Latest news with #Dinan
Press and Journal
24-04-2025
- Press and Journal
Portlethen biker banned after hitting 130mph on Aberdeen roads
A Portlethen man has been banned from the roads for three years after admitting hitting speeds of 130mph on a motorbike. Andrew Dinan, 28, was spotted by traffic cops riding a silver Honda 1000cc motorcycle through Altens in Aberdeen on June 24 last year. Police were carrying out speed checks at the Loch of Loirston area and saw Dinan's bike travelling over the speed limit just before 7pm. Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told Dinan undertook and swerved around other road users, hitting speeds of 130mph. It is not Dinan's first brush with traffic laws – in 2021 he was fined when his souped-up sports car became stuck in the sand at Stonehaven harbour. Narrating the events his latest driving offence, fiscal depute Lydia Williams said the officers saw Dinan 'accelerate harshly' and take a sharp turn onto the Aberdeen to Stonehaven Road, heading to Portlethen. 'He continued to accelerate,' Ms Williams said. 'Officers observed the speed to reach 130mph. 'He swerved around several cars and undertook another all while travelling in excess of the speed limit. 'He made a harsh braking turn onto the Portlethen road, and the police were unable to take the same exit – meaning they lost sight of the bike.' Officers later traced Dinan at his home address. Charges of Dinan claiming the bike had been stolen and then dumped near Netherley Smithy were dropped by the Crown. Police checks revealed there was no valid insurance policy or MOT certificate in place for the vehicle. Dinan's defence solicitor Ian Hingston said the motorbike did not belong to his client, but he did own a number of cars and thought he had valid group insurance. 'This was a lack of due diligence on his part,' Mr Hingston said. 'Clearly, this is a very bad example of driving, and he accepts that. 'What is disappointing is he has always been a law-abiding citizen. 'He works as an engineer all over the world and has a licence to work as a personal security detail. 'He also drives for the blind in his spare time. He is ashamed and embarrassed by his actions.' Sheriff Rhona Wark banned Dinan for 36 months and ordered that he must sit an extended driving test to be reunited with his licence. Dinan, of Cairngrassie Drive, Portlethen, was also fined £2,575 as Sheriff Wark said his driving posed a threat to the public. 'This reflects the severity and seriousness of the driving and the manner of the offence.' Dinan was admonished for driving without insurance and an MOT.
Associated Press
03-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Dinan Capital Advisors Welcomes Michael Brill as Managing Director Leading Private Capital Markets
PHOENIX, April 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dinan Capital Advisors ('Dinan'), a leading middle-market investment bank, is pleased to welcome Michael Brill as Managing Director, where he will lead the private capital markets practice. Brill and his team will establish Dinan's New York office, providing sponsors and entrepreneurs with capital solutions supporting a wide range of corporate initiatives, including acquisitions, recapitalizations, refinancings, and growth financings. 'We're thrilled to have Michael on board,' said Michael Dinan, President and CEO of Dinan. 'Private capital solutions are a strong complement to Dinan's existing buy-side and sell-side services, and Michael's capital markets expertise and proven track record across industries will be invaluable as we continue to expand our value-added services to more fully serve our clients.' Brill brings over 25 years of experience from both bulge bracket and boutique firms. Most recently, he served as Senior Managing Director in the investment banking practice at B. Riley Securities. Prior to B. Riley, Brill launched the New York office of FocalPoint, and headed the private capital markets practice at Duff & Phelps. He also led private financing practices at Lehman Brothers and Barclays, as well as the fixed income practice at Canaccord Genuity. Brill has structured and executed transactions across a variety of sectors, including healthcare, technology, industrials, and energy. Brill's expertise spans the full spectrum of the private capital markets. He has extensive experience working with entrepreneurs, independent sponsors, and private equity firms to develop and implement innovative capital structures that drive strategic growth. 'I'm excited to join Dinan and contribute to the firm's continued success,' said Brill. 'Dinan has built a strong reputation for delivering M&A solutions to the middle market. I'm eager to build on that foundation.' Brill's addition to the Dinan team and the expansion of Dinan's private capital markets practice marks an important step in the firm's ongoing evolution as the M&A partner of choice for middle-market companies. About Dinan Dinan & Company, LLC is an established middle-market investment bank specializing in merger, acquisition, and private capital markets solutions. 'Dinan' is the brand under which Dinan & Company and its subsidiary, Dinan Capital Advisors, operate and provide services. Dinan offers Wall Street-caliber expertise to the thriving middle market, serving a diverse range of clients, including private equity groups, Fortune 1000 companies, family-owned businesses, and entrepreneurs. For over 35 years, business owners and investors have relied on Dinan to turn M&A opportunities into results. Let Dinan help unlock your next success story. Learn more at
