Today's Tech News: Notable or Not?

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1126860 "magnetic fields typically tear apart electron Cooper pairs that allow unimpeded electricity flow in superconductors, overcome doping nickelates with europium: as external magnetic field increases, doping-induced superconductivity initially suppressed, but once field crosses 15 Tesla superconductivity re-emerges/ remains stable even at higher field strengths... stable across 0 to 90° angular range... magnetic ions can stabilize/ engineer new quantum phases... advanced medical imaging, future fusion reactors"

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/first-light-unveils-novel-approach-to-fusion/?cf-view "decouples fuel compression and ignition using low-energy inputs... potential to cut inertial fusion power plant costs 20X using existing/ proven technologies: lower capital costs with lower complexity/ core components, energy delivery system costing 1/10th capital cost, lower pulse rate enabled by high gain lowering operating costs... since pulsed system adjusts its output, it can also provide flexible, low-cost electricity to support modern grids which utilize high level of intermittent renewables... mid-2030s"

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-shortcut-magnetic-bottles-complex-year.html "confinement system described as magnetic bottle... identifying holes/ simulating 100's or 1,000's slightly different designs using Newton's laws too expensive/ Perturbation methods commit gross errors... overcome using shortcut that can help engineers design leak-proof magnetic confinement systems 10 times as fast as the gold standard method, without sacrificing accuracy... also help with a similar but different problem in tokamaks with runaway electrons punching holes in magnetic field of surrounding walls" Related: Marathon Fusion Unveils Method to Mass-Produce Gold From Fusion Reactors https://oilprice.com/Company-News/Marathon-Fusion-Unveils-Method-to-Mass-Produce-Gold-From-Fusion-Reactors.html Helical Fusion coil test brings Japan closer to infinite clean energy https://interestingengineering.com/energy/worlds-first-nuclear-fusion-coil-test

  https://www.israel21c.org/building-a-nuclear-reactor-the-size-of-a-desktop-computer/ "achieved ignition in plasmoids, now aims to build fully functioning prototype directly generating electric power within 3 years... solved core stability challenges... cost-effective, scalable... difficulties creating extreme temperatures/ pressures overcome using plasmoids, tangled bundles of super-hot charged gas (plasma) held together by magnetic fields... breakthrough is in generating new types of stable plasmoids that can effectively catalyze fusion via the quantum mechanical effect known as tunnelling" Grok's AI says:  "faces significant challenges: complexities in plasmoid stability/ materials, need funding beyond $2M used for achieving ignition, engineering/reg hurdles for home-use. small Israeli 3-person team/  ambitious timelines" Key Citations:   Metatron NRG Official Website, details on fusion technology ,  CTech Article on Metatron NRG, fusion claims and fund...

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/plasma-fusion-record-by-quantum-kinetics “Quantum Kinetics Corporation’s patented modular reactor surpassed, by order magnitude, previous record KSTAR April 2024 105 million°C for 48 seconds… third party, peer-reviewed experiments with radioactive wastewater… thorium, lead, tungsten, boron, potassium, magnesium, gallium, silicon forming from process… cracked Uranium 234/235/238… can treat stored nuclear wastewater at legacy/ operational nuclear power plants... yields several forms of energy including 0.7KeV – 30KeV X-ray photons” Comment by Simon Derricutt via email: "Though it's talking about 24 hours, there's a concentration on talking about the first and second minute. Seems like the temperature is estimated from the photon energy of the X-rays produced, and in any case temperature isn't actually defined in this situation so it's pretty meaningless. What would be useful is the combined collision energy in eV. How far is...

https://www.physics.wisc.edu/2024/07/29/madison-symmetric-torus-operates-stable-plasma-at-ten-times-the-greenwald-limit/ "density is key to net-positive fusion energy... Greenwald density limit above which tokamak plasmas become unstable exceeded by 10X, preventing machine damage even at this higher density... unlike other tokamaks, metal donut housing MST plasmas thick/ highly conducting, for more stable operation... set power providing voltage needed to maintain steady 50K amps current in plasma... most tokamaks need less voltage since: thinner walls, higher magnetic field/ temperature, produce lower-resistance plasmas" Related: Computer simulations show Swedish fusion initiative could have global impact https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Computer-simulations-show-Swedish-fusion-initiative-could-have-global-impact VIPC Invests in NearStar Fusion to Advance Clean Energy and Virginia’s Nuclear Fusion Ecosystem https://www.einpresswire.com/article/791014112/vipc-invests-in...

