Category Archives: Energy
Recent advances in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries
Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles since their introduction by Sony in 1991. Safety is an important concern since about two billion cells are produced every year but with a one-in-200,000 failure rate. Excessive […]
Quantum Thermodynamics V: Photocells
Sunlight is the most important energy source of Earth. All earthlings live thanks to the ability of plants and bacteria to transform solar energy into chemical one. As sunlight is a free, and practically unlimited, energy source it is easy […]
Harvesting heat to create electricity: A new world record
Approximately 90% of world’s electricity is generated in turbines moved by hot steam, which, unfortunately, operate only at 30 to 40 percent efficiency. This means that around two thirds of the total energy input is lost into the environment […]
Materials for caging the Sun on Earth
The most widely used metaphors for nuclear fusion reactors are the recreation of the Sun on Earth and the controlled explosion of a hydrogen bomb. In both cases, the first thing that comes to mind is the need for high-performance […]
ITER: Engineering challenges of putting the sun into a box (Part 3)
In this third and last part of the series (1, 2) about ITER we continue giving insights into the most outstanding aspects of the ITER machine design.
Divertor
The ITER divertor is a part of the […]
ITER: Engineering challenges of putting the sun into a box (Part 2)
In this second part of the series about ITER (see first here), we start giving a more detailed description of the ITER machine. Then, we address some important challenges that have been identified for each of its parts and […]
ITER: Engineering challenges of putting the sun into a box (Part 1)
Nobel-laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes allegedly once said of nuclear fusion: “We say that we will put the sun into a box. The idea is pretty. The problem is, we don’t know how to make the box“.
Indeed, the […]