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Nuclear-powered rocket concept could cut journey time to Mars in half
The dream of nuclear fusion has been chased by some of the world's brightest minds for decades. It's easy to see why — replicating the inner workings of stars here on Earth would mean virtually unlimited clean energy. Despite a long history of attempts, and several breakthroughs, the dream hasn't turned to reality yet, and we're likely many years away from seeing a fusion power plant anywhere on the planet. Carrying out the process in space might sound like adding an extra layer of complexity to an already complex technology, but it could theoretically happen sooner than on Earth. And it could help spacecraft achieve speeds of up to 500,000 miles (805,000 kilometers) per hour — more than the fastest object ever built, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which peaked at 430,000 miles (692,000 kilometers) per hour. With funding from the UK Space Agency, British startup Pulsar Fusion has unveiled Sunbird, a space rocket concept designed to meet spacecraft in orbit, attach to them, and carry them to their destination at breakneck speed using nuclear fusion. 'It's very unnatural to do fusion on Earth,' says Richard Dinan, founder and CEO of Pulsar. 'Fusion doesn't want to work in an atmosphere. Space is a far more logical, sensible place to do fusion, because that's where it wants to happen anyway.' For now, Sunbird is in the very early stages of construction and it has exceptional engineering challenges to overcome, but Pulsar says it hopes to achieve fusion in orbit for the first time in 2027. If the rocket ever becomes operational, it could one day cut the journey time of a potential mission to Mars in half. Nuclear fusion is different from nuclear fission, which is what powers current nuclear power plants. Fission works by splitting heavy, radioactive elements like uranium into lighter ones, using neutrons. The vast amount of energy released in this process is used to make electricity. Fusion does the opposite: it combines very light elements like hydrogen into heavier ones, using high temperature and pressure. 'The sun and the stars are all fusion reactors,' says Dinan. 'They are element cookers — cooking hydrogen into helium — and then as they die, they create the heavy elements that make up everything. Ultimately the universe is mostly hydrogen and helium, and everything else was cooked in a star by fusion.' Fusion is sought after because it releases four times more energy than fission, and four million times more energy than fossil fuels. But unlike fission, fusion doesn't require dangerous radioactive materials — instead, fusion reactors would use deuterium and tritium, heavy hydrogen atoms that have extra neutrons. They would work on minute quantities of fuel and produce no dangerous waste. However, fusion requires a lot of energy to start, because conditions similar to the core of a star must be created — extremely high temperature and pressure, along with effective confinement to keep the reaction going. The challenge on Earth has been to create more energy from fusion than is put in to start, but so far we've barely broken even. But if power generation is not the goal, things become less complicated, Dinan says — only the simpler goal of creating a faster exhaust speed. The reactions that power nuclear fusion take place inside a plasma — a hot, electrically charged gas. Just like proposed reactors on Earth, Sunbird would use strong magnets to heat up a plasma and create the conditions for the fuel — which would be in the order of grams — to smash together and fuse. But while on Earth reactors are circular, to prevent particles from escaping, on Sunbird they would be linear – because the escaping particles would propel the spacecraft. Lastly, it would not produce neutrons from the fusion reaction, which reactors on Earth use to generate heat; Sunbird would instead use a more expensive type of fuel called helium-3 to make protons, which can be used as a 'nuclear exhaust' to provide propulsion. The Sunbird process would be expensive and unsuitable for energy production on Earth, Dinan says, but because the objective is not to make energy, the process can be inefficient and expensive, but still be valuable because it would save fuel costs, reduce the weight of spacecraft and get it to its destination much faster. Sunbirds would operate similarly to city bikes at docking stations, according to Dinan: 'We launch them into space, and we would have a charging station where they could sit and then meet your ship,' he says. 