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-physicists-key-hurdles-fusion-reactions.html "raising reactor plasma density while also keeping it stable... contained plasma as density increased using additional magnets, deuterium bursts, where needed... higher densities at core than near edges, deeping plasma from escaping... held state for 2.2 seconds (validating) during which average density >20% over Greenwald limit theoretical barrier predicted to mark the point at which adding pressure would escape the magnetic field holding the plasma in place... plasma stability H98y2 above 1 (validating)" See also:  Two seconds of hope for fusion power https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/two-seconds-of-hope-for-fusion-power/ Related: Start-up Helical Fusion plans world’s first steady-state fusion reactor for 2034 launch ( https://tribune.com.pk/story/2492333/japan-start-up-plans-worlds-first-steady-state-fusion-reactor-for-2034-launch

https://news.mit.edu/2024/tests-show-high-temperature-superconducting-magnets-fusion-ready-0304 "record 20 tesla magnetic field strength... like Tokamak, but reduces cost/ watt almost 40X, reduced size... 20K-pound magnet producing highly stable, even magnetic field just >20 tesla... 16 plates each bearing spiral superconducting tape winding on 1 side and cooling channels for helium gas on other... no-insulation (-270°C rare-earth barium copper oxide's much greater conductivity enables lower voltage, more compact), no-twist coil... 186 miles of high-temperature superconductor integrated into magnet" Related: China sets world record with magnetic field 700,000 times stronger than Earth’s https://interestingengineering.com/science/china-superconducting-magnet-world-record Tokamak Energy announces fusion power plant magnet technology breakthrough https://tokamakenergy.com/2025/11/19/tokamak-energy-announces-fusion-power-plant-magnet-technology-breakthrough/ Nonlinear cont...

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-cylinder-magnetic-triples-energy-output.html "Placing it in a strong magnetic field would create an electric current strong enough to tear the cylinder apart, so they made a new one from an alloy of gold and tantalum. They also switched the gas from hydrogen to deuterium (another kind of hydrogen), then covered the whole works with a tesla magnetic field using a coil. Then they fired up the lasers. The researchers saw an immediate improvement—the hot spot on the sphere went up by 40% and the energy output was tripled" Related: U.S. aims to create nuclear fusion facility within 10 years https://www.thegardenisland.com/2023/09/25/news/u-s-aims-to-create-nuclear-fusion-facility-within-10-years/ Scientists say they can use AI to solve a key problem in the quest for near-limitless clean energy https://ground.news/article/scientists-say-they-can-use-ai-to-solve-a-key-problem-in-the-quest-for-near-limitless-clean-energy_4bcc7f Princeton Scientists Unvei...

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-evidence-ions-differently-fusion-reactions.html "built reactor that involves firing multiple lasers at a cylinder containing sphere deuterium and tritium... atoms fusing to become helium atoms, releasing large energy... keeping reaction going without continuous firing lasers.... plasma forms as heat builds up... ions inside plasma have higher energy than theory has been predicting, at least during the highest-performing stages... the researchers may find a way to achieve ignition—the beginnings of a self-sustaining reaction" Related: Advances in hydrogen research: More efficient isotope separation in sight https://phys.org/news/2024-09-advances-hydrogen-efficient-isotope-sight.html Japan’s VST technology pours tritium-rich lithium-lead alloy into a vacuum chamber extracting tritium nuclear fusion fuel from molten metal https://interestingengineering.com/energy/japan-system-extracts-nuclear-fusion-fuel

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-magnetizing-laser-driven-inertial-fusion-implosions.html " high B-fields (i.e., with strengths 1000 times higher than those of typical bar magnets), to a millimeter-size spherical capsule, which was heated to 100 million K using a laser-driven shock...  shock heating and applied B-field... plasma conditions... strongly magnetized electrons and ions... oblate shape... suppression heat flow (perpendicular to the direction of the magnetic field) in the strongly magnetized plasma"

Cnbc.com/renewable-energy/ "heat and compress a central "hot spot" of deuterium-tritium (hydrogen atoms with one and two neutrons, respectively) fuel using a surrounding dense piston also made from deuterium-tritium, creating a super hot, super pressurized hydrogen plasma... Ignition occurs when the heating from absorption of α particles [two protons and two neutrons tightly bound together] created in the fusion process overcomes the loss mechanisms in the system for a duration of time" Related: US scientists achieve net energy gain for second time in nuclear fusion reaction https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/us-scientists-achieve-net-energy-gain-second-time-fusion-reaction December 5, 2024: Sustained fusion ignition yielding more energy output than input https://isp.page/news/historic-breakthrough-in-nuclear-fusion-on-december-5-2024/#gsc.tab=0 Gold Hydrogen’s Breakthrough: Helium-3 Discovery at Ramsay https://www.tipranks.com/news/company-announce...

