#Construction Applications

[bloggerpost2w322]

Aluminium 6082 Chequered Plates: Strength, Versatility, and Applications

Aluminium 6082 chequered plates, also known as tread plates or diamond plates, are renowned for their strength, lightweight nature, and corrosion resistance. This blog explores the properties, applications, and benefits of Aluminium 6082 chequered plates, emphasizing their importance in construction, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.

Properties of Aluminium 6082 Chequered Plates

Aluminium 6082 chequered plates offer several key properties that make them suitable for diverse applications:

High Strength: Provides excellent structural integrity and load-bearing capacity, ideal for heavy-duty applications.

Lightweight: Aluminium's low density makes 6082 chequered plates easy to handle and install, reducing overall structural weight.

Corrosion Resistance: Resistant to corrosion and weathering, ensuring durability in outdoor and marine environments.

Skid-Resistance: Patterned surface design enhances grip and reduces slipping, making them ideal for flooring and stair treads.

Machinability: Easy to fabricate and machine, allowing for precise cutting and shaping in manufacturing processes.

Recyclability: Fully recyclable without loss of properties, supporting sustainability efforts in construction and manufacturing.

Applications of Aluminium 6082 Chequered Plates

Aluminium 6082 chequered plates find extensive use across various industries and applications:

Transportation: Used in truck beds, trailers, and marine vessels for their durability and skid-resistant properties.

Construction: Ideal for flooring, stair treads, and walkways in commercial buildings, industrial facilities, and outdoor structures.

Manufacturing: Utilized as protective and decorative elements in machinery, equipment, and architectural applications.

Decorative Purposes: Applied in interior design and architectural projects for their aesthetic appeal and functional benefits.

Safety Applications: Employed in industrial settings and public spaces to enhance safety by reducing the risk of slips and falls.

Benefits of Aluminium 6082 Chequered Plates

Aluminium 6082 chequered plates offer several advantages, making them a preferred choice in various applications:

Enhanced Safety: Provides a secure, non-slip surface, improving safety in high-traffic areas and industrial environments.

Longevity: Resistant to corrosion, abrasion, and wear, ensuring extended service life with minimal maintenance.

Versatility: Available in different patterns, thicknesses, and sizes to suit specific application requirements.

Cost-Effectiveness: Lower installation and maintenance costs compared to alternative materials, contributing to overall project savings.

Environmental Sustainability: Fully recyclable and energy-efficient during production, supporting green building initiatives.

Conclusion

Aluminium 6082 chequered plates are essential in industries where safety, durability, and aesthetics are paramount. Their unique patterned surface and robust properties make them versatile for various applications in transportation, construction, manufacturing, and decorative uses. Understanding the properties and benefits of Aluminium 6082 chequered plates underscores their significance in enhancing safety, efficiency, and sustainability across diverse sectors.

[medicaldevicesindustrynews]

Water-Based Adhesive Specialty Tapes Market Will Advance at a 6.5% CAGR

The water-based adhesive specialty tapes market will reach USD 9,514.9 million, advancing at a 6.5% compound annual growth rate, by 2030. The progression of the water-based adhesive specialty tapes industry is primarily attributed to the growing automotive sector, advantages offered by water-based adhesive specialty tapes as compared to conventional bonding approaches, and surging demand for…

[cmipooja]

Global Sanding Block Market Is Estimated To Witness High Growth Owing To Increasing Demand for DIY Home Improvement Projects

