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​New research has provided a comprehensive overview of new small-scale nuclear reactors, which could be suitable candidates to cope with the world's ever-growing demand for energy. According to official estimates, world energy consumption in 2035 will be more than double that of 1995. A substantial challenge for engineers and scientists over the coming decades is to develop and deploy power plants with sufficient capacity and flexibility to meet this increasing need while simultaneously reducing emissions. The new article aims to show to what extent a new type of nuclear reactor, termed the 'Small Modular Reactor' (SMR), might provide a solution to fulfil these energy needs.

  Read full article on Science Daily website.

 

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While the popularity of nuclear power worldwide took a major hit in the aftermath of the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in 2011, it remains one of the cheapest, most efficient, and carbon-friendly forms of energy generation that we currently have.   Energy superpowers like the United States, Russia, and Canada have made nuclear power lucrative, not just through cheap energy, but through licensing their technology to developing countries looking for a new energy source. For that reason, nuclear power has remained a viable and important form of energy, one which will be integral to the world over the next fifty years.   We took a look at global statistics provided by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to determine which countries are the biggest nuclear energy powers. We rated each country based on the total amount of electricity produced by nuclear power.   Read the full article on Business Insider Australia website.

 

​President Barack Obama this morning released a $3.901 trillion budget request to Congress, including proposals for a host of federal research agencies.

(...)

Once again there are winners and losers in the proposed budget for 2015 the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, the single largest funder of the physical sciences in the United States. Overall, the Office of Science budget would creep up by just 0.9% from its current level to $5.111 billion. But whereas some research programs, such as advance computing, would see double-digit increases, others, such as fusion, would take deep cuts. (...)

In contrast, the fusion program would take a 17.6% cut to $416 million—$88 million less than it's getting this year. Although far from final, the numbers suggest another big dip for a program that has enjoyed a roller coaster ride in recent years. In its proposed 2013 budget, DOE called for slashing spending on domestic fusion research to help pay for the increasing U.S. contribution to the international fusion experiment, ITER, in Cadarache, France. That budget also called for closing one of three smaller fusion experiments, or tokamaks, in the United States, the Alcator C-Mod at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. But that budget never passed and last December, when Congress finally agreed to a budget for this year, it restored funding for C-Mod and gave the fusion program a handsome boost of nearly $200 million. The new budget request would give some of that increase back and suggests DOE officials see bigger priorities elsewhere.

Read full article on Science website.

​Will particle physicists ever have a new toy that will take them to energies beyond those accessible through the Large Hadron Collider? History suggests it's unlikely. To save costs, the LHC was built in an existing tunnel that had hosted an earlier, less powerful accelerator. The US cancelled the construction of hardware that would have outperformed the LHC (the Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC) due to cost overruns, and it shut down its Tevatron once the LHC started up. Now, decisions on the linear collider that will be used to study the Higgs in detail are being made based on which country is likely to come up with the most money.

But physicists are apparently an optimistic bunch. Earlier this year, CERN announced that it was beginning to evaluate an LHC replacement that would require a tunnel so large—100km in circumference—that it would have to pass under Lake Geneva itself. Potentially in response, a team of US-based physicists have come up with an even more audacious plan: don't build the linear collider, resurrect the SSC's now abandoned tunnels, and use them to both host a Higgs factory and as a booster for a truly massive, 270km collider.

 

Read the full article on Ars Technica website.

 

In Cadarache, France, the CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra is undergoing a major transformation to be used as a test bench for ITER. This is the WEST project (W - for tungsten - Environment in Steady-state Tokamak).

The February issue of the WEST newsletter is now available online.

​Registration is open now for the Superconductivity for Energy 2014 conference that will be held in Paestum, Italy on 15-19 May 2014.

Conference topics include high power superconductor applications (materials, cables, magnets); frontiers in high field magnet technology; superconductors for energy; power devices; high current superconductivity; and superconducting properties and functionalities for new applications.

The event is organized in the framework of the PON Project "NAFASSY" (NAtional FAcility for Superconducting SYstems) by the Physics Department of the University of Salerno in collaboration with the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), the National Research Council (CNR), and the Center for New Technologies (CRdC).

All information can be found on the conference website.

The February 2014 issue of the US ITER News Update is now available online. The newsletter highlights the recent progress in the ITER systems under US responsibility (pellet injection system,tokamak cooling water system, central solenoid magnet, etc.) and relates the very solid budget situation for fiscal year 2014.

You can read the latest news from US ITER here.

​On a warm sunny afternoon last week, ITER welcomed its very own telecommunication pylon which proudly stands 35 metres high beside the Visitors Centre. It's been equipped with 2G and 3G technologies with scope for 4G technology in the near future. SFR antennas at the top of this pylon cover the whole ITER site. Negotiations to bring in another carrier will take place at the end of this year and if everything falls into place, Orange soon will be seen sharing this telecommunication pylon along with SFR.

 

​Back by popular demand! The Fusion Academy is offering two 3-day sessions of its professional crash course in nuclear fusion in the Netherlands in 2014. Registration is now open for the 15-17 April session (deadline 23 March) and 29-31 October session (deadline 7 October).

The Fusion Academy course is open to professionals from the field of fusion research and development (engineers, managers, science journalists ...). Further information can be found at this link.

The 28th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) will take place from 29 September to 3 October in San Sebastian, Spain, organized by CIEMAT, the Spanish Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology.

Considered the top event for the exchange of information on the design, construction and operation of fusion experiments and on the technology for present fusion machines and future power plants, over 800 scientists and engineers working in the field are expected.

The deadline for abstract submission is 18 March. Registration is currently open for industrial exhibitors.