Tracking high impact progress to the technology future, future technology and especially advanced nanotechnology, nuclear and energy technology, quantum computers, life extension, space technology and AI. Proposing and tracking the best societal, business and technical choices to the next big things that will shape our future. Official Lifeboat Foundation news source.
The USC researchers make large arrays of carbon nanotube transistors using solution-processing techniques at room temperature. They start by placing a silicon wafer in a chemical bath to coat its surface with a nanotube-attracting chemical, then rinse off the residue. The treated wafer is then immersed in a solution of semiconducting carbon nanotubes, which are attracted to its surface. The wafer, now coated with a carpet of nanotubes, is rinsed clean again. To make transistors from this tangled mess, the researchers put down metal electrodes at selected locations. The electrodes define where each transistor is and carry electrons into and out of the nanotubes that lie between them. Areas of silicon underlying each device act as the transistors' gates. So far, they've built a prototype device on a four-inch silicon wafer and used it to control a simple organic light-emitting diode display.
The USC researchers are working to build a truly integrated organic LED display that is flexible and transparent. Such a display might be rolled up to fit in a pocket, or mounted on a car windshield to display information to the driver. The first step is eliminating the rigid silicon. Because the nanotubes may be laid down at room temperature, the USC researchers can build them on electrically active plastic sheets that can't tolerate high temperatures. They're also working to replace the stiff metal electrodes with a coating of indium tin oxide, a commonly used, flexible, transparent electrode material. In their prototype, the organic LED pixels are connected to the transistor array by wires; to integrate them they'll need to come up with methods for building the LEDs on top of the control circuit.
Zhou says he is talking with display companies about commercializing these methods
Preseparated, semiconductive enriched carbon nanotubes hold great potential for thin-film transistors and display applications due to their high mobility, high percentage of semiconductive nanotubes, and room-temperature processing compatibility. Here in this paper, we report our progress on wafer-scale processing of separated nanotube thin-film transistors (SN-TFTs) for display applications, including key technology components such as wafer-scale assembly of high-density, uniform separated nanotube networks, high-yield fabrication of devices with superior performance, and demonstration of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) switching controlled by a SN-TFT. On the basis of separated nanotubes with 95% semiconductive nanotubes, we have achieved solution-based assembly of separated nanotube thin films on complete 3 in. Si/SiO2 wafers, and further carried out wafer-scale fabrication to produce transistors with high yield (>98%), small sheet resistance (25 kΩ/sq), high current density (10 μA/μm), and superior mobility (52 cm2 V−1 s−1). Moreover, on/off ratios of >10^4 are achieved in devices with channel length L > 20 μm. In addition, OLED control circuit has been demonstrated with the SN-TFT, and the modulation in the output light intensity exceeds 10^4. Our approach can be easily scaled to large areas and could serve as critical foundation for future nanotube-based display electronics.
The proposals of the Low Carbon Economy taskforce are partly based on a set of energy scenarios produced by the Chinese Energy Research Institute. Drawing on five pillars (energy, urbanization, industrial restructuring, innovation and land-use change), the report outlines specific recommendations to put China on a path that will reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 75-85% by 2050. If implemented in the short term, that is within the 12th 5-year plan, carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product could drop by 20-23% or possibly more.
In each scenario China would continue its economic growth. However, the Chinese believe significant reductions can be achieved by decoupling growth from greenhouse gas emissions, as Sweden has done.
By 2050, 64 per cent of China’s economy is expected to be in services and 3 per cent in primary industries such as mining, compared with 40 per cent and 12 per cent today.
During the 12th five-year plan, energy-saving measures and new energy sources could reduce carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 20-23 per cent or possibly more.
The energy mix will progressively change. In the medium term there will be an increase in renewable energy and nuclear power, with 50 per cent of generating capacity coming from low-carbon sources by 2030. By 2050 all new power sources will be low carbon. Technology will be critical. Much can be achieved by adapting existing technologies to Chinese conditions. But if the enhanced low-carbon scenario is to be followed it will require innovation and technology sharing on a global scale.
The Chinese plan is to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 75-85 per cent by 2050. It will be achieved through industrial restructuring and efficiency gains in every economic sector, including new low-carbon cities that avoid suburban sprawl and prioritise public transport.
