Latest news with #DavidStanway
Japan Today
02-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Today
Global nuclear fusion project crosses milestone with world's most powerful magnet
By David Stanway A much-delayed nuclear fusion project involving more than 30 countries is ready to assemble the world's most powerful magnet - a key part of efforts to generate clean energy by smashing atoms together at super-high temperatures. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, based in southern France and backed by the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the European Union, needs the magnetic system to create an "invisible cage" to confine super-hot plasma particles that combine and fuse to release energy. ITER said late on Wednesday that the final component of the system - the central solenoid - had been completed and tested by the United States, and assembly was now underway. "It is like the bottle in a bottle of wine: of course the wine is maybe more important than the bottle, but you need the bottle in order to put the wine inside," said Pietro Barabaschi, ITER's director general. The magnet was originally scheduled for completion in 2021, but has been beset by delays. "To be behind schedule by four years after 10 years of effort shows just how troubled this project is," said Charles Seife, a professor at New York University who writes about nuclear fusion. Barabaschi said the "crisis" was now over and construction was proceeding at the fastest pace in ITER's history. The start-up phase of the project will begin in 2033, when it is scheduled to start generating plasma. He said ITER proved that countries could still cooperate despite geopolitical tensions. "They have a very, very strong cohesion of objectives and for the time being I see no sign of a withdrawal from anyone." Fusion investment has been growing, with dozens of initiatives currently underway. Several private start-ups have said they can build commercial fusion reactors within a decade. Barabaschi said he was sceptical but supportive of the dozens of ventures in development across the world. "We already know that we can get fusion," he said. "The question is, are we going to get fusion in such a way that it would be cost-effective? "I am quite sceptical that we will be able to achieve this within, say, one or even two decades. Frankly speaking, it will take more time." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Global nuclear fusion project crosses milestone with world's most powerful magnet
By David Stanway SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A much-delayed nuclear fusion project involving more than 30 countries is ready to assemble the world's most powerful magnet - a key part of efforts to generate clean energy by smashing atoms together at super-high temperatures. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, based in southern France and backed by the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the European Union, needs the magnetic system to create an "invisible cage" to confine super-hot plasma particles that combine and fuse to release energy. ITER said late on Wednesday that the final component of the system - the central solenoid - had been completed and tested by the United States, and assembly was now underway. "It is like the bottle in a bottle of wine: of course the wine is maybe more important than the bottle, but you need the bottle in order to put the wine inside," said Pietro Barabaschi, ITER's director general. The magnet was originally scheduled for completion in 2021, but has been beset by delays. "To be behind schedule by four years after 10 years of effort shows just how troubled this project is," said Charles Seife, a professor at New York University who writes about nuclear fusion. Barabaschi said the "crisis" was now over and construction was proceeding at the fastest pace in ITER's history. The start-up phase of the project will begin in 2033, when it is scheduled to start generating plasma. He said ITER proved that countries could still cooperate despite geopolitical tensions. "They have a very, very strong cohesion of objectives and for the time being I see no sign of a withdrawal from anyone." Fusion investment has been growing, with dozens of initiatives currently underway. Several private start-ups have said they can build commercial fusion reactors within a decade. Barabaschi said he was sceptical but supportive of the dozens of ventures in development across the world. "We already know that we can get fusion," he said. "The question is, are we going to get fusion in such a way that it would be cost-effective? "I am quite sceptical that we will be able to achieve this within, say, one or even two decades. Frankly speaking, it will take more time."
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
South Korea's deadly fires made twice as likely by climate change, researchers say
By David Stanway SINGAPORE (Reuters) -South Korea's worst ever wildfires in March were made twice as likely as a result of climate change and such disasters could become even more frequent if temperatures continue to rise, scientists said on Thursday. Fires in the country's southeast blazed for nearly a week, killing 32 people and destroying around 5,000 buildings before they were brought under control in late March. The fires burned through 104,000 hectares (257,000 acres) of land, making them nearly four times more extensive than South Korea's previous worst fire season 25 years ago. The hot, dry and windy conditions were made twice as likely and 15% more intense as a result of climate change, a team of 15 researchers with the World Weather Attribution group said after combining observational data with climate modelling. South Korea normally experiences cold dry winters and rapid increases in temperature in March and April, making it vulnerable to fires at that time of year, said June-Yi Lee of the Research Center for Climate Sciences at Pusan National University. This year, average temperatures from March 22-26 were 10 degrees Celsius higher than usual in the southeast, and patterns of low and high pressure to the north and south generated the powerful winds that helped the fire spread, she told a briefing. "This year, the size of the impact was very extreme … because of the dry weather, the heat and the high temperatures - a perfect storm of conditions," she said. The weather that drove the fires could become even more common if global warming continues on its current trajectory and rises another 1.3 degrees by 2100. "The models project on average a further increase of about 5% in intensity and a further doubling of the likelihood of similarly extreme events," said Clair Barnes of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London (ICL). The blazes also raised concerns that South Korea's extensive tree planting programme since the 1970s had made the country more fire-prone, and forest management needs to adjust to meet the challenges of extreme heat, said Theo Keeping at ICL's Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires. "Once a wildfire event is extreme enough, it can't be put out with drops from planes and helicopters or from spraying water from the ground … so we need to manage risk before these events happen," he said.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Factbox-What caused the powerful earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand?
