solely on the energy released by the fission process, as did the first bombs which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The larger yield nuclear weapons derive a substantial part of their explosive force from the fusion of heavy forms of hydrogen--deuterium and tritium. Since there is virtually no limitation on the volume of fusion materials in a weapon, and the materials are less costly than fissionable materials, the fusion, "thermonuclear," or "hydrogen" bomb brought a radical increase in the explosive power of weapons. However, the fission process is still necessary to achieve the high temperatures and pressures needed to trigger the hydrogen fusion reactions. Thus, all nuclear detonations produce radioactive fragments of heavy elements fission, with the larger bursts producing an additional radiation component from the fusion process.

The nuclear fragments of heavy-element fission which are of greatest concern are those radioactive atoms (also called radionuclides) which decay by emitting energetic electrons or gamma particles. (See "Radioactivity" note.) An important characteristic here is the rate of decay. This is measured in terms of "half-life"--the time required for one-half of the original substance to decay--which ranges from days to thousands of years for the bomb-produced radionuclides of principal interest. (See "Nuclear Half-Life" note.) Another factor which is critical in determining the hazard of radionuclides is the chemistry of the atoms. This determines whether they will be taken up by the body through respiration or the food cycle and incorporated into tissue. If this occurs, the risk of biological damage from the destructive ionizing radiation (see "Radioactivity" note) is multiplied.

Probably the most serious threat is cesium-137, a gamma emitter with a half-life of 30 years. It is a major source of radiation in nuclear fallout, and since it parallels potassium chemistry, it is readily taken into the blood of animals and men and may be incorporated into tissue. Other hazards are strontium-90, an electron emitter with a half-life of 28 years, and iodine-131 with a half-life of only 8 days. Strontium-90 follows calcium chemistry, so that it is readily incorporated into the bones and teeth, particularly of young children who have received milk from cows consuming contaminated forage. Iodine-131 is a similar threat to infants and children because of its concentration in the thyroid gland. In addition, there is plutonium-239, frequently used in nuclear explosives. A bone-seeker like strontium-90, it may also become lodged in the lungs, where its intense local radiation can cause cancer or other damage.

Plutonium-239 decays through emission of an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and has a half-life of 24,000 years. To the extent that hydrogen fusion contributes to the explosive force of a weapon, two other radionuclides will be released: tritium (hydrogen-3), an electron emitter with a half-life of 12 years, and carbon-14, an electron emitter with a half-life of 5,730 years. Both are taken up through the food cycle and readily incorporated in organic matter.

It is sobering any presidential candidate would openly speculate using nuclear weapons as a FIRST option. The knife edge philosophy of M.A.D.: Mutually Assured Destruction requires sober minds that will use diplomacy first and not salivate for the unthinkable, goaded by a mean-girl tweet. It is breathtaking "conscientious stupidity"*; a modern-day know-nothingness, an arrogant pride in ignorance: it is cartoon physics.

Half-life for the continuation of the human species...is no life at all.

* "Nothing in the world more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Atomic Archive: Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - Radioactive Fallout

Wendelstein 7-X...

Image Source: Science Mag

Topics: Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

The sooner we get away from fossil fuels, the sooner we away get from energy needs demanding a toll on the globe in terms of wars for those resources, and climate impact that will eventually be paid by us all. No amount of money will ever be worth that.

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Cree Indian Prophecy, GoodReads

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) produced the first helium plasma in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator last December. Since then, they have cleaned the plasma vessel with many more helium discharges. On 3 February they produced a hydrogen plasma in the world's biggest and most advanced stellarator-type nuclear fusion device for the first time. Thomas Klinger, Director at the IPP, talks about the special features of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator and its structure, and the prospects for the construction of a fusion power plant.

Professor Klinger, will Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel launch the world's first fusion power plant on Wednesday?

No, the Wendelstein 7-X will not supply any energy yet. What we are aiming to demonstrate is that a stellarator is just as suitable a device for a power plant as a tokamak, and that it can bring its two advantages into play here: first, its plasma is fundamentally more stable and, second, it can operate in continuous mode without further intervention. In contrast, a tokamak requires pulsed operation, which is a considerable disadvantage for a power plant.

If the stellarator has such advantages to offer, why is the ITER, the world's biggest fusion device, being built as a tokamak?

A crash course in plasma physics is needed to understand this: for the plasma in a fusion device to reach the temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius required for nuclear fusion, it must make as little contact as possible with the walls of the plasma vessel. For this reason, its charged particles are captured in a ring-shaped magnetic field. And this magnetic field must be twisted into a spiral.

