Latest news with #MIT-based
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MIT scientists are building a revolutionary new power plant — here are the details and timeline
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup founded by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has recently announced its plan to build the world's first nuclear fusion power plant in Virginia. The goal of the project is to generate low-pollution electricity in an industrial park in the Richmond area sometime during the early 2030s, reported The New York Times. For decades, scientists have tried to harness the power of nuclear fusion, a process that combines two atomic nuclei to form one, releasing massive amounts of energy. Scientists working for the startup have set their gaze on successfully utilizing nuclear fusion at a power-plant-scale level. Currently, the startup is constructing a pilot machine to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology by 2027. While the MIT-based startup is still in the early stages of developing the plant's technology, the proposed facility would generate a significant amount of electricity without emitting any planet-warming pollution into the atmosphere. What's more, the completed plant would have a capacity of 400 megawatts, enough to power 150,000 homes, the Times reported. Edward H. Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, said in a statement, per the Times, "Our customers' growing needs for reliable, carbon-free power benefits from as diverse a menu of power generation options as possible." As a result, fusion plants like the one proposed by Commonwealth Fusion Systems have the potential to generate carbon-free electricity that meets growing power demands. However, the process of achieving this goal is a long road, which MIT scientists acknowledge. "We still have plenty of work to do, obviously," Commonwealth chief executive Dr. Bob Mumgaard told the Times. Over the next few years, Commonwealth plans on developing a fusion power plant that is safe, cost-effective, and consistent. Despite the engineering challenges ahead, Dr. Mumgaard said he was confident about the startup's rapid progress. He even told the Times they hope to sell electricity before the company demonstrates its pilot reactor in 2027. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
We need to keep an open mind on cold fusion potential
Recently, the letters pages of the Guardian have featured conflicting accounts of cold fusion, otherwise known as low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR). On the one hand, the Nobel laureate Prof Brian Josephson and his co-authors argue (27 January) that cold fusion's time has come: companies can 'make these reactions work quite reliably', with the promise of 'ending reliance on fossil fuels'. In response, Dr Philip Thomas, a researcher at the University of Exeter, proclaims (2 February) that cold fusion is a 'pseudo-scientific fringe theory' in violation of the 'laws of nature'. Which laws, in particular, Dr Thomas does not say. There is, however, a constructive middle ground between Josephson's fervour and Thomas's denigration. LENR advocates often fail to appreciate the evidentiary standard required to demonstrate novel nuclear effects. Overzealous critics are generally not well read on the LENR literature and lack perspective on the emergence of new fields from anomalous effects in science. As a result, they contribute to the palpable stigma that the Cambridge emeritus professor Huw Price calls the 'reputation trap'. Regardless, there is compelling experimental data and strong theoretical motivations to study cold fusion. We are MIT-based researchers in an LENR research programme run by the US Department of Energy's innovation agency, Arpa-E. Our group is pursuing the careful replication and characterisation of promising LENR experiments in close coordination with the original experimentalists and informed by the theoretical work of the MIT professor Peter Hagelstein. Cold fusion could result in spectacular technologies. But we are convinced that the way forward requires rigorous, open-source scientific investigation, not more claims. The Arpa-E LENR programme – a result of Google's research efforts in cold fusion summarised in the journal Nature – is a model in this regard. It balances the highest scientific standards and careful experimental documentation with an open mind to the anomalies reported in the LENR literature. In many ways, cold fusion's time has come. Advances in theory and experiment have made the LENR field eminently actionable. It is time for fellow scientists to constructively engage and for science funders to take Arpa-E's lead and back rigorous inquiry into this promising MessingerPhD candidate, University of CambridgeFlorian Metzler Research scientist, MITMatt Lilley Research affiliate, MITNicola Galvanetto Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Zurich Dr Philip Thomas seems to be unaware of current work on cold fusion. A good example is the five-year EU-funded CleanHME project, which held its wrap-up meeting recently at the University of Szczecin in Poland. This collaboration involved some 40 scientists from several European universities and institutes. To refer to the concerns of such projects as 'pseudo-scientific fringe theory', as Dr Thomas does, is both unfair and unwise. Unfair, because these are serious scientists, fully conversant with the laws of nature. Unwise, because we are in a very tight spot. We need new sources of fossil-free energy, so we need to search for them diligently, even in what many regard as unlikely corners. By all means criticise such work on scientific grounds, but it is folly to discourage it by calling it names. I would be delighted to introduce Dr Thomas to some of the leading scientists in the field if he would like to explore it PriceEmeritus Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy, Cambridge Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