This will be complemented by much higher efficiency in fossil fuel use, a shift to renewable energy and the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Unlike the existing IGCC/IGFC system that integrates partial oxidation gasifiers, fuel cells, and gas and steam turbines using a cascade method of energy utilization, the A-IGCC/A-IGFC (Advanced IGCC/IGFC) system directs recycled heat from gas turbines or fuel cells back into steam reforming gasifiers that employ endothermic reactions. This next generation exergy recovery-type IGCC/IGFC being studied. With exergy recovery, the A-IGCC, using 1700oC gas turbines, is expected to provide a generation efficiency of 57% and the A-IGFC, employing fuel cells, is expected to provide a generation efficiency as high as 65%. Thus, this technology is expected to have the potential to bring about a dramatic increase in system efficiency, contributing, in the future, to the provision of energy resources and a reduction in CO2 emissions.
Jiangxi Provincial government announced during the conference that the the province would cooperate with the Finland government to build a low carbon eco-city in Gongqing city by the Poyang Lake,China's largest freshwater lake.
The city covering six square kilometers was designed to accommodate 100,000 residents. The project will begin at the beginning of 2010 and be completed in 2013.
"China's urbanization process will bring millions of rural people into the cities. How to build cities for sustainable development is a challenge to China," said Mauri Tommila, whose company, Finland's DigiEcoCity Ltd, joined the eco-city project.
The company will build another eco-city in east China's Jiangsu Province and had begun negotiation with Shanghai and Beijing Municipal government for more eco-city plans, Tommila said.
It shows made biased and overly alarmist presentations of the climate data and worked to suppress the work of scientists who disagreed with global warming. It also shows attacks on the careers of scientists, journalist and editors who disagreed with global warming.
The over reaching on the science and over aggressive tactics are now blowing up in face of the pro-global warming side.
China's mining industry is the deadliest in the world, with more than 3,000 workers killed last year despite a massive safety drive that has slashed fatalities. Hundreds of rescuers in northern China are battling to reach 21 miners trapped after a huge gas explosion early yesterday killed at least 87 of their colleagues. In February, a blast at a mine in Shanxi, northern China, killed 77. An explosion in the same province killed 105 people in December 2007 and 203 died in Liaoning province in 2005. Last month, the head of the State Administration of Coalmine Safety, Zhao Tiechui, said accidents had fallen by more than 46% between 2004 and last year. Experts also say the industry's true toll is higher than it appears because mine bosses often attempt to cover up casualties, and deaths from mining-related illnesses are not included.
Rooftop solar is several times more dangerous than nuclear power and wind power. It is still much safer than coal and oil, because those have a lot of air pollution deaths.
Rooftop solar can be safer [0.44 up to 0.83 death per twh each year). If the rooftop solar is part of the shingle so you do not put the roof up more than once and do not increase maintenance then that is ok too. Or if you had a robotic system of installation.
World average for coal is about 161 deaths per TWh. In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 2000 TWh. 15 deaths per TWh. In China about 500,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 1800 TWh. 278 deaths per TWh.
Wind power proponent and author Paul Gipe estimated in Wind Energy Comes of Age that the mortality rate for wind power from 1980–1994 was 0.4 deaths per terawatt-hour. Paul Gipe's estimate as of end 2000 was 0.15 deaths per TWh, a decline attributed to greater total cumulative generation.
Hydroelectric power was found to to have a fatality rate of 0.10 per TWh (883 fatalities for every TW·yr) in the period 1969–1996
Hyperion Takes Steps to Speed to Market Within Four Years
Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) uranium nitride fuel burns would begin before the end of the year. He said that Los Alamos National Laboratory, from whom Hyperion has licenced some of the technology, has researched uranium nitride. It said that the Russian military has used uranium nitride fuel and the lead-bismuth coolant.
* HPG plans to rely on the supply chain for producing the first units. * HPG is looking to find six launch customers, some of which would run a prototype, including customers based in the US and UK. Letters of intent have been signed * in order to have operating units within four years, HPG is considering building its first pilot units in facilities that do not require approval from a nuclear regulator, such as US Department of Energy facilities, or military facilities. * HPG has signed up TetraTec as the architect-engineer-constructor, supported by Chamberlain.