Phys.org: Plasma physicist discusses the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, Peter Hergersberg

Fukushima Robot...

A previous incarnation on Geek.com, taken offline apparently.

Topics: Fukushima Daiichi, Robotics, Nuclear Power

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: When an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, causing a catastrophic meltdown and radiation leak, plans to use robots to perform much-needed repairs were quickly dashed. The environment simply proved too complex and unstable for any normal robot to venture into.

The Japan Times now reports that Toshiba, which manufactured the worst-hit reactor and is helping with the cleanup, has made a two-armed submersible robot that will float into reactor 3 to try to remove debris and retrieve some of the reactor’s fuel rods. The effort shows that, in contrast to all the fancy robots tested at the DARPA challenge, a simple, custom-made machine is sometimes the best solution for a given task.

Technology Review: The Underwater Robot That Will Repair Fukushima, Will Knight

Umbilical Cord...

NUNNOVATION: Renewable energy can help create jobs

Topics: Alternative Energy, Green Energy, Green Tech, Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Power

Gas prices are falling ($1.95 in New York), and has nothing to do with the current president or any of the 43 previous. Prognostications of $6/gallon have been highly exaggerated.

However, there are more than a few financial posts regarding how lower prices at the pump are hurting, not helping the economy (albeit a biased opinion). There are obvious ties to war and retail grocery prices, for example. In a global economy where the manufacturing jobs of yesteryear have been outsourced to other countries, solar has outpaced coal in employees. Employment is a good way to stabilize a society.

It makes it quite obvious that as a species, we're not ready to let go of the umbilical cord to fossil fuels. Our economy is the numerator; dead dinosaurs its denominator. Old money has been created pretty much by Jed Clampett's "black gold"; "Texas tea."

There will sadly, be as legion a resistance to nuclear fusion once it is possible as there has been against solar power. I hope the decision of how we proceed centers on survival rather than "trickled-up" profits. Personifying the economy as a tree: If the trunk burns, usually the canopy will inexorably  follow.

Investopedia: How Gas Prices Affect The Economy, Jean Folger
National Funding: How Gas Prices Affect Small Business and the Economy
Wall Street Journal: The Effects of Lower Oil Prices

Sufficient Verification...

Satellite imagery facilities at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards department. The IAEA will use imagery purchased from commercial satellite operators as part of its regime for verifying Iran’s compliance with the recent agreement to limit its nuclear activities.

DEAN CALMA/IAEA

Citation: Phys. Today 68, 12, 26 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3014

Topics: Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power, Politics

The International Atomic Energy Agency will use the latest surveillance technologies to ensure compliance.

As early as the end of this month, Iran says it will complete actions to dramatically scale back its nuclear program. Once those steps are completed and verified, the world’s declared nuclear weapons states and Germany, collectively known as the P5+1, are to begin lifting the crippling economic sanctions that were imposed on Iran beginning in 2006.

Experts are confident the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is sound. In a statement released in August, 77 nonproliferation specialists wrote, “The JCPOA is effectively verifiable. The agreement will put in place a multi-layered monitoring regime across Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, including centrifuge manufacturing sites for 20 years, uranium mining and milling for 25 years, and continuous monitoring of a larger number of nuclear and nuclear-related sites.”

...3...2...1... counting down to the blowhards.

Fear is a lucrative business, and the Internet allows some to sound fairly legit with a URL and a few techno tricks in Dreamweaver. Playing footsies with Armageddon is an insane venture, with only one unpleasant end.

There is a general disdain for expertise and facts in an era where the louder one continues bloviating, the more likely you are to be taken at face value. Our media is more concerned with ratings than journalism; the ideals of "holding power accountable" sacrificed on the Baal altar of Nielsen.

I unfortunately, have used Isaac Asimov a lot lately.

Also sadly, our political establishment in collusion with the business of war, where "peace on Earth and good will to all men" must be counter to the business model. After all, profits go up in this country after every mass shooting, navel-gazing, hand-wringing nothing; the arsenal at ISIS/ISIL's disposal didn't just "drop out of the sky."

I wish the effort well as anyone sane should. "Duck and cover" should be a quaint part of our history of the previous century...not rediscovered.

Physics Today: Experts say Iran nuclear agreement is sufficiently verifiable
David Kramer

Comeback Kid...

