Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 1 May 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120307/15131218029/dailydirt-fusion-without-star.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120307/15131218029/dailydirt-fusion-without-star.shtml wunderkinds who've built fusion reactors in their spare time, but the trick is generating a surplus of energy -- not just fusing atoms for fun. Here are a few interesting links on inertial confinement fusion.

• The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is approaching its break-even point for generating as much energy as it consumes. This $3.5 billion facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shoots lasers at an ignition target of hydrogen isotopes to get the nuclei to fuse and release energy, and it might look more promising than the ITER's tokamak facilities. However, the NIF is more of a proof of concept, not a practical design for generating commercial amounts of energy. [url]
• Two UK-based organizations are interested in commercializing the NIF's fusion reactor and creating a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Such a reactor would have to go through more than 10 fuel pellets each second, but the NIF facility has only burned through about 300 since it started operating in 2009. [url]
• A watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs, argues that the NIF should be regulated before it releases more radioactive particles like tritium into the environment. The Department of Energy says that radioactive releases have been below the EPA's safety limits, but Tri-Valley CAREs is concerned about the effects of radioactive materials accumulating around Livermore, CA. [url]
• To discover more stuff on alternative energy, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120307/15131218029 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110902/04473715792/dailydirt-more-manned-spaceflight.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110902/04473715792/dailydirt-more-manned-spaceflight.shtml are still a lot of plans and desire for manned space exploration to resume again. Here are just a few projects that might get off the ground.

• DARPA has $500,000 in seed money to get folks thinking about interstellar space travel. The 100-Year Starship Study will encourage discussion about what it would take to make a trip to another star system, and a lot of the proposals will be science fiction for a very long time. [url]
• The US Air Force has a "secret" mini space shuttle that might be able to take astronauts into space, and return them just like the retired space shuttle used to. The X-37B space plane could spawn a larger X-37C model that is twice a long, but the budget for producing these vehicles isn't exactly guaranteed. [url]
• The concept of using nuclear reactions isn't a particularly new idea for space propulsion, but NASA engineers are designing aneutronic fusion reactor schemes that could be useful for shooting satellites across our solar system more efficiently. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe... [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110902/04473715792 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110222/15355913214/dailydirt-if-only-we-had-mr-fusion-generator-handy.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110222/15355913214/dailydirt-if-only-we-had-mr-fusion-generator-handy.shtml

MIT's Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor is experimenting with a new mode of operation for a tokamak-style reactor design. Scientists still don't quite understand why it works, but it could help make fusion reactors operate more predictably and actually generate more energy than they consume. [url]

Making biofuels from algae has received some significant funding, but the process of growing the right kind of algae and separating out the fuel is still at least 5-10 years away. A few hundred million bucks should be able to screen a few thousand varieties of algae for optimum biofuel production, though. [url]

There's also a type of fungus that can produce hydrocarbons similar to diesel fuel. This kind of fungus could also have been originally responsible for creating fossil fuels from ancient organic plant matter. [url]

To discover more stuff on alternative energy, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110222/15355913214 Fri, 8 Feb 2008 12:06:00 PST Derek Kerton http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080207/104854197.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080207/104854197.shtml pulled the plug on its Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) offering, Fusion. In 2005, the concept of Fixed Mobile Convergence was red hot. FMC involved using a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radio in a cell phone to transfer calls back and forth between the cellular network, and a broadband-based network in the home of office. Ostensibly, this would be appealing to subscribers because it would allow them to access cheaper VoIP tariffs, rather than cellular minutes, on the broadband network -- thus saving money. However, we were initially skeptical of the appeal of this complicated product because last we heard, many subscribers don't even use the mobile minutes they have bought each month. The complicated FMC phones cost more, use more battery, and offer very little by way of choice.

Meanwhile, carriers that did offer the service (Orange in France) had early success, but were then easily matched (warning: pdf!) by mobile carriers without FMC (Bouygues Telecom) that simply lowered their tariffs on calls made from the home cell tower. But in 2005, I got over-enthusiastic about British Telecom’s Fusion offering, because if FMC made sense for any carrier, it was this one. BT is the incumbent provider of broadband services in the UK, already offers the consumer premise equipment to subscribers, owns an outdoor Wi-Fi network, but does not own a mobile network. They pay wholesale rates to Vodafone and sell mobile as an MVNO. Thus, any traffic they can get off of Vodafone and onto the DSL would save real costs. Unfortunately, the subscribers didn’t see how lowering the costs for BT was particularly important to them. No surprise, really, since Mike noted that BT failed to pass over the lower costs to the subscribers. But in conclusion, if FMC failed at BT, where it fit best, it will be difficult to make a business case for it elsewhere.

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