The Hyperion Power Module has a core of 24 assemblies of a metal fuel, uranium nitride, that is 20% enriched set in HT-9 cladding tubes. Flowing around the pins is liquid lead-bismuth eutectic coolant. Quartz is used as a radial reflector. A gas plenum is at one end of the 2-3m long fuel pins.
Two sets of boron carbide control rods keep the reactivity of the core under control. One set of 12 control rods advance about 0.5mm/day to moderate the reaction. A second set of 6 shutdown rods close to the centre of the reactor would automatically drop into the core in case of an accident. The centre of the core is hollow. Inside that void space marbles of boron carbide would be dropped in case of an emergency.
The hot (500 degrees C) coolant transfers its heat through an intermediate heat exchanger to another lead-bismuth loop, through another intermediate heat exchanger to a tertiary circuit with an undisclosed fluid, and then through a third heat exchanger to water (at about 200 degrees C). The reactor is not only designed to deliver electricity, but also process heat or co-generation. Hyperion Power president and CEO John 'Grizz' Deal told NEI that the configurations of the secondary and tertiary circuit would depend on the reactor's uses.
The reason why the 70MWt reactor has a relatively low electrical efficiency of 36%, or 25MWe, is because the steam loop does not run through the inside of the reactor, for simplicity and safety.
B & W mPower
* mPower small reactor, a 125 MW LWR design that is still being completed on the drawing boards in Lynchburg, VA.
* The reactor will use 5% enriched uranium in fuel rod assemblies which are similar in design to those used in 1,000 MW plants.
* At a hypothetical price of $3,000/Kw, a single unit would cost $375 million
* One of the intended uses of the mPower reactor is to “repower carbon-intensive plants where the transmission and distribution infrastructure is already in place. (coal to nuclear ? )
* First units could be received by customers by 2018 and that the reactor can can be shipped by truck and rail to a customer site and installed below grade by skilled trades without complex training.
* three years from signed contracts to operational units
B&W boasts that when the mPower goes on the market in 2012, each 125MWe reactor would be made in a factory, cost about half a billion dollars firm fixed price, and could be built and installed, in multiples of two or four reactors, in only three years.
mPower - main data
Reactor type: Integral PWR Power: ~125MWe, ~400MWt Reactor coolant: <14MPa (2000psia), ~600K (620F)core outlet Steam conditions: <7MPa (1000psia), superheated Reactor vessel diameter: ~3.6m (12ft) Height: ~22m (70ft) Fuel assemblies Sixty-nine 17x17, uranium dioxide Height: ~half of standard fuel assembly Fuel assembly pitch: 21.5cm Active core height: ~200cm Core diameter (flat to flat): ~200cm Fuel inventory: <20t Average specific power: ~20kW/kgU Core average fuel burnup: <40GWd/tU Target fuel cycle length: ~5 years Maximum enrichment: <5% Reactivity control: Control rods Other features: No soluble boron, air cooled condenser,spent fuel stored in containment for 60 year design life
NuScale
*NuScale’s 45 MW reactor is a traditional LWR design, it doesn’t have to fabricate or test new fuels.
* NuScale has a one-third test facility at Oregon State University
*NuScale was also the first to announce a modular approach to selling its reactors to customers. The idea is that a utility could buy a six-pack or eight-pack of the 45 MW units.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Not Efficient or Strategic and has an incompetent Direction
Idaho Samizdat also details that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not currently able to certify nuclear reactors other than existing light water designs and variations of those designs. I would think that the nuclear regulatory commission should be able to figure out and license nuclear reactor designs of any type in a timely fashion. The 4-5+ years that they take to certify a designs that are variants on light water designs seems to slow.
The staff of the NRC are probably competent but the mandate of the NRC and the top people setting the direction and strategic plans are not competent. The situation at the NRC is similar to how NASA flounders about with a crappy space program. The NRC needs to be part of a larger national energy plan.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created as an independent agency by Congress in 1974 to enable the nation to safely use radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while ensuring that people and the environment are protected.
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design by GE Nuclear Energy (May 1997);
System 80+ design by Westinghouse (formerly ABB-Combustion Engineering) (May 1997);
AP600 design by Westinghouse (December 1999); and
AP1000 design (pictured at left) by Westinghouse (January 2006).
Designs Under Active Review by the NRC: AP1000 (Amendment) – Westinghouse submitted an application to amend the AP1000 design in July 2007. The rulemaking is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2010.
