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crazytown's JournalWorld's Largest Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor Clears Milestone
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is set to launch operations in 2025
(snip)The world’s first commercial-scale fusion reactor project is on track to officially launch operations at the end of 2025, said spokeswoman Sabina Griffith, but it will take at least a decade to fully power up the facility.
“The date for First Plasma is set; we will push the button in December 2025,” Griffith said. “It will take another 10 years until we reach full deuterium-tritium operations.”
Thirty-five nations are cooperating on the project to bring fusion power to the masses.
Achieving controlled fusion reactions that net more power than they take to generate, and at commercial scale, is seen as a potential answer to climate change. Fusion energy would eliminate the need for fossil fuels and solve the intermittency and reliability concerns inherent with renewable energy sources. The energy would be generated without the dangerous amounts of radiation that raises concerns about fission nuclear energy.
Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-experiment-clears-milestone/
Vox: Yang wants to bet big on nuclear power.
Thorium and Fusion reactors. There are no working prototypes on the books (yet).
Andrew Yang wants to bet big on nontraditional nuclear power
So Yang proposes massive subsidies for two somewhat speculative alternatives to traditional nuclear reactors. The first, nuclear fusion, involves crashing hydrogen isotopes together at high speeds so that they fuse together, releasing energy; this is the same process through which the sun produces heat. The radioactive materials involved in fusion stay dangerous for a matter of decades, not thousands of years, but after decades of effort, no one has figured out how to make a fusion reactor that “breaks even”: that produces more energy than is needed to heat the reactor up to 100 million degrees Kelvin to cause the fusion reaction in the first place.
That said, there are a number of physicists and private companies around the world trying to make fusion power economically viable, and Yang’s plan is designed in hopes that additional subsidies would get them closer.
Yang’s plan is even higher on the prospects of thorium power. Thorium is a more common element than uranium (and, according to its proponents, easier to mine) but decays into uranium-233, meaning thorium can be used as initial fuel for a nuclear reactor. Advocates of thorium (and there are many in futurist circles) argue that thorium reactors will produce far less waste than traditional uranium reactors, and waste that is radioactive for hundreds rather than thousands of years.
Thorium power is less speculative than fusion, but still in its infancy as a technology. The US briefly ran an experimental reactor using uranium-233 in the 1960s, and both China and India have thorium reactors in development. Yang’s plan to invest $50 billion to have thorium and/or fusion reactors coming online by 2027 may be optimistic but would arguably help the US keep pace with those countries.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/26/20833263/andrew-yang-climate-plan
H-e-l-l-o N-e-v-a-d-a !!
I love Elizabeth Warren's goofy. From that big goofy wave that kicks off her stump speech to the sprinkles of Mom-humor throughout, Elizabeth is the happy warrior, at ease with herself, her message and her mission.
Can you tell me what Kamala Harris' candidacy is about? (Q. for Harris supporters)
HARRIS SUPPORTERS and ADVOCATES ONLY
This is an honest question. If you asked me to put the candidacies of Bernie, Elizabeth, Joe and Pete into a paragrahs, what is distinctive: their beliefs, priorities and, signature policies, I could do so in a few words.
For example, Elizabeth Warren is a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. Her number 1 priority is ending corruption - In TR's words "to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day". Elizabeth believes that people and corporations must play by the rules (her Republican background) and those rules must be fair, compassionate, and enforced against all (particularly the powerful). Her signature policy, is the wealth tax which would fund assistance for opportunity, particularly for women - federally funded childcare, pre-k, health care, tuition free public college and student loan relief. It is her story - single mothers from modest backgrounds can reach for the stars.
What has registered for me so far about Kamala's campaign is her 3am agenda (to give everyday people peace of mind), and the LIFT tax proposal.
How would you sum up Senator Harris' campaign?