Scientists have now turned their attention to what would be needed after 2030 to meet a 2 C goal: an energy system transformation that emits less carbon. For this, all technology options need to be on the table, including nuclear, the scientists said.

Credit: ©iStock

Topics: Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Green Tech, Nuclear Power

I post this with uneasiness: having grown up in the era of "duck and cover" in all its feckless utility. Remembering instances of crisis like Chernobyl (proud I can still SPELL it) and Three Mile Island. There's that whole thing about the waste produced, half-life; where/in WHOSE neighborhoods will you STORE such waste? And the latest zeitgeist, terrorism - currently Christian and Muslim - both aberrant extremist cases that take extraordinary means to make their "points" while managing to be poor representatives of their particular faiths. Hopefully updated safety and security protocols reflecting the times and technology are also being considered. The most positive aspect are jobs that reviving the industry would invariably generate. Education could start preparing a 21st Century workforce instead of testing ouut students like lab rats. My preference, as I'm assuming is Green Peace mentioned in the article is solar, wind and nuclear fusion, all on par as equally clean; all likely as aggressively opposed by fossil fuel interests. I would embrace this then as an interim step that could only see defeat in moneyed interests and their lobbyist - case-in-point, terrorists on no-fly list still with the ability to purchase firearms after San Bernardino. Our national cognitive dissonance is quite breathtaking.

In contrast to last week's Cynicism post, I do want to leave a viable planet after I'm gone. As part of the human species, I think we're unique and special; all witness to the Cosmos and its wonders; such than cannot be appreciated or studied...in our absence.

James Hansen, former NASA climate scientist, and three other prominent climate scientists are calling for an enlarged focus on nuclear energy in the ongoing Paris climate negotiations.

"Nuclear, especially next-generation nuclear, has tremendous potential to be part of the solution to climate change," Hansen said during a panel discussion yesterday. "The dangers of fossil fuels are staring us in the face. So for us to say we won't use all the tools [such as nuclear energy] to solve the problem is crazy."

He was joined by Tom Wigley, a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide; Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science; and Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Their stance clashes with those of environmental groups such as Greenpeace that advocate against nuclear energy.

As nations have proposed emissions curbs in Paris up to 2030, scientists have computed that there is a 1-in-2 chance that their collective ambition would raise temperatures in 2100 by between 2.7 to 3.7 degrees Celsius. Nations would like to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, and stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts per million (ppm).

There is 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere at present.

Scientific American: Nuclear Power Must Make a Comeback for Climate's Sake
Gayathri Vaidyanathan, ClimateWire

Bare Bones...

The Belle II detector and the upgraded accelerator SuperKEKB make up Japan’s new B factory for studying flavor physics and CP violation. Following some delays, the accelerator is set to start up next January, and full data-taking will begin in 2018.

KEK

Citation: Phys. Today 68, 4, 18 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2743

Topics: Fukushima Daiichi, Economy, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power, Research, Quantum Mechanics

Unfortunately, scientific advances costs money, along with the political will and cultivated, collective public vision to pursue it. This relates to something we're all subject to, lab and person alike: the cost of energy consumption. The National Ignition Facility or Lockheed's Skunk Works, if either or both are successful, could alleviate some concerns about power consumption of laboratories in general, and all of us in particular. If electrical power - used for heating and cooling homes and laboratories; directly related to the cost at the grocery store (the cost of the fuel truck is transferred to us by increasing prices), and the reason for "wars and rumors of wars": fossil fuels, could be generated by other means, then the human costs of commercial consumption of products and service; post-conflict warrior attrition - via death, PTSD and traumatic brain injury - would greatly decrease. We can only hope it's not opposed as vigorously as solar and renewable energy has been so far.

Getting the green light to restart accelerators and other large scientific facilities in Japan took up to three years following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in eastern Japan on 11 March 2011. (See Physics Today, November 2011, page 20, and November 2013, page 20.) Now tight budgets, bloated electricity prices, and a sprinkling of mishaps threaten to cripple science at the country’s world-class facilities.

Before the triple disaster, about 30% of Japan’s power came from 54 nuclear plants. Since then, as plants have come up for routine maintenance, they’ve been turned off, and none has been turned back on, although a few have been approved to do so. For a while the country had a shortage of electricity. Now, other sources, mainly fossil fuels, have been arranged, but the costs have skyrocketed: Officials at KEK, Japan’s accelerator research institute, and at RIKEN and other science facilities report that the price of electricity has gone up by 30% or more. Electricity is a big chunk of their total operating costs, so they have been forced to reduce running times.