The global Sanding Block Market is estimated to be valued at US$ 363.11 million in 2022 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 3.50% over the forecast period (2023-2030), as highlighted in a new report published by Coherent Market Insights. Market Overview: Sanding blocks are essential tools used for smoothing and polishing surfaces such as wood, metal, and other materials. These blocks provide better control and even pressure distribution while sanding, resulting in a smooth and polished finish. Sanding blocks are widely used in various industries, including woodworking, automotive, construction, and DIY projects. They offer several advantages such as improved grip, durability, easy handling, and versatility. With the growing trend of DIY home improvement projects and increasing demand for quality finishes, the market for sanding blocks is expected to witness significant growth. Market key trends: One key trend in the sanding block market is the rise in DIY home improvement projects. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of homeowners opting for DIY projects to enhance the aesthetics of their homes. Sanding blocks play a crucial role in sanding and polishing surfaces before applying paint or varnish. The DIY trend has created a demand for user-friendly tools that provide professional-quality results. Sanding blocks with ergonomic designs and easy-to-use features are gaining popularity among DIY enthusiasts. For example, Festool GmbH, one of the key players in the sanding block market, offers a range of sanding blocks with innovative features such as dust extraction systems and interchangeable sanding pads. These blocks are designed to provide comfort and precision during sanding, making them ideal for DIY projects. PEST Analysis: 1. Political: The sanding block market is not significantly affected by political factors. However, government regulations related to worker safety and environmental concerns may impact the manufacturing and distribution of sanding blocks. 2. Economic: The economic stability and growth of a region directly affect the demand for sanding blocks. A robust economy with increased construction activities and infrastructure development drives the market growth. 3. Social: The growing awareness among consumers about the importance of maintaining and improving the aesthetics of their homes has fueled the demand for sanding blocks. Additionally, the popularity of DIY projects among millennials and Generation Z has created a lucrative market for sanding blocks. 4. Technological: Technological advancements in sanding block manufacturing have resulted in the development of advanced features such as ergonomic designs, dust extraction systems, and interchangeable sanding pads. These technological innovations enhance the efficiency and performance of sanding blocks. Key Takeaways: 1. The Global Sanding Block Market Demand is expected to witness high growth, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.50% over the forecast period, due to increasing demand for DIY home improvement projects. Sanding blocks provide users with professional-quality results and ease of use, making them essential tools for DIY enthusiasts. 2. North America dominates the sanding block market due to the rising trend of DIY projects and increasing renovation activities. The region is expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period.

[bubbloquacious]

Okay so to get the additive group of integers we just take the free (abelian) group on one generator. Perfectly natural. But given this group, how do we get the multiplication operation that makes it into the ring of integers, without just defining it to be what we already know the answer should be? Actually, we can leverage the fact that the underlying group is free on one generator.

So if you have two abelian groups A,B, then the set of group homorphisms A -> B can be equipped with the structure of an abelian group. If the values of homorphisms f and g at a group element a are f(a) and g(a), then the value of f + g at a is f(a) + g(a). Note that for this sum function to be a homomorphism in general, you do need B to be abelian. This abelian group structure is natural in the sense that Hom(A ⊗ B,C) is isomorphic in a natural way to Hom(A,Hom(B,C)) for all abelian groups A,B,C, where ⊗ denotes the tensor product of abelian groups. In jargon, this says that these constructions make the category of abelian groups into a monoidal closed category.

In particular, the set End(A) = Hom(A,A) of endomorphisms of A is itself an abelian group. What's more, we get an entirely new operation on End(A) for free: function composition! For f,g: A -> A, define f ∘ g to map a onto f(g(a)). Because the elements of End(A) are group homorphisms, we can derive a few identities that relate its addition to composition. If f,g,h are endomorphisms, then for all a in A we have [f ∘ (g + h)](a) = f(g(a) + h(a)) = f(g(a)) + f(h(a)) = [(f ∘ g) + (f ∘ h)](a), so f ∘ (g + h) = (f ∘ g) + (f ∘ h). In other words, composition distributes over addition on the left. We can similarly show that it distributes on the right. Because composition is associative and the identity function A -> A is always a homomorphism, we find that we have equipped End(A) with the structure of a unital ring.

Here's the punchline: because ℤ is the free group on one generator, a group homomorphism out of ℤ is completely determined by where it maps the generator 1, and every choice of image of 1 gives you a homomorphism. This means that we can identify the elements of ℤ with those of End(ℤ) bijectively; a non-negative number n corresponds to the endomorphism [n]: ℤ -> ℤ that maps k onto k added to itself n times, and a negative number n gives the endomorphism [n] that maps k onto -k added together -n times. Going from endomorphisms to integers is even simpler: evaluate the endomorphism at 1. Note that because (f + g)(1) = f(1) + g(1), this bijection is actually an isomorphism of abelian groups

This means that we can transfer the multiplication (i.e. composition) on End(ℤ) to ℤ. What's this ring structure on ℤ? Well if you have the endomorphism that maps 1 onto 2, and you then compose it with the one that maps 1 onto 3, then the resulting endomorphism maps 1 onto 2 added together 3 times, which among other names is known as 6. The multiplication is exactly the standard multiplication on ℤ!