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/67 "build on advances in fuel, instruments... reduced size... laser entrance holes of oven cavity surrounding fusion capsule, requiring less energy to heat the capsule... more energy allocated... pulse tail... deviations lead to spatial perturbations grow during implosion, mixing hot and cold fuel regions and making ignition more difficult to achieve... improved the stability and spatial profile of the 192 laser beams hitting the target—changes that helped maintain the spherical symmetry of the imploding sphere" Related: NT-Tao Raises $22M Series A to Ensure a Secure, Clean Energy Future with a Compact and Scalable Nuclear Fusion Solution  https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nt-tao-raises-22m-series-a-to-ensure-a-secure-clean-energy-future-with-a-compact-and-scalable-nuclear-fusion-solution-301735890.html

https://www.pppl.gov/news/2022/go-flow-new-findings-about-moving-electricity-could-improve-fusion-devices "resistive effects... causing ELMs we seeing... improved model... change profiles of plasma... get rid of ELMs... plasma as a fluid. In general, you can’t have a model that includes all of physics in it. It would be too hard to solve. You want a model that is simple enough to calculate but complete enough to capture the phenomenon you are interested in. Andreas found that resistivity is one of the physical effects that we should include in our models"

https://www.pppl.gov/news/2022/smaller-stronger-magnets-could-improve-devices-harness-fusion-power-sun-and-stars "The technique means that the wires do not need conventional epoxy and glass fiber insulation to ensure the flow of electricity. While simplifying construction, the technique also lowers costs. “The costs to wind the coils are much lower because we don’t have to go through the expensive and error-prone epoxy vacuum-impregnation process,” Zhai said. “Instead, you’re directly winding the conductor into the coil form” Related:  World-first ‘super’ magnet sparks nuclear fusion breakthrough https://www.yahoo.com/now/world-first-super-magnet-sparks-093801541.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10687117/Nuclear-fusion-achieved-new-technique-fuel-accelerated-156-586mph.html "A University of Oxford spin-out has confirmed that it has achieved fusion. Projectile fusion technique is faster and cheaper than traditional approaches. It uses a hyper-velocity gas gun to launch a projectile at fusion fuel. As the fuel is hit, it accelerates to 156,586mph, creating a pulse of fusion energy. According to the firm, it has spent less than £45 million to achieve fusion" Related: Venture Capital: Nuclear Fusion Startup Zap Energy Achieves First Plasmas; Nabs $160M https://dailyalts.com/nuclear-fusion-startup-zap-energy-achieves-first-plasmas-nabs-160m/ This tiny fusion reactor is made out of commercially available parts https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/this-tiny-fusion-reactor-is-made-out-of-commercially-available-parts Researchers in China develop new method to enrich uranium in seawater by membrane filtration https://www....

https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1465 "high levels of fusion energy sustained over a period of five seconds. While five seconds is clearly not sufficient for a powerplant... performance will be possible for much longer timescales in devices that will make use of recent developments in technology (such as superconducting magnets). JET produced a total of 59 Megajoules of heat energy from fusion over a five-second period (the duration of the fusion experiment)... averaged a fusion power... of over 10 Megawatts (Megajoules per second)"

https://interestingengineering.com/google-ai-controls-plasma?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=mailing&utm_campaign=Newsletter-18-02-2022 "The AI closely monitored the plasma by taking in 90 different measurements ten thousand times a second. It then adjusted the voltage accordingly for the reactor's 19 magnets. The researchers said this type of AI could allow them to tightly control future tokamak experiments, meaning they will be able to experiment with a greater number of conditions"

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-highlight-potential-self-heating-plasmas-fusion.html "Using their unique experimental design, the two teams were ultimately able to prompt plasma to 'heat itself up.' This could ultimately help to produce larger fusion reactions, without requiring more advanced and expensive equipment"

https://newatlas.com/energy/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-burning-plasma-first-time/ "using 192 lasers housed inside a 10-story building to deliver 1.9 megajoules of ultraviolet energy onto a fuel capsule roughly the size of a ball bearing... causes separate atoms to fuse into helium, a reaction that releases vast amount of energy...  to have the fusion reactions become the primary source of heat instead... a burning plasma state where more fusion energy is emitted from the fuel than was required to initiate the fusion reactions, or the amount of work done on the fuel”