Masanori Yamauchi, the new KEK director, notes that SuperKEKB, the B factory set to start up this year, will consume twice as much power as its predecessor. And the price per kilowatt-hour has nearly doubled. “It has a serious impact to the running schedule of the new accelerator,” he says. Studying quantum mechanical phenomena requires collecting large statistics, he adds. “The power bill problem in Japan is very unfortunate for our physics program.”

Under Japanese law certain programs are largely shielded from the rising electricity costs. Those spared are SPring-8, the synchrotron light source; materials and life sciences neutron studies at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC); and petascale computing in Kobe. Industry makes heavy use of them—about 20% in the case of SPring-8, for instance—whereas the affected facilities are used mainly by academic researchers.

Physics Today: Scientific facilities in Japan struggle on bare-bones schedules, Toni Feder

Manhattan...

Shiva. Image Source: Hiroshima Poetry, related to the embed below

Topics: Existentialism, Manhattan Project, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

Having lived through the "duck-and-cover" drills of the sixties and seventies (for me at least), the fact we don't do them anymore doesn't reduce the existential danger. We have the unique position in species of intelligence on this Earth, a way - as Carl Sagan would have said - for the Cosmos to "know itself." We're also the only species that could take the other sentient ones on our globe into oblivion by myriad, maddening means. The drama isn't too accurate, and some of the characterizations aren't spot-on or accurate (like Oppenheimer as "jerk" - he wasn't in what I've read), but it should spark some interest in the project in general, and nuclear physics in particular.

Physics Buzz: This fall (2014), a new primetime drama appeared on the television network WGN America, featuring scientists at Los Alamos working tirelessly--desperately, even--to develop nuclear weapons during World War II, all while maintaining utmost secrecy. Manhattan draws on the rich underlying history of its namesake, the Manhattan Project, but steers clear of documentary tendencies. Whereas the premise of the show and several key figures are largely based on their real-life counterparts, the main cast is populated by fictional characters, whose personal and scientific struggles acquaint us with the broader themes of privacy, government surveillance, and trust. Today on the podcast, we discuss how Manhattan brings nuclear physics to primetime TV, and what’s gained or lost along the way.

It was a great scientific triumph, and we won the war. It had many spin-offs in peaceful space program (even as that was essentially the Cold War above our heads) and nuclear physics applications - fission initially, then hopefully fusion eventually - as well as the analysis of what is now known as Black Holes. I suspect however, it was also Dr. Oppenheimer's greatest regret:

Phoenix...

Star Trek "First Contact": The Phoenix

Topics: Dark Humor, Doomsday Clock, Star Trek, Nuclear Power, Treatment

A Fan's Star Trek Treatment, © 2 April 2015, (at least this is the date I started typing away), but this instruction from LOC.gov clarified things for me: i.e. what I can't, and won't claim rights to.

So, Star Trek is definitely not "my baby," I am not a screenwriter; member of SAG nor am I remotely related to Gene Roddenberry. I'm having some tongue-in-cheek fan fun, and hopefully if CBS/Paramount decides to use it, they'll at least give me a byline, but...probably not.

*     *      *     *     *

Note: The following follows no known treatment format I'm aware of. Just that with the passing of Leonard Nimoy and the 50th anniversary of the Original Series next year, it got me thinking of some unresolved important things in the Trek timeline I wouldn't mind seeing on television. The strength of Star Trek has always been a positive view of the future; its only flaw other than fantastic, Heisenberg and Relativity-defying technologies (I think) are the missing baby steps taken to societal maturity and tolerance of diversity.

Nerdist reports of two possible new Trek series in the works. Judging from the write ups, one is a re-re-boot of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and Scottie; the other a darker version of the Trek universe in the future when the Federation, like most empires, is bloated, over-extended and falls from galactic grace. I wouldn't mind either, really. I would delight if both story lines were brought to the flat screen and set my DVR accordingly.

However, as I found in the post “Farpoint,” there is a part of the faux human history that is being avoided, perhaps purposely, perhaps because no one has a treatment or script idea centered on it, or we’re just too close to the subject matter: World War III and its aftermath.