ESBWR - General Electric submitted certification application on Aug. 24, 2005. The staff accepted the application for review in a letter dated Dec. 1, 2005, and expects the certification process to continue through 2010.
EPR - Areva submitted Dec. 11, 2007. The staff expects the certification process to continue through 2011.
US-APWR - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries submitted Dec. 31, 2007. The staff expects the certification process to continue through 2011
Seventy percent of all people with severe burns die from related infections. Now a new wound-dressing technology from Tel Aviv University could cut that figure dramatically.
Prof. Meital Zilberman of TAU`s Department of Biomedical Engineering has developed new soluble fibers that can be used to deliver infection-fighting antibiotics, then dissolve when the job is done. Now in clinical trials on animal models, Prof. Zilberman`s new material can help avoid the constant wound cleaning and redressing that leads to infection, allowing the human body to do the work on its own.
New gentamicin-eluting bioresorbable core/shell fiber structures were developed and studied. These structures were composed of a polyglyconate core and a porous poly(DL-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PDLGA) shell loaded with the antibiotic agent gentamicin, prepared using freeze drying of inverted emulsions. These unique fibers are designed to be used as basic elements of bioresorbable burn and ulcer dressings. The investigation focused on the effects of the emulsion's composition (formulation) on the shell's microstructure, on the drug release profile from the fibers, and on bacterial inhibition. The release profiles generally exhibited an initial burst effect accompanied by a decrease in release rates with time. Albumin was found to be the most effective surfactant for stabilizing the inverted emulsions. All three formulation parameters had a significant effect on gentamicin's release profile. An increase in the polymer and organic:aqueous phase ratio or a decrease in the drug content resulted in a lower burst release and a more moderate release profile. The released gentamicin also resulted in a significant decrease in bacterial viability and practically no bacteria survived after 2 days when using bacterial concentrations of 1 × 10^7 CFU/mL. Thus, our new fiber structures are effective against the relevant bacterial strains and can be used as basic elements of bioresorbable drug-eluting wound dressings.
Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.
To get to that point Pomerleau and his research teammates from Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, are currently working on decoding human brain activity.
Pomerleau said the team has used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts, he added.
For instance, if two people think of the image of a bear or hear the word bear or even hear a bear growl, a neuroimage would show similar brain activity. Basically, there are standard patterns that show up in the brain for different words or images.
Pomerleau said researchers are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology into a head set that culd be used to manipulate a computer. The next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor that could be implanted inside the brain.
Today, Intel's Pomerleau said various research facilities are developing technologies to sense activity from inside the skull.
"If we can get to the point where we can accurately detect specific words, you could mentally type," he added. "You could compose characters or words by thinking about letters flashing on the screen or typing whole words rather than their individual characters."
Pomerleau also noted that the more scientists figure out about the brain, it will help them design better microprocessors. He said, "If we can see how the brain does it, then we could build smarter computers."
PresbyLASIK treatment uses the principles of LASIK surgery to create a multifocal corneal surface aimed at reducing near vision spectacle dependence in presbyopic patients. Among the presbyLASIK techniques, the Excimer LASER ablation creates a central area, which is hyperpositive for near vision leaving the midperipheral cornea for far vision
This study involved 75 patients with myopia and 28 with hyperopia; average age was 53.3 years. Standard wavefront-guided LASIK provided monocular (single vision) distance vision in the dominant eye, and presbyLASIK for vision at multiple distances was used to correct the nondominant eye. Results are after 1.2 years to 3.9 years of followup. Statistics apply to use of both eyes together, or binocular vision. (Reported July 2008 in Journal of Refractive Surgery.)
If you develop cataracts after multifocal LASIK surgery, you will still be able to have cataract surgery. But changes made to your cornea during the LASIK procedure make it a bit more challenging for your cataract surgeon to determine the correct power for your intraocular lens to give you a perfect visual outcome after cataract surgery.
It's possible you may need to wear eyeglasses after cataract surgery or you may need additional corneal refractive surgery to regain acceptable vision for driving and/or reading without glasses.