A lot of things had to line up for this to work. For instance, the pointwise sum of endomorphisms needs to be itself an endomorphism. This is why we can't play the same game again; the free commutative ring on one generator is the integer polynomial ring ℤ[X], and indeed the set of ring endomorphisms ℤ[X] -> ℤ[X] correspond naturally to elements of ℤ[X], but because the pointwise product of ring endomorphisms does not generally respect addition, the pointwise operations do not equip End(ℤ[X]) with a ring structure (and in fact, no ring structure on Hom(R,S) can make the category of commutative rings monoidal closed for the tensor product of rings (this is because the monoidal unit is initial)). We can relax the rules slightly, though.

Who says we need the multiplication (or addition, for that matter) on End(ℤ[X])? We still have the bijection ℤ[X] ↔ End(ℤ[X]), so we can just give ℤ[X] the composition operation by transfering along the correspondence anyway. If p and q are polynomials in ℤ[X], then p ∘ q is the polynomial you get by substituting q for every instance of X in p. By construction, this satisfies (p + q) ∘ r = (p ∘ r) + (q ∘ r) and (p × q) ∘ r = (p ∘ r) × (q ∘ r), but we no longer have left-distributivity. Furthermore, composition is associative and the monomial X serves as its unit element. The resulting structure is an example of a composition ring!

The composition rings, like the commutative unital rings, and the abelian groups, form an equational class of algebraic structures, so they too have free objects. For sanity's sake, let's restrict ourselves to composition rings whose multiplication is commutative and unital, and whose composition is unital as well. Let C be the free composition ring with these restrictions on one generator. The elements of this ring will look like polynomials with integers coefficients, but with expressions in terms of X and a new indeterminate g (thought of as an 'unexpandable' polynomial), with various possible arrangements of multiplication, summation, and composition. It's a weird complicated object!

But again, the set of composition ring endomorphisms C -> C (that is, ring endomorphisms which respect composition) will have a bijective correspondence with elements of C, and we can transfer the composition operation to C. This gets us a fourth operation on C, which is associative with unit element g, and which distributes on the right over addition, multiplication, and composition.

This continues: every time you have a new equational class of algebraic structures with two extra operations (one binary operation for the new composition and one constant, i.e. a nullary operation, for the new unit element), and a new distributivity identity for every previous operation, as well as a unit identity and an associativity identity. We thus have an increasing countably infinite tower of algebraic structures.

Actually, taking the union of all of these equational classes still gives you an equational class, with countably infinitely many operations. This too has a free object on one generator, which has an endomorphism algebra, which is an object of a larger equational class of algebras, and so on. In this way, starting from any equational class, we construct a transfinite tower of algebraic structures indexed by the ordinal numbers with a truly senseless amount of associative unital operations, each of which distributes on the right over every previous operation.

[lonestarflight]

This photograph shows activities during assembly of the Skylab cluster at the Vehicle Assembly/Checkout building. The Saturn V S-IVB stage is shown at left, and right is the Orbital Workshop (OWS) being readied for mating to the thruster. The S-IVB stage was modified to house the OWS, which provided living and working quarters for the Skylab crews. The Marshall Space Flight Center had responsibilities for the design and development of the Skylab hardware, and management of experiments.

Date: 1970

NASA ID: S70-19524

[sergeifyodorov]

had a dream a couple nights ago chris kreider was a panther. the dream was about something entirely different but my subconscious brain was so confused i spent the back half of it post-panther-discovery trying to dig up capfriendly so i could figure out when that fucking happened

[butterholmes]

hi guys....sorry for not posting sherlocktober things....

Here's an artwork I did today to fill out an application for something

Lmk if this seems good!!

