Technology Trends

NASA’s New Horizons mission, which is planned for launch in January 2006, will reach Pluto and Charon — the “double planet” — in July 2015. And a key component for a successful mission is a nuclear space battery using plutonium, and which will carry a ‘Made in Idaho’ sticker. Its general purpose heat source (GPHS) will contain quadruple-encapsulated Plutonium-238 (Pu-238). According to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), this is the only way to power a spacecraft where the Sun’s intensity is only 1 percent of what it is on Earth. It would require a solar array of about the size of a football field to power the spacecraft when it reaches Saturn. So, the only way to achieve this mission is to use another source of energy, plutonium. Read more…

Before going further, let’s read on the New Horizons web site, maintained by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), the reasons to go to Pluto.

Our solar system contains three zones: the inner, rocky planets; the gas giant planets; and the Kuiper Belt. Pluto is the largest body of the icy, “third zone” of our solar system. The National Academy of Sciences placed the exploration of the third zone in general — and Pluto-Charon in particular — among its highest priority planetary mission rankings for this decade. New Horizons is NASA’s mission to fulfill this objective.

Just for your information, the picture above shows the sizes of Pluto and Charon if they were projected on the United States (Credit: JHU/APL).

And this Science Overview gives us more details about the mission.

New Horizons is scheduled to launch in January 2006, swing past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February or March 2007, and reach Pluto and its moon, Charon, in July 2015. Then, as part of an extended mission, the spacecraft would head deeper into the Kuiper Belt to study one or more of the icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit. Sending a spacecraft on this long journey could help us answer basic questions about the surface properties, geology, interior makeup and atmospheres on these bodies.

For more information about this mission to Pluto and Charon, you should read about other key components of the spacecraft and browse this gallery.

Now, it’s time to look at the nuclear space battery which will used for this mission.And let’s start by anecdotal details provided by KIFI, a TV station from Idaho Falls.

The INL is at it again, but this time they are working on a project that doesn’t just affect our town or even the globe, it actually has a universal impact.

Scientists are making a battery that can send a spacecraft to the end of our solar system.

John Kotec, deputy manager at DOE, said, “We think it’s fascinating and fantastic. The thought of something with a ‘Made in Idaho’ sticker on it going to Pluto in 10 years is pretty exciting for us.”

For the mission to be a success, the team at the INL has only a two-week window to get the ship up and out. That’s in 2006. If they don’t make it in time, they’ll have to wait four years for their next chance.

In other words, if this space battery doesn’t work correctly next year, the New Horizons spacecraft will not reach Pluto before 2019.

Now, in “Energizing Space Exploration,” the Idaho National Laboratory gives more details about its own goals, which is to provide the nuclear technology necessary for powering “the most intriguing discoveries in our solar system.” Below is a diagram of the nuclear space battery that will go to Pluto, extracted from a Space Batteries Fact Sheet (PDF format, 2 pages, 470 KB).

The General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) is the building block for the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). These heat sources contain quadruple-encapsulated Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) used to produce heat, which is subsequently converted into electricity.

But why use plutonium?

In space, power is a precious commodity. In Earth’s orbit, a five-foot-square solar panel will produce about 300 watts of electricity which is about as much as an RTG. To produce the same power at Saturn, where the Sun’s intensity is only 1 percent of what it is on Earth, would require a 6,430 square foot solar array — about the size of a football field. A launch of a spacecraft with such a solar array would not be possible. Without systems like these that enable spacecraft to operate reliably and predictably for many years in harsh environments, exploration into the far reaches of the solar system would not be possible.