By David Stanway SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.7 centred in the Sagaing region near the Myanmar city of Mandalay caused extensive damage in that country and also shook neighbouring Thailand on Friday. HOW VULNERABLE IS MYANMAR TO EARTHQUAKES? Myanmar lies on the boundary between two tectonic plates and is one of the world's most seismically active countries, although large and destructive earthquakes have been relatively rare in the Sagaing region. "The plate boundary between the India Plate and Eurasia Plate runs approximately north-south, cutting through the middle of the country," said Joanna Faure Walker, a professor and earthquake expert at University College London. She said the plates move past each other horizontally at different speeds. While this causes "strike slip" quakes that are normally less powerful than those seen in "subduction zones" like Sumatra, where one plate slides under another, they can still reach magnitudes of 7 to 8. WHY WAS FRIDAY'S QUAKE SO DAMAGING? Sagaing has been hit by several quakes in recent years, with a 6.8 magnitude event causing at least 26 deaths and dozens of injuries in late 2012. But Friday's event was "probably the biggest" to hit Myanmar's mainland in three quarters of a century, said Bill McGuire, another earthquake expert at UCL. Roger Musson, honorary research fellow at the British Geological Survey, told Reuters that the shallow depth of the quake meant the damage would be more severe. The quake's epicentre was at a depth of just 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey. "This is very damaging because it has occurred at a shallow depth, so the shockwaves are not dissipated as they go from the focus of the earthquake up to the surface. The buildings received the full force of the shaking." "It's important not to be focused on epicentres because the seismic waves don't radiate out from the epicentre - they radiate out from the whole line of the fault," he added. HOW PREPARED WAS MYANMAR? The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program said on Friday that fatalities could be between 10,000 and 100,000 people, and the economic impact could be as high as 70% of Myanmar's GDP. Musson said such forecasts are based on data from past earthquakes and on Myanmar's size, location and overall quake readiness. The relative rarity of large seismic events in the Sagaing region - which is close to heavily populated Mandalay - means that infrastructure had not been built to withstand them. That means the damage could end up being far worse. Musson said that the last major quake to hit the region was in 1956, and homes are unlikely to have been built to withstand seismic forces as powerful as those that hit on Friday. "Most of the seismicity in Myanmar is further to the west whereas this is running down the centre of the country," he said.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Record 2024 temperatures accelerate ice loss, rise in sea levels, UN weather body says
By David Stanway SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Record greenhouse gas levels helped bring temperatures to an all-time high in 2024, accelerating glacier and sea ice loss, raising sea levels and edging the world closer to a key warming threshold, the U.N. weather body said on Wednesday. Annual average mean temperatures stood at 1.55 degrees Celsius (2.79 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels last year, surpassing the previous 2023 record by 0.1C, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its annual climate report. Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to strive to limit temperature increases to within 1.5C above the 1850-1900 average. Preliminary estimates put the current long-term average increase at between 1.34-1.41C, closing in on but not yet exceeding the Paris threshold, the WMO said. "One thing to point out very clearly is that one single year above 1.5 degrees doesn't mean that the level mentioned in the Paris agreement had been formally exceeded," said John Kennedy, WMO's scientific coordinator and lead author of the report. But uncertainty ranges in the data mean that it cannot be ruled out, he said during a briefing. The report said other factors could also have driven global temperature rises last year, including changes in the solar cycle, a massive volcanic eruption and a decrease in cooling aerosols. While a small number of regions saw temperatures fall, extreme weather wreaked havoc across the globe, with droughts causing food shortages and floods and wildfires forcing the displacement of 800,000 people, the highest since records began in 2008. Ocean heat also reached its highest on record and the rate of warming is accelerating, with rising ocean CO2 concentrations also driving up acidification levels. Glaciers and sea ice continued to melt at a rapid rate, which in turn pushed sea levels to a new high. From 2015 to 2024, sea levels have risen by an average of 4.7 millimetres a year, compared to 2.1mm from 1993 to 2002, WMO data showed. Kennedy also warned of the long-term implications of melting ice in Arctic and Antarctic regions. "Changes in those regions potentially can affect the kind of overall circulation of the oceans, which affect climate around the world," he said. "What happens in the poles doesn't necessarily stay at the poles."