Here's the concept description that I wrote that was required

This art piece is based off of an song by Kimya Dawson & Antsy Pants, the name is “Tree Hugger.” In this work I used the sticker notes to write the lyrics. The rattlesnake wants to show affection to the cactus, having the desire to become a man merely to have hands to hug the cactus. Of course the cactus refuses the love and affection that it's been offered because of its spikes that could end up hurting the rattlesnake. Instead, the cactus suggests that the rattlesnake give the flower the cactus has sprouted a hug instead, still only with eyes. This symbolizes a common scenario within many relationships where one person is willing to give the other all the love and respect they deserve, but because of the other's fear of hurting them that person backs away and denies the love. Afraid of making their friend go away, they still accept the minimum amount of affection.

[135-film]

every time i hear anything art-related on tiktok, i immediately get really like... upset? annoyed? idk. unpleasant feeling because it's literally always "we're making fun of this child/beginner for their anatomy or how they color" or whatever else or pretending that an artists deserve to be treated like a piece of corporate media.

i know tiktok is literally the devil and hell incarnate, but i don't think any artist deserves to be targets of mass harassment especially not people who are just starting out (and even more especially not children).

if tiktok was a thing when i was younger and i was posting my art on there, i would never fucking draw ever again. my art career would've ended after a few months of drawing "seriously," and i really do mean it lol. call me sensitive or whatever, but a 13-15 year old does not need to hear whatever criticism you think they need to hear i promise.

[gristlegrinder]

aughhhhhh i hate writing character bios with a hard character limit. let me out of this prison of my own creation

[smartratework]

pvc electric red and blue wire #smartratework#tumblr

[beach4boy3]

Seismic Pallet Rack, Racking, new and used, shelving, cantilever rack (concord / pleasant hill / martinez)

[divinekangaroo]

Of course the corollary to ‘women writing for women audiences/readers is inherently queer’ is that all other media made by men ostensibly for a male audience is also really fucking queer

[vaguegrant]

Let's check in on science today and

huh. okay then:

Astronauts probably don't want to be living in houses made from scabs and urine.

Science says so.

[gideonisms]

I can't read the aj book reviews on goodreads though because I feel like people collectively did not get that the gender thing was A) in service to her other themes not the entire point of the book B) not a girlboss everyone's a woman now thing either

[lonestarflight]

"Workers at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana install the H-1 engines into the S-IB-11 stage, the Saturn IB launch vehicle's first stage. Developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and built by the Chrysler Corporation at MAF, the 90,000-pound booster utilized eight H-1 engines to produce a combined thrust of 1,600,000 pounds."

This S-IB stage was part of the SA-211 launch vehicle and was never used. It was on display at the Alabama Welcome Center on I-65 in Ardmore, Alabama in 1979. While there were plans to remove it for restoration, it was discovered to be too far gone and was dismantled for disposal earlier this year.

Date: 1967-68

NASA ID: 6757861

[jcmarchi]

Nuclear Power Renaissance with Molten Salts - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nuclear-power-renaissance-with-molten-salts-technology-org/

Nuclear Power Renaissance with Molten Salts - Technology Org

A science team is reinventing nuclear energy systems via molten salt technologies.

A retro wonder gleaming white in the sun, propelled by six rear-facing rotors and four jet engines affixed to the longest wings ever produced for a combat aircraft, the Convair B-36 Peacemaker looks like it flew right out of a 1950s science fiction magazine.

Frozen uranium containing fuel salt (NaF-BeF2-UF4), inside a glovebox in Raluca Scarlat’s SALT lab. Illustration by Sasha Kennedy/UC Berkeley

One of these bombers, which flew over the American Southwest from 1955 to 1957, was unique. It bore the fan-like symbol for ionizing radiation on its tail. The NB-36H prototype was designed to be powered by a molten salt nuclear reactor — a lightweight alternative to a water-cooled reactor.

Nuclear-propelled aircraft like the NB-36H were intended to fly for weeks or months without stopping, landing only when the crew ran short of food and supplies. So what happened? Why weren’t the skies filled with these fantastical aircraft?

“The problem was that nuclear-powered airplanes are absolutely crazy,” says Per F. Peterson, the William S. Floyd and Jean McCallum Floyd Chair in Nuclear Engineering. “The program was canceled, but the large thermal power to low-weight ratio in molten salt reactors is the reason that they remain interesting today.”