Will this space battery be ready next year? Stay tuned…

Sources: KIFI, Idaho Falls, June 10, 2005; and various websites

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Imagine a gun sending bullets at 34 kilometers per second, faster than Earth moves through space. This is the new speed record recently broken by the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). With this machine, Sandia researchers have “accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second.” But not for long: their bullets are very small aluminum plates — only 30 mm by 15 mm in cross-section, and 850 microns thick. And the “bullets” don’t go very far. They can strike their targets after only five millimeters, but their impacts create incredible shock waves, reaching up to 15 million times the atmospheric pressure. Among other things, the researchers hope that their machine will help them to stabilize the U.S. nuclear stockpile without having to explode a nuclear weapon or to better understand what’s inside Saturn and Jupiter. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the SNL news release.

Sandia National Labs has accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second.

The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s Z Machine — sometimes referred to as the fastest gun in the West. Actually the fastest in the world, it is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 km/sec that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the sun, 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.

This spectacular picture shows the “arcs and sparks” produced during the Z machine shootings (Credit: Sandia National Laboratories). And here is a link to a larger version (2.52 MB).

The picture above shows Marcus Knudson, Sandia researcher and lead scientist for this project, with “the Z insert that sends flyer plates hurling at phenomenal speeds” (Credit: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories). And here is a link to a much larger version (710 KB).

Here is some more technical information.

The plates are small — only 30 mm by 15 mm in cross-section, and 850 microns thick. The trick in accelerating the fragile aluminum plates at 10-to-the-10th Gs (force of Earth’s gravity) without vaporizing them lies in the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse driving the flight.

The arrival of energy at the target is staggered over three hundred nanoseconds, so that the amperage arrives less like a brick wall that would vaporize the plate and more in controllable increments.

All these numbers are impressive, but what can we expect from such a system? Here is the SNL answer.

The immediate purpose of these very rapid flights is to help understand the extreme conditions found within the interiors of the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter, hasten the achievement of virtually unlimited energy through peacetime atomic fusion, and provide more information about the condition of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without having to explode a nuclear weapon.

As I’m not a nuclear physicist, I wouldn’t have immediately thought of these possible usages. But after all, they’re the specialists.

And they still have other tricks in their bags. They want to achieve plate velocities of 45 to 50 kilometers per second within a year.

Sources: Sandia National Laboratories news release, via EurekAlert!, June 7, 2005; and SNL website

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I don’t know how many of you are willing to pay $1,000 for a bottle of wine, but I’m sure you would like to know if this 50-year old bottle of Bordeaux is still good before purchasing it. Now, you don’t need to open the bottle to discover it. You can get some high-tech help from a wine scanner using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the same technology used in hospital MRI scans. In “Ultimate wine snob,” the Record, from New Jersey, tells us that you can purchase such a scanner for $50,000. Or you can visit the Crystal Springs Country Club, also in New Jersey, where the first NMR wine scanner has been installed, and ask nicely the owner to scan your bottle. If he accepts, you’ll know if the wine has turned into vinegar and if the seal or the cork of the bottle have been altered. But it will not tell you if the wine is really good and deserves its high price. Read more…

Here is a description of this wine scanner, which only can handle one bottle.

The scanner, built last summer and installed in the fall, looks like a shining chrome water heater with a series of pipes and tubes protruding from the top that connect to computer and electronic gear, as well as tanks of liquid nitrogen and liquid helium.

Inside, a series of coils are super-cooled, a strong magnetic field is created, and the apparatus sends radio frequencies through the glass that can pick up the levels of acetic acid, or vinegar, and acid aldehyde, another compound that can make wine taste foul. A program tweaked to read the spectroscopy analysis runs on a desktop computer hooked up to the device.

This wine scanner is based on wine research done at the Augustine Research Group of chemists at the University of California at Davis.

The Record tells us more about this scanner works.

“It’s basically an MRI for a wine bottle,” says Matt Augustine, the UC-Davis professor who came up with the idea and now acts as operations manager for the [Wine Scanner, Inc.] Morristown start-up.

Scans show distinct peaks for certain elements and compounds in the wine and can detect acetic acid at less than one-tenth the amount that would spoil wine, Augustine says.