Finally, there is no guarantee that results of your multifocal LASIK surgery will be permanent. If your eyes change as the years go by after your LASIK surgery, future surgical enhancements may be needed. Another possible complication associated with the procedure can include an inability to see as well as you once did, even with the help of glasses or contact lenses after surgery
Myostatin inhibition occurs naturally in about one in one million people. Studies with mice indicate myostatin inhibition is four times more effective than high doses of steroids. Myostatin inhibition can have various health benefits and not just performance enhancment. It can be used to counter the muscle wasting in old people and help old people stay mobile longer. Mobile people stay healthier longer. Another potential benefit is help people with weight control and reduction of obesity. Muscles consume more calories than fat so someone with Myostatin inhibition should find it easier to manage their weight. Having fewer obese people should improve public health and could also help with national medical costs.
Obesity increases the risk of atherosclerosis, which accounts for 75% of all cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes. The mice with deleted myostatin gene had much less body fat and 30 percent lower fasting blood sugar and 80% lower fasting insulin levels, showing a reduction in obesity and a strong resistance to developing diabetes, the authors reported. They also had 50 percent lower low-density-lipoprotein ("bad") cholesterol and 30 to 60 percent lower levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides (fats in the blood), respectively. These results indicate protection against the development of atherosclerosis.
So safe (potentially health improving) and very effective muscle enhancement appears to be close. At the end of this article is other option which is already being used by people now (SARMs - produce a steroid like effect that only goes to the muscles).
Estimates are that 7 million people take steroids to boost their muscles (in spite of the health risks) and most do it for enhanced appearance and not for sports.
Steroid like effects with no health risks and potentially health benefits would seem likely to be very widely used. If the protection against obesity and artery hardening holds up in human trials then it would make sense for everyone to have the myostatin inhibition treatment to protect and cardiovascular disease and death which is the number one cause of death. Abut 30% of all deaths are cause by heart disease
This more recent study produced similar results in non-human primates, in a translational study to demonstrate efficacy in safety in a species more closely related to humans. Non-human primates that received the injection of the follistatin transgene experienced pronounced and durable increases in muscle size and strength. Muscle growth occurred for 12 weeks after treatment, after which time the growth rates appeared to stabilize and were well tolerated, with no adverse events noted over the course of the 15-month study.
"Our studies indicate that this relatively non-invasive approach could have long-term effects, involve few risks and could potentially be effective in various types of degenerative muscle disorders including multiple forms of muscular dystrophy," said the study's corresponding author, Brian Kaspar, PhD, principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
After the treatment, the monkeys’ leg muscles grew steadily, and were 15 per cent bigger in circumference on average after eight weeks.
Using electrical muscle stimulation, the scientists showed that the treated legs were also significantly stronger than the untreated legs. In one monkey, the treated leg was 78 per cent stronger. .
The enhanced size and power were retained 15 months after the treatment and caused no apparent health problems.
Antagonists of myostatin, a blood-borne negative regulator of muscle growth produced in muscle cells, have shown considerable promise for enhancing muscle mass and strength in rodent studies and could serve as potential therapeutic agents for human muscle diseases. One of the most potent of these agents, follistatin, is both safe and effective in mice, but similar tests have not been performed in nonhuman primates. To assess this important criterion for clinical translation, we tested an alternatively spliced form of human follistatin that affects skeletal muscle but that has only minimal effects on nonmuscle cells. When injected into the quadriceps of cynomolgus macaque monkeys, a follistatin isoform expressed from an adeno-associated virus serotype 1 vector, AAV1-FS344, induced pronounced and durable increases in muscle size and strength. Long-term expression of the transgene did not produce any abnormal changes in the morphology or function of key organs, indicating the safety of gene delivery by intramuscular injection of an AAV1 vector. Our results, together with the findings in mice, suggest that therapy with AAV1-FS344 may improve muscle mass and function in patients with certain degenerative muscle disorders.
The treatment did not cause sperm or menstrual cycles to go outside of normal ranges.
Fig. S1. MCK-FS causes myofiber hypertrophy and predominantly affects fast-twitch type 2 myofibers in the quadriceps muscle. Fig. S2. Morphological effects on sperm from male cynomologus macaques treated with AAV1-FS344. Table S1. Menstrual cycles in untreated control and AAV1-FS344–treated cynomolgus macaques. Table S2. Sperm motility and morphology of untreated control and AAV1- FS344–treated cynomolgus macaques. Table S3. Primer and probe sets used in quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) for vector genome quantification.