'You turn off your inefficient combustion engines, and use nuclear fusion for the greater part of your journey. Ideally, you'd have a station somewhere near Mars, and you'd have a station on low Earth orbit, and the (Sunbirds) would just go back and forth.' Some components will have an orbit demonstration this year. 'They're basically circuit boards that go up to be tested, to make sure they work. Not very exciting, because there's no fusion, but we have to do it,' says Dinan. 'Then, in 2027, we're going to send a small part of Sunbird in orbit, just to check that the physics is working as the computer assumes it's working. That's our first in-orbit demonstration, where we hope to do fusion in space. And we hope that Pulsar will be the first company to actually achieve that.' That prototype will cost about $70 million, according to Dinan, and it won't be a full Sunbird, but rather a 'linear fusion experiment' to prove the concept. The first functional Sunbird will be ready four to five years later, he says, provided the necessary funding is secured. Initially, the Sunbirds will be offered for shuttling satellites in orbit, but their true potential would come into play with interplanetary missions. The company illustrates a few examples of the missions that Sunbird could unlock, such as delivering up to 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of cargo to Mars in under six months, deploying probes to Jupiter or Saturn in two to four years (NASA's Europa Clipper, launched in 2024 towards one of Jupiter's moons, will arrive after 5.5 years), and an asteroid mining mission that would complete a round trip to a near-Earth asteroid in one to two years instead of three. Other companies are working on nuclear fusion engines for space propulsion, including Pasadena-based Helicity Space, which received investment from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in 2024. San Diego-based General Atomics and NASA are working on another type of nuclear reactor – based on fission rather than fusion – which they plan to test in space in 2027. It is also meant as a more efficient propulsion system for a crewed mission to Mars compared to current options. According to Aaron Knoll, a senior lecturer in the field of plasma propulsion for spacecraft at Imperial College London, who's not involved with Pulsar Fusion, there is a huge potential for harnessing fusion power for spacecraft propulsion. 'While we are still some years away from making fusion energy a viable technology for power generation on Earth, we don't need to wait to start using this power source for spacecraft propulsion,' he says. The reason, he adds, is that to generate power on Earth, the amount of energy output needs to be greater than the energy input. But when using fusion power on a spacecraft to generate thrust, any energy output is useful — even if it's less than the energy being supplied. All of that combined energy, coming from the external power supply and the fusion reactions together, will act to increase the thrust and efficiency of the propulsion system. However, he adds, there are significant technical hurdles in making fusion technology in space a reality. 'Current fusion reactor designs on Earth are large and heavy systems, requiring an infrastructure of supporting equipment, like energy storage, power supplies, gas delivery systems, magnets and vacuum pumping equipment,' he says. 'Miniaturizing these systems and making them lightweight is a considerable engineering challenge.' Bhuvana Srinivasan, a professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington, who's also not involved with Pulsar, agrees that nuclear fusion propulsion holds a substantial promise for spaceflight: 'It would be extremely beneficial even for a trip to the Moon, because it could provide the means to deploy an entire lunar base with crew in a single mission. If successful, it would outperform existing propulsion technologies not just incrementally but dramatically,' she says. However, she also points out the difficulties in making it compact and lightweight, an added engineering challenge which is a lesser consideration for terrestrial energy. Unlocking fusion propulsion, according to Srinivasan, would not only allow humans to travel farther in space, but be a game-changer for uncrewed missions, for example to gather resources like helium-3, a fusion fuel that is rare on Earth and must be created artificially, but may be abundant on the Moon: 'If we can build a lunar base that could be a launching point for deep space exploration, having access to a potential helium-3 reserve could be invaluable,' she says. 'Exploration of planets, moons, and solar systems farther away is fundamental to our curious and exploratory nature as humans while also potentially leading to substantial financial and societal benefit in ways that we may not yet realize.'