Eugene Mulvihill, the New Jersey developer who licensed the technology from UC-Davis and built the first scanner in his Crystal Springs Country Club to check his multimillion-dollar wine cellar, thinks that other people might be interested in this $50,000 wine scanner.

Mulvihill believes auction houses or people with large private collections might want to use his scanner. “You’re not talking an $8 bottle of wine; you’re talking a $1,000 bottle of wine, and you want it to be perfect,” said Mulvihill, who has demonstrated the machine’s findings at tastings in Manhattan.

It’s not yet clear whether a potential market exists for the wine scanner. Mulvihill’s hopeful but says he’s not in a rush.

If you’re interested by the research work behind this wine scanner, a paper has been published by the Journal of Magnetic Resonance (Volume 161, Issue 1, Pages 91-98, March 2003) under the name “Using NMR to study full intact wine bottles.”

Here is a link to the abstract.

A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) probe and spectrometer capable of investigating full intact wine bottles is described and used to study a series of Cabernet Sauvignons with high resolution ¹H NMR spectroscopy. Selected examples of full bottle ¹³C NMR spectra are also provided. The application of this full bottle NMR method to the measurement of acetic acid content, the detection of complex sugars, phenols, and trace elements in wine is discussed.

And in the full paper (PDF format, 8 pages, 407 KB), you’ll find a diagram of the experimental setup used to obtain the NMR spectrum of full intact wine bottles.

Finally, if you happen to visit the Crystal Springs Country Club and its Restaurant Latour, you’ll be able to know if one of its 50 vintages of Chateau Latour is still good before pocketing $2,000 or more. Enjoy your dinner!

Sources: Martha McKay, The Record, Hackensack, New Jersey, May 12, 2005; and various websites

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According to this news release from the National Science Foundation (NSF), American researchers have developed a porous-silicon diode that “convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.” The new ‘BetaBattery’ is more efficient than conventional chemical batteries and potentially cheap to manufacture. It uses a radioactive source as its fuel, the tritium, an hydrogen isotope. When the tritium releases electrons in a process called beta decay, the ‘BetaBattery’ generates electricity by absorbing these electrons. So far, the ‘BetaBattery’ doesn’t deliver as much power as chemical batteries, but it could be extremely useful to power devices which have a long life and are difficult to service, such as structural sensors in bridges and satellites. Read more…

Here is the description of the ‘BetaBattery’ concept.

Using some of the same manufacturing techniques that produce microchips, researchers have created a porous-silicon diode that may lead to improved betavoltaics. Such devices convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.

While producing as little as one-thousandth of the power of conventional chemical batteries, the new “BetaBattery” concept is more efficient and potentially less expensive than similar designs and should be easier to manufacture.

The battery’s staying power is tied to the enduring nature of its fuel, tritium, a hydrogen isotope that releases electrons in a process called beta decay. The porous-silicon semiconductors generate electricity by absorbing the electrons, just as a solar cell generates electricity by absorbing energy from incoming photons of light.

This is not the first time that a radioactive element or even the tritium is used. The real difference of this new device is not its source.

The new cell will have a unique advantage — the half-millimeter-thick silicon wafer into which researchers have etched a network of deep pores. This structure vastly increases the exposed surface area, creating a device that is 10 times more efficient than planar designs.

On the photo below, “Wei Sun of the University of Rochester holds the wafer test fixture the researchers used to test the new porous-silicon diode and its interactions with tritium gas. The diode is the dark wafer in the center of the top plate.” (Credit: University of Rochester; BetaBatt, Inc.)

You can see a larger version of this picture and other images on this page at NSF.

And what will be some applications for these future batteries?

“The initial applications will be for remote or inaccessible sensors and devices where the availability of long-life power is critical,” says Larry Gadeken of BetaBatt, [the only commercial entity involved in this research].

If the new diode proves successful when incorporated into a finished battery, it could help power such hard-to-service, long-life systems as structural sensors on bridges, climate monitoring equipment and satellites.