SARMs work similarly to testosterone but in a more targeted way. "They are effective by binding to the steroid receptor in only specific tissue, like muscle," says Evans, who is also a scientific advisor to GTx, a company developing the drugs. "They are not steroid drugs, but they produce the anabolic effect of the steroids." GTx, based in Memphis, TN, has shown in a clinical trial that one compound being developed for muscle wasting and bone loss can significantly boost lean muscle mass in older people.
Expectations
The current black market use of SARMs (before clinical trials are done, phase 3 clinical trials not started) via online purchase and the online sale of fake myostatin inhibitors and fake SARMs shows the massive demand that will be there for the real thing. Especially after they do clear clinical trials for Muscle wasting diseases. I expect to be having some type of myostatin inhibitor treatment within ten years. Maintain muscles before getting too hold and maintaining as I get older, less risk of falling and breaking a hip later, heart health, weight control. do not care about the sports aspect. The real sports competitors will doing this and ten other riskier things. I had LASIK done over ten years ago and have not regretted it. Was able to get 20-15 vision (so better than the old good vision standard of 20-20).
The "clean" sports leagues will look like childrens little league compared to the open enhancement leagues.
2020 expectation: SARMs and Myostatin inhibition widespread (tens of millions) 20-5 vision common from advanced LASIK and other treatments Next generation cognitive enhancement drugs robotic and cyber enhancements Augmented reality vision (goggles/visors) Mind machine interfaces
The next level after those will be transgenic (gorilla strength, 40 mph speed, super leaping, cognitive remodelling - stem cells, gene therapy, superdrugs 300IQ-1000IQ and may more), molecular nanotechnology enhancement. Although the performance enhancement is interesting, it will be the enhancements for - super immune systems - life extension and health enhancement - radiation and other resistence - cognitive enhancement - regeneration
The sLHC would be a massively upgraded LHC. If all goes to plan, it will come online in around a decade (2018, about 1 billion euro) after upgrades. The beams would be 10 times as bright, which would involve increasing the number of protons in each beam by a factor of 10, and result in 10 times as many collisions per hour.
The International Linear Collider (ILC)
If the project receives financial backing after technical reports due in 2012, the ILC would be a 35-kilometre-long straight accelerator.
Complete in the 2020s for about $8 billion.
The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) The CLIC would be a positron and electron linear accelerator like the ILC - and is also yet to be approved - but it would be shorter and have collisions at higher energies. 2020s and cost about ~$10 billion. Equal to an ILC 140 kilometers long.
Other proposals include the Very Large Hadron Collider, which would have a collision energy of 40 to 200 TeV and would have to be built from scratch. Muon colliders, and an LHeC - smashing an electron beam into a proton beam - are also being considered
Plasma Acceleration Could Transform the Future of Colliders
Plasma acceleration is a technique for accelerating charged particles, such as electrons, positrons and ions, using an electric field associated with an electron plasma wave. The wave is created either using electron pulses or through the passage of a very brief laser pulses, a technique known as laser plasma acceleration. These techniques appear to offer a way to build high performance particle accelerators of much smaller size than conventional devices at the expense of coherency. Current experimental devices show accelerating gradients several orders of magnitude better than current particle accelerators. For example, an experimental laser plasma accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory accelerates electrons to 1 GeV over about 3.3 cm,[1] whereas the SLAC conventional accelerator requires 64 m to reach the same energy. A recent experiment performed by a team at SLAC achieved an energy gain to 42 GeV over 85 cm using a plasma wakefield accelerator
It is hoped that a compact particle accelerator can be created based on plasma acceleration techniques or accelerators for much higher energy can be built, if long accelerators are realizable with an accelerating field of 10 GV/m.
Plasma acceleration is categorized into several types according to how the electron plasma wave is formed:
* plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA): The electron plasma wave is formed by an electron bunch * laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA): A laser pulse is introduced to form an electron plasma wave. * laser beat-wave acceleration (LBWA): The electron plasma wave arises based on different frequency generation of two laser pulses. * self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration (SMLWFA): The formation of an electron plasma wave is achieved by a laser pulse modulated by stimulated Raman forward scattering instability.
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The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity. Technology is an important factor in solving and creating many of the Lifeboat relevant issues.
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