CNN
03-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
Nuclear-powered rocket concept could cut journey time to Mars in half
The dream of nuclear fusion has been chased by some of the world's brightest minds for decades. It's easy to see why — replicating the inner workings of stars here on Earth would mean virtually unlimited clean energy. Despite a long history of attempts, and several breakthroughs, the dream hasn't turned to reality yet, and we're likely many years away from seeing a fusion power plant anywhere on the planet. Carrying out the process in space might sound like adding an extra layer of complexity to an already complex technology, but it could theoretically happen sooner than on Earth. And it could help spacecraft achieve speeds of up to 500,000 miles (805,000 kilometers) per hour — more than the fastest object ever built, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which peaked at 430,000 miles (692,000 kilometers) per hour. With funding from the UK Space Agency, British startup Pulsar Fusion has unveiled Sunbird, a space rocket concept designed to meet spacecraft in orbit, attach to them, and carry them to their destination at breakneck speed using nuclear fusion. 'It's very unnatural to do fusion on Earth,' says Richard Dinan, founder and CEO of Pulsar. 'Fusion doesn't want to work in an atmosphere. Space is a far more logical, sensible place to do fusion, because that's where it wants to happen anyway.' For now, Sunbird is in the very early stages of construction and it has exceptional engineering challenges to overcome, but Pulsar says it hopes to achieve fusion in orbit for the first time in 2027. If the rocket ever becomes operational, it could one day cut the journey time of a potential mission to Mars in half. Nuclear fusion is different from nuclear fission, which is what powers current nuclear power plants. Fission works by splitting heavy, radioactive elements like uranium into lighter ones, using neutrons. The vast amount of energy released in this process is used to make electricity. Fusion does the opposite: it combines very light elements like hydrogen into heavier ones, using high temperature and pressure. 'The sun and the stars are all fusion reactors,' says Dinan. 'They are element cookers — cooking hydrogen into helium — and then as they die, they create the heavy elements that make up everything. Ultimately the universe is mostly hydrogen and helium, and everything else was cooked in a star by fusion.' Related article China is building a giant laser facility to master near-limitless clean energy, satellite images appear to show Fusion is sought after because it releases four times more energy than fission, and four million times more energy than fossil fuels. But unlike fission, fusion doesn't require dangerous radioactive materials — instead, fusion reactors would use deuterium and tritium, heavy hydrogen atoms that have extra neutrons. They would work on minute quantities of fuel and produce no dangerous waste. However, fusion requires a lot of energy to start, because conditions similar to the core of a star must be created — extremely high temperature and pressure, along with effective confinement to keep the reaction going. The challenge on Earth has been to create more energy from fusion than is put in to start, but so far we've barely broken even. But if power generation is not the goal, things become less complicated, Dinan says — only the simpler goal of creating a faster exhaust speed. The reactions that power nuclear fusion take place inside a plasma — a hot, electrically charged gas. Just like proposed reactors on Earth, Sunbird would use strong magnets to heat up a plasma and create the conditions for the fuel — which would be in the order of grams — to smash together and fuse. But while on Earth reactors are circular, to prevent particles from escaping, on Sunbird they would be linear – because the escaping particles would propel the spacecraft. Lastly, it would not produce neutrons from the fusion reaction, which reactors on Earth use to generate heat; Sunbird would instead use a more expensive type of fuel called helium-3 to make protons, which can be used as a 'nuclear exhaust' to provide propulsion. The Sunbird process would be expensive and unsuitable for energy production on Earth, Dinan says, but because the objective is not to make energy, the process can be inefficient and expensive, but still be valuable because it would save fuel costs, reduce the weight of spacecraft and get it to its destination much faster. Sunbirds would operate similarly to city bikes at docking stations, according to Dinan: 'We launch them into space, and we would have a charging station where they could sit and then meet your ship,' he says. 'You turn off your inefficient combustion engines, and use nuclear fusion for the greater part of your journey. Ideally, you'd have a station somewhere near Mars, and you'd have a station on low Earth orbit, and the (Sunbirds) would just go back and forth.' Some components will have an orbit demonstration this year. 'They're basically circuit boards that go up to be tested, to make sure they work. Not very exciting, because there's no fusion, but we have to do it,' says Dinan. 'Then, in 2027, we're going to send a small part of Sunbird in orbit, just to check that the physics is working as the computer assumes it's working. That's our first in-orbit demonstration, where we hope to do fusion in space. And we hope that Pulsar will be the first company to actually achieve that.' That prototype will cost about $70 million, according to Dinan, and it won't be a full Sunbird, but rather a 'linear fusion experiment' to prove the concept. The first functional Sunbird will be ready four to five years later, he says, provided the necessary funding is secured. Initially, the Sunbirds will be offered for shuttling satellites in orbit, but their true potential would come into play with interplanetary missions. The company illustrates a few examples of the missions that Sunbird could unlock, such as delivering up to 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of cargo to Mars in under six months, deploying probes to Jupiter or Saturn in two to four years (NASA's Europa Clipper, launched in 2024 towards one of Jupiter's moons, will arrive after 5.5 years), and an asteroid mining mission that would complete a round trip to a near-Earth asteroid in one to two years instead of three. Other companies are working on nuclear fusion engines for space propulsion, including Pasadena-based Helicity Space, which received investment from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in 2024. San Diego-based General Atomics and NASA are working on another type of nuclear reactor – based on fission rather than fusion – which they plan to test in space in 2027. It is also meant as a more efficient propulsion system for a crewed mission to Mars compared to current options. According to Aaron Knoll, a senior lecturer in the field of plasma propulsion for spacecraft at Imperial College London, who's not involved with Pulsar Fusion, there is a huge potential for harnessing fusion power for spacecraft propulsion. 