Mar 27, 2023 07:16 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 28, 2023 08:21 AM by C C.)
Nuclear Microreactors
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...oreactors/
EXCERPT: . . . There has been renewed interest in these nuclear microreactors recently as we explore new possible solutions to global warming. Nuclear power is a great option, because it produces a large amount of power in a small footprint and does not product CO2 as a waste product. It also serves as either baseload or increasingly on-demand energy, which makes it more useful than intermittent sources.
But nuclear also has some challenges, names that it takes a long time to get a new plant up and running, and the initial investment can be very high (in the billions for a traditional reactor). For this reason the nuclear industry is moving in the direction of about small modular reactors which are quicker and cheaper to build (although they may lose some of the economy of scale of larger reactors). But we may be able to go beyond small modular reactors and repurpose the microreactors used by naval vessels as power for the grid. Such reactors may also serve as the core of nuclear engines for spaceflight, or be used to power off-world bases and settlements.
Rolls-Royce Holdings (not the car company – that split off decades ago) recently unveiled their designs for its own microreactor. They have been producing nuclear reactors for submarines since the 1960s, so they are an old player in this technology space. Their goal is to do exactly what I said – to repurpose the technology they have been developing for ships to be used for grid energy, and eventually nuclear rockets and power bases on the Moon and Mars. Rolls-Royce is also getting into the small modular reactor business, but that’s a separate story.
The potential advantages are numerous... (MORE - missing details)
How X-planes may solve the sonic boom problem
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230...om-problem
INTRO: In 1947, the first clue onlookers at Muroc Army Airfield, California, had that the sound barrier had been broken was a thunder-like sound, or bomb burst. It was the ninth powered flight of the experimental Bell X-1 aircraft, and onboard the pilot wrestled the controls as the aircraft's stability fluctuated as it's speed increased.
The legend of America's X-planes was born in the mid-1940s and flourished till the 1960s, when rocket planes flew to the edge of space. Flights by cutting-edge aircraft like the X-1 and X-15 paved the way for the eventual triumphs of the Apollo programme and Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. The fastest of the X-planes would take their human pilots to more than six times the speed of sound.
Now, in 2023, the latest X-plane – the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft – is aiming to repeat a feat achieved by the first X-plane – break the sound barrier again. Only this time, if all goes to plan, nobody on the ground will notice.
In 1973, the US government banned commercial supersonic flights over land in the United States. With that ban – and others like it – went the business case for aircraft like Concorde.
That might be about to change if years of research into how to create a quiet sonic boom come to fruition; Nasa and the secretive "Skunk Works" of aircraft manufacturer Lockheed are trying to build an aircraft that creates it. Despite the advances in computer modelling and wind tunnel technology, it is still too much of a risk to build a quiet supersonic passenger aircraft without real-world evidence that the technology will work.
"I think the X-59 could be significant," says Christopher Combs, University of Texas at San Antonio. "You are demonstrating for the first time with a real-world vehicle that you can make quiet sonic booms, and that can open the door for commercial industry to come in and start building aircraft like this." (MORE - details)
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...oreactors/
EXCERPT: . . . There has been renewed interest in these nuclear microreactors recently as we explore new possible solutions to global warming. Nuclear power is a great option, because it produces a large amount of power in a small footprint and does not product CO2 as a waste product. It also serves as either baseload or increasingly on-demand energy, which makes it more useful than intermittent sources.
But nuclear also has some challenges, names that it takes a long time to get a new plant up and running, and the initial investment can be very high (in the billions for a traditional reactor). For this reason the nuclear industry is moving in the direction of about small modular reactors which are quicker and cheaper to build (although they may lose some of the economy of scale of larger reactors). But we may be able to go beyond small modular reactors and repurpose the microreactors used by naval vessels as power for the grid. Such reactors may also serve as the core of nuclear engines for spaceflight, or be used to power off-world bases and settlements.
Rolls-Royce Holdings (not the car company – that split off decades ago) recently unveiled their designs for its own microreactor. They have been producing nuclear reactors for submarines since the 1960s, so they are an old player in this technology space. Their goal is to do exactly what I said – to repurpose the technology they have been developing for ships to be used for grid energy, and eventually nuclear rockets and power bases on the Moon and Mars. Rolls-Royce is also getting into the small modular reactor business, but that’s a separate story.
The potential advantages are numerous... (MORE - missing details)
How X-planes may solve the sonic boom problem
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230...om-problem
INTRO: In 1947, the first clue onlookers at Muroc Army Airfield, California, had that the sound barrier had been broken was a thunder-like sound, or bomb burst. It was the ninth powered flight of the experimental Bell X-1 aircraft, and onboard the pilot wrestled the controls as the aircraft's stability fluctuated as it's speed increased.
The legend of America's X-planes was born in the mid-1940s and flourished till the 1960s, when rocket planes flew to the edge of space. Flights by cutting-edge aircraft like the X-1 and X-15 paved the way for the eventual triumphs of the Apollo programme and Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. The fastest of the X-planes would take their human pilots to more than six times the speed of sound.
Now, in 2023, the latest X-plane – the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft – is aiming to repeat a feat achieved by the first X-plane – break the sound barrier again. Only this time, if all goes to plan, nobody on the ground will notice.
In 1973, the US government banned commercial supersonic flights over land in the United States. With that ban – and others like it – went the business case for aircraft like Concorde.
That might be about to change if years of research into how to create a quiet sonic boom come to fruition; Nasa and the secretive "Skunk Works" of aircraft manufacturer Lockheed are trying to build an aircraft that creates it. Despite the advances in computer modelling and wind tunnel technology, it is still too much of a risk to build a quiet supersonic passenger aircraft without real-world evidence that the technology will work.
"I think the X-59 could be significant," says Christopher Combs, University of Texas at San Antonio. "You are demonstrating for the first time with a real-world vehicle that you can make quiet sonic booms, and that can open the door for commercial industry to come in and start building aircraft like this." (MORE - details)