House approves bipartisan bill aimed at bolstering nuclear energy

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

Long overdue….


The House on Wednesday evening approved bipartisan legislation that aims to bolster nuclear energy.

The vote was 365-36, with one additional lawmaker voting present.

The legislation aims to bolster the U.S.’s nuclear energy production by speeding up environmental reviews for new nuclear reactors and reducing fees that applicants for advanced nuclear reactor licenses must pay.

It would also extend a law that limits the industry’s legal liability for nuclear accidents by 40 years.

The bipartisan legislation was sponsored by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

While it has bipartisan support in the House, it’s unclear whether the bill will advance in its current form, as the Senate has its own nuclear energy bill.

Both bills have bipartisan support and reports have indicated that both chambers have been in talks on how to reconcile the legislation

House approves bipartisan bill aimed at bolstering nuclear energy

The House on Wednesday evening approved bipartisan legislation that aims to bolster nuclear energy. The vote was 365-36, with one additional lawmaker voting present. The legislation aims to bolster…

thehill.com

 

[hydro2.0]

I am down with this

 

[BioHawk]

I'm not sure what the 40 year liability rule means though. Does that mean if there is an accident you only have 40 years from the incident to sue them for something? If that's what it is then I can agree with that.

 

[hawkland14]

This is good policy and it’s about time.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

AI Just Cleared A Big Hurdle On The Road To Nuclear Fusion Energy​

“Previous studies have generally focused on either suppressing or mitigating the effects of these tearing instabilities after they occur in the plasma,” explained first author of the new paper Jaemin Seo, now an assistant professor of physics at Chung-Ang University in South Korea, in a statement. “But our approach allows us to predict and avoid those instabilities before they ever appear.”

Their answer: an artificial intelligence (AI) trained on previous experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego.

“By learning from past experiments, rather than incorporating information from physics-based models, the AI could develop a final control policy that supported a stable, high-powered plasma regime in real time, at a real reactor,” said research leader Egemen Kolemen, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

Like any AI model, it doesn’t really understand what it’s doing on a deep level – but it doesn’t need to. The team fed the program data about real-time plasma characteristics from previous experiments and set it the challenge of predicting – and, crucially, avoiding – tearing instabilities.

“We don’t teach the reinforcement learning model all of the complex physics of a fusion reaction,” explained Azarakhsh Jalalvand, a research scholar in Kolemen’s lab and coauthor of the paper. “We tell it what the goal is – to maintain a high-powered reaction – what to avoid – a tearing mode instability – and the knobs it can turn to achieve those outcomes. Over time, it learns the optimal pathway for achieving the goal of high power while avoiding the punishment of an instability.”

After myriad simulations, which were able to be tweaked and refined by human observers, the team tried the AI out for real at the D-III D facility. The model proved itself capable of predicting tearing instabilities up to 300 milliseconds in advance – not much to a human, but plenty of time for the AI to act, changing parameters such as the shape of the plasma or the strength of the beams inputting power to the reaction in order to keep the plasma stable.

So is unlimited clean energy just around the corner? Not quite. Plasma instability is far from the only problem with fusion – and tearing is only one type of possible plasma instability.

But what the paper does show, the team says, is a pretty good proof of concept: “We have strong evidence that the controller works quite well at DIII-D, but we need more data to show that it can work in a number of different situations,” Seo said. “We want to work toward something more universal.”

AI Just Cleared A Big Hurdle On The Road To Nuclear Fusion Energy

We've had Nazi AIs, art thief AIs, and gobbledegook AIs. Welcome to the other end of the bell curve.

www.iflscience.com

 

[onlyTheObvious]

Would love to know how many homes a navy ship reactor could power.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

Would love to know how many homes a navy ship reactor could power.

Probably a 30k sized town.

 

[NoleATL]

1. It is about time
2. Can't believe they actually accomplished something

 

[HawkeyeShawn]

All 36 No’s were Democrats. Why are they against nuclear power?

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

All 36 No’s were Democrats. Why are they against nuclear power?

There's a segment of the environmentalist wing on the party that will never go for Nuclear power...

Even though it's a key element of getting off fossil fuels.

 

[ClarindaA's]

All 36 No’s were Democrats. Why are they against nuclear power?

Environmental concerns that are misguided

 

[NoleATL]

There's a segment of the environmentalist wing on the party that will never go for Nuclear power...

Even though it's a key element of getting off fossil fuels.

The same people who won't swim in the ocean because they saw the movie Jaws... they also saw Chernobyl and can't be convinced nuclear energy can be produced safely... even more so with newer tech.

 

[Flie]

All 36 No’s were Democrats. Why are they against nuclear power?

Probably from the impact of the waste and the risk of meltdowns.

 

[Joes Place]

Long overdue….


The House on Wednesday evening approved bipartisan legislation that aims to bolster nuclear energy.

The vote was 365-36, with one additional lawmaker voting present.

The legislation aims to bolster the U.S.’s nuclear energy production by speeding up environmental reviews for new nuclear reactors and reducing fees that applicants for advanced nuclear reactor licenses must pay.

It would also extend a law that limits the industry’s legal liability for nuclear accidents by 40 years.

The bipartisan legislation was sponsored by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

While it has bipartisan support in the House, it’s unclear whether the bill will advance in its current form, as the Senate has its own nuclear energy bill.

Both bills have bipartisan support and reports have indicated that both chambers have been in talks on how to reconcile the legislation

House approves bipartisan bill aimed at bolstering nuclear energy

The House on Wednesday evening approved bipartisan legislation that aims to bolster nuclear energy. The vote was 365-36, with one additional lawmaker voting present. The legislation aims to bolster…

thehill.com

Holy shit

They DID something!!!!

 

[Joes Place]

All 36 No’s were Democrats. Why are they against nuclear power?

FUNFACT: The Democrats also have non-centrists in their party.

The difference is that they do not 'run' or 'control' the party.