Because of numerous concerns, including possible radioactive contamination in the event of a crash, the idea of nuclear-powered aircraft never took off. But nuclear submarines, using water as coolant, completely replaced their combustion-powered predecessors. Civilian reactors were built on the success of submarine systems, and as a result, most nuclear reactors today are cooled with water.

Professor Per Peterson holds a single fuel pebble, which can produce enough electricity to power a Tesla Model 3 for 44,000 miles. Illustration by Adam Lau / Berkeley Engineering

While most water-cooled reactors can safely and reliably generate carbon-free electricity for decades, they do present numerous challenges in terms of upfront cost and efficiency.

Molten salt reactors, like those first designed for nuclear-powered aircraft, address many of the inherent challenges with water-cooled reactors. The high-temperature reaction of such reactors could potentially generate much more energy than water-cooled reactors, hastening efforts to phase out fossil fuels.

Now, at the Department of Nuclear Engineering, multiple researchers, including Peterson, are working to revisit and reinvent molten salt technologies, paving the way for advanced nuclear energy systems that are safer, more efficient and cost-effective — and may be a key for realizing a carbon-free future.

Smaller, safer reactors

In the basement of Etcheverry Hall, there’s a two-inch-thick steel door that looks like it might belong on a bank vault. These days, the door is mostly left open, but for two decades it was the portal between the university and the Berkeley Research Reactor, used mainly for training. In 1966, the reactor first achieved a steady-state of nuclear fission.

Fission occurs when the nucleus of an atom absorbs a neutron and breaks apart, transforming itself into lighter elements. Radioactive elements like uranium naturally release neutrons, and a nuclear reactor harnesses that process.

Concentrated radioactive elements interact with neutrons, splitting themselves apart, shooting more neutrons around and splitting more atoms. This self-sustaining chain reaction releases immense amounts of energy in the form of radiation and heat. The heat is transferred to water that propels steam turbines that generate electricity.

The reactor in Etcheverry Hall is long gone, but the gymnasium-sized room now houses experiments designed to test cooling and control systems for molten salt reactors. Peterson demonstrated one of these experiments in August. The Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET) is a 30-foot-tall steel tower packed with twisting pipes.

The apparatus uses heat transfer oil to model the circulation of molten salt coolant between a reactor core and its heat exchange system. CIET is contributing extensively to the development of passive safety systems for nuclear reactors.

After a fission reaction is shut down, such systems allow for the removal of residual heat caused by radioactive decay of fission products without any electrical power — one of the main safety features of molten salt reactors.

The first molten salt reactor tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1950s was small enough to fit in an airplane, and the new designs being developed today are not much larger.

Conventional water-cooled reactors are comparatively immense — the energy-generating portion of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County occupies approximately 12 acres, and containment of feedwater is not the only reason why.

The core temperature in this type of reactor is usually kept at some 300 degrees Celsius, which requires 140 atmospheres of pressure to keep the water liquid. This need to pressurize the coolant means that the reactor must be built with robust, thick-walled materials, increasing both size and cost. Molten salts don’t require pressurization because they boil at much higher temperatures.

In conventional reactors, water coolant can boil away in an accident, potentially causing the nuclear fuel to meltdown and damage the reactor. Because the boiling point of molten salts are higher than the operational temperature of the reactor, meltdowns are extremely unlikely.

Even in the event of an accident, the molten salt would continue to remove heat without any need for electrical power to cycle the coolant — a requirement in conventional reactors.

“Molten salts, because they can’t boil away, are intrinsically appealing, which is why they’re emerging as one of the most important technologies in the field of nuclear energy,” says Peterson.

The big prize: efficiency

Assistant professor Raluca Scarlat uses a glovebox in her Etcheverry Hall lab. Illustration by Adam Lau / Berkeley Engineering

To fully grasp the potential benefits of molten salts, one has to visit the labs of the SALT Research Group. Raluca O. Scarlat, assistant professor of nuclear engineering, is the principal investigator for the group’s many molten salt studies.

