Monthly Archives: December 2022

Climate Change, Government, Science, Technology, United States

Nuclear fusion: A breakthrough that will lead to clean energy?

NUCLEAR FUSION

A REVOLUTIONARY scientific breakthrough is thought to have brought humanity a step closer towards limitless clean energy from nuclear fusion.

Since the 1950s, scientists and researchers have been working tirelessly towards the “holy grail” of creating more energy from nuclear fusion than they put in.

Now US government scientists in California have reportedly done it, by aiming the world’s largest laser at a nuclear target the size of a peppercorn.

The result, from a nuclear reaction reaching three million degrees Celsius, is apparently 2.5 megajoules of energy, from 2.1 megajoules of laser energy.

Nuclear fusion is preferable to nuclear fission, which is currently used to power the planet alongside fossil fuels and renewable power.

That is because nuclear fission splits heavy atoms like uranium or plutonium, to create energy, producing potentially dangerous radioactive waste that must be stored.

Nuclear fusion creates energy by bringing atoms together, instead of splitting them, and has no waste products, making it clean energy.

Unlike coal, the supply is limitless, usually requiring just two materials called deuterium and tritium, which are slightly different versions of hydrogen and found in sea water and mineral springs.

A small cup of this fuel could one day be used to power a house for hundreds of years.

The breakthrough at the federal Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California was achieved using a laser pulse amplified a quadrillion (a million billion) times and split into 192 different pulses.

These enter a hohlraum – a gold container – and hit a tiny capsule of deuterium and tritium, creating shockwaves which produce vast amounts of  energy, in a process called inertial confinement fusion.

Significant engineering challenges remain, including how to cut the cost of nuclear fusion, harness the energy produced, run it through a turbine and get it into the National Grid.

Most experts believe this won’t be possible until 2045, but some say it could be done in a decade and is likely to be achieved using a different type of nuclear fusion called magnetic fusion.

But whether it is using magnets or lasers, the experts agree it is the main hope for escaping the climate crisis.

Sir Robin Grimes, professor of material physics at Imperial College London, said: “This is a key step towards commercial fusion – the technology which will ensure our survival on Earth, providing enough energy, with a low impact on the environment, to hugely reduce our contribution to climate change.”

Jeremy Chittenden, professor of plasma physics at Imperial, said: “If what has been reported is true and more energy has been released than was used to produce the plasma, that is a true breakthrough moment.”

Nuclear fusion, if it can be scaled up and made to run more continuously, could in future be almost zero-carbon.

However, some experts point out that the amount of energy used for the entire system containing the laser means, technically, scientists are unlikely to have yet produced more energy from nuclear fusion than was put into it.

The US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, made the announcement of a “major scientific breakthrough”.

– Diagrammatic representation of how nuclear fusion works. Source: BBC

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Arts, Books, Culture, Society

Current Affairs: Books of the Year 2022

RECOMMENDED READING

. The Fall of Boris Johnson by Sebastian Payne (Macmillan, 288pp)

WITH ANOTHER PM down this year – and on to the next one! Seasoned Westminster commentator Payne exquisitely and with breathless brilliance captures blow-by-blow the car crash at Downing Street. The narrative shows how Boris was turned from the hero of Brexit, Covid and Ukraine, to almost zero before being stabbed and ruptured in the back, front and side.

Prominent among the fingerprints on the knife are those of a vengeful Dominic Cummings – a warning to other government ministers to never make an enemy of your special adviser. They know where the skeletons are.

Yet, Boris’s worst enemy was (as always) himself – failing to get a grip on Partygate, on leaks, on his private office, on his Chancellor, on Michael Gove and, most of all, on the words that came out of his mouth. He blustered and bent the truth while Rome burned.

Payne does, however, acknowledge his substantial successes – “his actions will have consequences for decades” – but concludes that the most mercurial prime minister in a generation was always likely to come to a premature and sticky end.

. The War on the West by Douglas Murray (HarperCollins, 320pp)

THIS is a passionate plea to end the blame game which attributes all the world’s ills to the West, the very culture – “the goose that has laid some very golden eggs” – that has benefited mankind the most. The author delivers an eloquent and refreshing read.

The outspoken Murray is baffled and angered that it is those living in the West who are its biggest detractors, with their one-sided woke arguments and deliberate distortions of language and history.

Dishonest scholars, hypocrites and those intent on spreading hate and disinformation are undermining reason, democracy, science and progress. “In a demented discourse of their own invention,” he writes, “they have pulled us into a zero-sum discussion that insists the history of the West is one of patriarchal oppression, sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, larceny and much more. An unfair ledger has been created.”

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Luke’s Gospel: A signpost for seekers

NEW TESTAMENT

IF Matthew is the Gospel for the Jews, Luke is the seeker’s Gospel. Written in stylish language, it is carefully researched and easy to read.

Luke, who was a doctor and a travelling companion of St Paul, has several special interests. He includes, not unnaturally, some helpful details about Jesus’ healings. He also shows how Jesus regarded women and the poor with special compassion at a time when they were usually seen as second-class citizens or outcasts.

At the other end of the scale, he has strong warnings for the rich. His chief concern, however, is to show that Jesus is the Saviour of the world, sent by God to rescue people from the kingdom of evil and darkness.

Luke alone tells the familiar parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan: he alone records the joyful conversion of the corrupt tax inspector Zacchaeus. And only Luke gives us real insight into Jesus’ birth and records the encounter of two ordinary people with the risen Jesus on the Emmaus road. It all makes the book user-friendly and faith-inspiring.

A narrative – God’s magnificent manifesto

Luke 1:46-55, 67-79

MATTHEW’S Gospel launches Jesus’ ministry with the revolutionary teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke launches Jesus’ life with an equally revolutionary sound of music.

The two poems found here (Mary’s is more of a song, Zechariah’s more of a prophecy) speak theological volumes. They lay down the themes to which Luke will return time and again.

In both cases the praise is directed to God, not simply for what he has done for Mary and Zechariah personally. That is the nature of true worship: lifting us from the immediate to the eternal, from the personal to the corporate.

Mary’s song called the Magnificat, in some ways resembles that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Both their sons were to be special servants of God, but Hannah was married and unhappily childless.

Mary’s ‘humility’ was genuine in terms of her human poverty as well as her attitude of heart. She could offer only the poor person’s traditional sacrifice (2:24; Leviticus 12:8) and for some while she lived as a homeless refugee (2:7; Matthew 2:14).

But her God is not only holy, he is also merciful (v 50), an implicit acknowledgement that Mary considers herself tainted by original sin.

God’s holiness and righteousness are expressed by the way he turns the tables on the rich and powerful (vv 51-54), a constant Lucan theme. This is a prophetic declaration of righteousness which may have its spiritual dimension in terms of personal salvation, but which is far wider-reaching.

To that Zechariah also turns, in the prophecy known as the Benedictus. He sees his son’s birth as a stage in God’s purposes not just for himself and his wife, but for the nation. He focuses on forgiveness (v 77) but as a Jew this was never separated from God’s wider purposes (v 74).

Christians cannot separate the spiritual and personal message from the wider context of God’s plan for the world. John the Baptist called for a radical change in lifestyle, and neither he nor his cousin Jesus were afraid to confront the authorities with their unrighteousness. The Christian gospel is both personal and corporate.

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