From Farpoint: "Nuclear war would be a fool's errand - whether as in Federation we established colonies on off worlds, the conflagration would leave swaths of Earth clearly uninhabitable for thousands of years. Corpses would have no care who actually "won" such an insane engagement. The Trek universe eludes to the discontinued existence of Washington, Moscow and other global capitals, hence the location of the fictional United Federation of Planets in San Francisco." We should see this in a dramatic new Trek series; ponder the term "Mutually Assured Destruction" (M.A.D.), and that we still have an active doomsday clock. Disturbingly, from the press release by the Bureau of Atomic Scientists, we are now 3 minutes to midnight.

Star Trek: Deep Space 9 suggested in a two-part episode rampant inequality in the 21st Century (how prescient), to the point in the United States at least, the uber 1% build “sanctuary cities” for the poor to be warehoused in to eventually die (DS9: “Past Tense” Part I and Part II).

I've always fancied a "Star Trek: Phoenix," as in rising from the ashes of destruction and building something quite different, more democratic and less stratified than our current society and its inequality that is now epidemic -  - and reinforced by modern-day cults: commercial, personality, religious types; news pundits and politicians, our own fairy tale beliefs of society and our place and mobility in it. It also happens to have been the name of the first warp ship built by Dr. Zephram Cochrane a lot of fans would remember. Plus, with the exception of the novel Federation, Zephram is almost an afterthought with no back story, that I think would be quite interesting to watch.

For example, even though humanity was in a barbaric state at the end of "Star Trek: First Contact," can you imagine a few of our current loons accepting a pointy eared, bowl-haircut, and green skinned alien with a “live long and prosper” salute? Civilization collapsed on itself; not a single cell phone tower would be up; no malls; the Internet and million player online games in a complete shambles and unresponsive. I could see loud zealots and teenagers in neurosis. I’d expect riots up to the point the Vulcans showed us how to replicate a T-bone steak! Also, as Copernicus and Galileo did with the Heliocentric (correct) view of the solar system, the idea we’re not only not alone in the universe, but there are these intelligent "other" beings that don’t share our cultures; our history; our prejudices; our religions: that would be upsetting and faction-creating. For the sake of moving the story along in Trek, a few billion people suddenly stopped being cruel to each other and started getting along in a fitful flight of magical thinking. In light of current events I see on the evening news, it would light initially an existential powder keg. As a case-in-point, the indictment against Galileo (as of this 2013 post) is STILL in effect!

“Phoenix” would have the feel I appreciated from “Enterprise” (a show that ended too soon), this would be before even a glimmer of a thought of a “Prime Directive.” After a flirt with the sixth extinction event on Earth, this time self-caused, the former United States was apparently fighting an Eastern Coalition that warred with them frequently. Colonel Green - another barely a-mention in the Original Star Trek or Enterprise - used genocide after the war to purify humanity from the ravages of radiation poisoning. The scary part is I could see some political demagogue thinking this quite "rational," and gathering a following in authoritarian fashion. He had been influenced – as I said in Farpoint – by the Optimum Movement, itself an outgrowth of Khan Noonien Singh and his sister and brother genetic supermen. It could be gritty, grimy, and dangerous even involve the current vogue: Zombies of a kind, with a biological explanation. It wouldn't need much high tech technology as we’d be trying to recover what we lost and discover new designs and paradigms. It would be like after any terrible disaster – Earth as “Survivor Island” – as humanity clawed its way up from barbarity and created a new civilization, one less stratified; more fair and just and above all, rational and sane.

Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner – doing cameos in a two-episode pilot, leading to a confrontation where traditionalists fighting change want to return to the “old ways” – that ahem, plunged humanity back into the dark ages. I could see either Stewart or Frakes shouting “no more!” after an emotional soliloquy about not going back to the previous ignorance and fears, selling the scene. Star Trek, like any great science fiction/fantasy story asks the question through its characters (e.g. Data, Picard, Worf) over again we never tire of: “what does it mean to be ‘human’?” It's a prequel, but for example, I watch Gotham with the full knowledge of how the Batman mythical universe will eventually flesh itself out, villains and all. It's just fun watching the creativity of writers building the bricks of it to its logical conclusion: cape and cowl in one instance; warp drive and aliens in another.

"Phoenix" would then be a story not of warp drives and miracle materializing technologies: but the miracle we survived our own hubris at all to venture forward to the stars. Its impact could be quite powerful as a mirror to ourselves in light of current events; a way to start conversations without partially following the famous dictum of Carl von Clausewitz: "War is merely a continuation of politics"— or "of policy"—"by other means." A few enthusiastic cheerleaders drop the important prepositional phrase at the statement's end.