If you’re interested by the subject, the research work has been published by Advanced Materials on May 3, 2005 (Volume 17, Issue 10, Pages 1230-1233), under the name “A Three-Dimensional Porous Silicon p-n Diode for Betavoltaics and Photovoltaics.” Here is a link to the paper if you’re a registered user (there is no abstract).

And please note that BetaBatt, from Houston, is already selling “a quarter size battery with a 12-20 year lifespan and mission critical reliability” based on its patent number 6,774,531 which carries the name “Apparatus and method for generating electrical current from the nuclear decay process of a radioactive material.”

Sources: National Science Foundation news release, May 10, 2005; and various websites

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In a very interesting article appearing in the May issue of Technology Review, “Environmental Heresies,” Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog writes that the environmental movement should — and maybe will — reverse its opinion on several controversial subjects. He says that environmentalists should be more opened and look at different eyes to issues such as population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power. Will Brand be heard — or be anathematized by other environmentalists? Time will tell. However, you should read his arguments, even if you’re not part of a so-called ‘green’ movement. Read more…

I don’t want to summarize the whole article and here I just want to focus on nuclear energy. But before, and even I don’t want to enter a debate about genetically modified crops, here is a short — and surprising — quote of what Brand thinks about them.

GM crops are more efficient, giving higher yield on less land with less use of pesticides and herbicides. That’s why the Amish, the most technology-suspicious group in America (and the best farmers), have enthusiastically adopted GM crops.

Now, let’s look at the issues of climate change and the global warming effect caused by our appetite for energy currently mostly satisfied by burning fossil fuels. Can a catastrophe be avoided? Here are some excerpts of Brand’s thoughts.

First, what alternative sources of energy are available today?

Everything must be done to increase energy efficiency and decarbonize energy production. Kyoto accords, radical conservation in energy transmission and use, wind energy, solar energy, passive solar, hydroelectric energy, biomass, the whole gamut. But add them all up and it’s still only a fraction of enough. Massive carbon “sequestration” (extraction) from the atmosphere, perhaps via biotech, is a widely held hope, but it’s just a hope. The only technology ready to fill the gap and stop the carbon dioxide loading of the atmosphere is nuclear power.

Nuclear plants are certainly atmospherically clean, but are they safe?

Nuclear certainly has problems — accidents, waste storage, high construction costs, and the possible use of its fuel in weapons. It also has advantages besides the overwhelming one of being atmospherically clean. The industry is mature, with a half-century of experience and ever improved engineering behind it. Problematic early reactors like the ones at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl can be supplanted by new, smaller-scale, meltdown-proof reactors like the ones that use the pebble-bed design. Nuclear power plants are very high yield, with low-cost fuel.

Brand also looks at the problem of storing radioactive waste and offers an innovative solution, even if I don’t see it today as being easily implemented.

The storage of radioactive waste is a surmountable problem. Many reactors now have fields of dry-storage casks nearby. Those casks are transportable. It would be prudent to move them into well-guarded centralized locations. Many nations address the waste storage problem by reprocessing their spent fuel, but that has the side effect of producing material that can be used in weapons. One solution would be a global supplier of reactor fuel, which takes back spent fuel from customers around the world for reprocessing. That’s the kind of idea that can go from “Impractical!” to “Necessary!” in a season, depending on world events.

So is nuclear energy in our future? Maybe yes, maybe not.

Nuclear could go either way. It would take only one more Chernobyl-type event in Russia’s older reactors (all too possible, given the poor state of oversight there) to make the nuclear taboo permanent, to the great detriment of the world’s atmospheric health. Everything depends on getting new and better nuclear technology designed and built.

Finally, after reading Brand’s article and/or these excerpts about nuclear energy, do you think that environmentalists will one day embrace the idea of nuclear plants? Please post your comments below.

Sources: Stewart Brand, for Technology Review, May 2005; Wikipedia website

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