'While we are still some years away from making fusion energy a viable technology for power generation on Earth, we don't need to wait to start using this power source for spacecraft propulsion,' he says. The reason, he adds, is that to generate power on Earth, the amount of energy output needs to be greater than the energy input. But when using fusion power on a spacecraft to generate thrust, any energy output is useful — even if it's less than the energy being supplied. All of that combined energy, coming from the external power supply and the fusion reactions together, will act to increase the thrust and efficiency of the propulsion system. However, he adds, there are significant technical hurdles in making fusion technology in space a reality. 'Current fusion reactor designs on Earth are large and heavy systems, requiring an infrastructure of supporting equipment, like energy storage, power supplies, gas delivery systems, magnets and vacuum pumping equipment,' he says. 'Miniaturizing these systems and making them lightweight is a considerable engineering challenge.' Bhuvana Srinivasan, a professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington, who's also not involved with Pulsar, agrees that nuclear fusion propulsion holds a substantial promise for spaceflight: 'It would be extremely beneficial even for a trip to the Moon, because it could provide the means to deploy an entire lunar base with crew in a single mission. If successful, it would outperform existing propulsion technologies not just incrementally but dramatically,' she says. However, she also points out the difficulties in making it compact and lightweight, an added engineering challenge which is a lesser consideration for terrestrial energy. Unlocking fusion propulsion, according to Srinivasan, would not only allow humans to travel farther in space, but be a game-changer for uncrewed missions, for example to gather resources like helium-3, a fusion fuel that is rare on Earth and must be created artificially, but may be abundant on the Moon: 'If we can build a lunar base that could be a launching point for deep space exploration, having access to a potential helium-3 reserve could be invaluable,' she says. 'Exploration of planets, moons, and solar systems farther away is fundamental to our curious and exploratory nature as humans while also potentially leading to substantial financial and societal benefit in ways that we may not yet realize.'
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill reduces early-voting window
HIGH POINT — A bill introduced recently in the N.C. General Assembly could dramatically change early voting as the practice marks its 25th anniversary this year. House Bill 66 would reduce the amount of time for in-person early voting statewide by essentially a week and a half, from up to 17 days to only six days. Early voting now starts on the third Thursday of the month before Election Day but according to this bill would begin on the second Monday before Election Day, which would eliminate all early voting on Sundays. 'Currently, North Carolina is in the broad middle of states in how many days it provides for early voting,' said John Dinan, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University. 'But this bill would leave North Carolina with one of the shorter early voting periods of the states that allow in-person early voting.' Supporters of the legislation say it would save money for the state and counties that administer elections while still providing time to vote early. Detractors say that shortening early voting will make it more inconvenient for North Carolinians and could discourage many people from casting a ballot. Early voting has steadily grown in popularity since it was introduced during North Carolina's general election in 2000. For last year's presidential general election, 4.2 million voters cast a ballot early out of a total of 5.7 million overall voters, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections. Shortening early voting could upset voters who have gotten used to the current period for the option to cast a ballot, said Brandon Lenoir, an associate professor of political science and strategic communication at High Point University. 'Many voters like the convenience of having roughly two weeks to cast their ballot,' Lenoir told The High Point Enterprise. 'Reducing the early voting period to a week takes away some of that convenience and gives voters fewer days to vote. Fewer days means more people standing in line to vote.' House Bill 66 was introduced by Republican representatives in the GOP-controlled N.C. General Assembly. But the partisan impact of the proposal isn't cut and dried, Dinan said. 'For some time in North Carolina, Democrats took much more advantage of early voting than Republicans did. But this shifted dramatically in 2024 after Republicans began encouraging their voters to vote early, and they did vote early in significant numbers,' he said. Lenoir said that shortening the period for early voting could lessen the burden on political campaigns. 'It costs the candidates time and money to have campaign staff and volunteers work the polls for those extra days,' he said. Dinan said that it's not certain what effects shortening early voting would have on counties that administer elections. 'This bill would ease some of the pressures on local governments and poll workers by limiting the number of days they would have to be open for early voting,' he said. 'But on the other hand, it would increase the number of voters who would be showing up on the remaining limited number of early voting days and would create more pressure on them in that sense.' Dinan said that it's likely House Bill 66 would face challenges in the courts if it passes. 'A federal court issued a ruling a decade ago preventing enforcement of a comprehensive set of elections law changes that included shortening the early-voting period,' Dinan said.