Trump claims he has 'absolute right' to order US companies out of China under 1977 law
CNN, August 24, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/24/politics/trump-china-trade-war-emergency-economic-powers-act/index.html
Trump claims he has 'absolute right' to order US companies out of China under 1977 law
On Friday, China unveiled a new round of retaliatory tariffs on about $75 billion worth of US goods, the latest escalation in an on-going trade war that's putting a strain on the world's two largest economies. In response, Trump wrote on Twitter later Friday: "Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China including bringing ...your companies HOME and making your products in the USA."
When leaving the White House for the G7 summit in France, Trump told reporters, "I have the absolute right to do that, but we'll see how it goes." He later explained that he was referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and in a Friday tweet wrote: "For all of the Fake News Reporters that don't have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!"
Silly me. I thought the Absolute Right of Kings went out with the Magna Carta. Monday fun on Wall Street.
Trump says he was "kidding" when he called himself the "chosen one"
Source: CBS News
President Trump tweeted Saturday that he was "kidding" and "being sarcastic" when he called himself the "chosen one" to undertake trade negotiations with China. Earlier this week, Mr. Trump tweeted out the claim that Israeli Jews view him as the "second coming of God."
In a news conference Wednesday, the president defended the escalating trade war with China, saying he was the "chosen one" to take on China in trade. He tweeted Saturday that his comments were just a joke.
"When I looked up to the sky and jokingly said 'I am the chosen one,' at a press conference two days ago, referring to taking on Trade with China, little did I realize that the media would claim that I had a 'Messiah complex,'" Mr. Trump tweeted Saturday.
"They knew I was kidding, being sarcastic, and just having fun. I was smiling as I looked up and around. The MANY reporters with me were smiling also. They knew the TRUTH. And yet when I saw the reporting, CNN, MSNBC and other Fake News outlets covered it as serious news & me thinking of myself as the Messiah. No more trust!" Mr. Trump continued.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-chosen-one-president-says-he-was-kidding-and-being-sarcastic-2019-08-24/
Trump Asserts He Can Force U.S. Companies to Leave China
Source: New York Times
BIARRITZ, France -- President Trump asserted on Saturday that he has the authority to make good on his threat to force all American businesses to leave China, citing a national security law that has been used mainly to target terrorists, drug traffickers and pariah states like Iran, Syria and North Korea.
As he arrived in France for the annual meeting of the Group of 7 powers, Mr. Trump posted a message on Twitter citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, a law originally meant to enable a president to isolate criminal regimes not sever economic ties with a major trading partner over a tariff dispute.
"For all of the Fake News Reporters that don't have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977," Mr. Trump wrote. "Case closed!"
The president's threat to all but cut off one of America's most important trading relationships could disrupt a global economy already on the edge of recession amid his trade war while further unsettling giant companies in the United States that rely on China in their production and sale of everything from clothing to smart telephones.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/world/europe/trump-g7-summit.html
Trump claims he has 'absolute right' to order US companies out of China under 1977 law
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/24/politics/trump-china-trade-war-emergency-economic-powers-act/index.html
Presumably SCOTUS would be asked (again) to review the exercise of executive authority vested in the president by legislation. Difficult decisions for Gorsuch and Blackout Brett.
Trump plans to open US consulate in Greenland after row over offer to buy
Source: The Guardian
The Trump administration is planning to open a US consulate in Greenland for the first time in decades, amid increased strategic and economic interest in the Danish territory.
The state department said in a letter to Congress that re-establishing a consulate in Nuuk is part of a broader plan to increase the US presence in the arctic. A copy of the letter was obtained by the Associated Press.
The US has a “strategic interest in enhancing political, economic, and commercial relationships across the Arctic region”, said the letter to the Senate foreign relations committee.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/donald-trump-us-consulate-greenland-denmark
Trump said Danish PM is 'a wonderful woman', after she phoned and said nice things about him.
“We had a great conversation, he told reporters before leaving the White House for the G7 summit in France. “We have a very good relationship with Denmark … Very nice. She put a call in and I appreciated it very much.”
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