Scarlat’s lab is filled with transparent gloveboxes filled with argon gas. Inside these gloveboxes, Scarlat works with many types of molten salts, including FLiBe, a mixture of beryllium and lithium fluoride. Her team aims to understand exactly how this variety of salt might be altered by exposure to a nuclear reactor core.

On the same day that Peterson demonstrated the CIET test, researchers in the SALT lab were investigating how much tritium (a byproduct of fission) beryllium fluoride could absorb.

Salts are ionic compounds, meaning that they contain elements that have lost electrons and other elements that have gained electrons, resulting in a substance that carries no net electric charge. Ionic compounds are very complex and very stable. They can absorb a large range of radioactive elements.

This changes considerations around nuclear waste, especially if the radioactive fuel is dissolved into the molten salt. Waste products could be electrochemically separated from the molten salts, reducing waste volumes and conditioning the waste for geologic disposal.

Waste might not even be the proper term for some of these byproducts, as many are useful for other applications — like tritium, which is a fuel for fusion reactors.

Salts can also absorb a lot of heat. FLiBe remains liquid between approximately 460 degrees and 1460 degrees Celsius. The higher operating temperature of molten salt coolant means more steam generation and more electricity, greatly increasing the efficiency of the reactor, and for Scarlat, efficiency is the big prize.

“If we filled the Campanile with coal and burned it to create electricity, a corresponding volume of uranium fuel would be the size of a tennis ball,” says Scarlat. “Having hope that we can decarbonize and decrease some of the geopolitical issues that come from fossil fuel exploration is very exciting.”

“Finding good compromises”

Thermal efficiency refers to the amount of useful energy produced by a system as compared with the heat put into it. A combustion engine achieves about 20% thermal efficiency. A conventional water-cooled nuclear reactor generally achieves about 32%.

According to Massimiliano Fratoni, Xenel Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, a high-temperature, molten salt reactor might achieve 45% thermal efficiency.

So, with all the potential benefits of molten salt reactors, why weren’t they widely adopted years ago? According to Peter Hosemann, Professor and Ernest S. Kuh Chair in Engineering, there’s a significant challenge inherent in molten salt reactors: identifying materials that can withstand contact with the salt.

Anyone who’s driven regularly in a region with icy roads has probably seen trucks and cars with ragged holes eaten in the metal around the wheel wells. Salt spread on roads to melt ice is highly corrosive to metal. A small amount of moisture in the salt coolant of a nuclear reactor could cause similar corrosion, and when combined with extreme heat and high radiation, getting the salt’s chemistry right is even more critical.

Hosemann, a materials scientist, uses electron microscopes to magnify metal samples by about a million times. The samples have been corroded and or irradiated, and Hosemann studies how such damage alters their structures and properties. These experiments may help reactor designers estimate how much corrosion to expect every year in a molten salt reactor housing.

Hosemann says molten salt reactors present special engineering challenges because the salt coolant freezes well above room-temperatures, meaning that repairs must either be done at high temperatures, or the coolant must first be drained.

Commercially successful molten salt reactors then will have to be very reliable, and that won’t be simple. For example, molten salt reactors with liquid fuel may be appealing in terms of waste management, but they also add impurities into the salt that make it more corrosive.

Liquid fuel designs will need to be more robust to counter corrosion, resulting in higher costs, and the radioactive coolant presents further maintenance challenges.

Nuclear engineering graduate students Sasha Kennedy and Nathanael Gardner, from left, work with molten salt. Illustration by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering

“Good engineering is always a process of finding good compromises. Even the molten salt reactor, as beautiful as it is, has to make compromises,” says Hosemann.

Peterson thinks the compromise is in making molten salt reactors modular. He was the principal investigator on the Department of Energy-funded Integrated Research Project that conducted molten salt reactor experiments from 2012 to 2018.

His research was spun off into Kairos Power, which he co-founded with Berkeley Engineering alums Edward Blandford (Ph.D.’10 NE) and Mike Laufer (Ph.D.’13 NE), and where Peterson serves as Chief Nuclear Officer.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission just completed a review of Kairos Power’s application for a demonstration reactor, Hermes, as a proof of concept. Peterson says that high-temperature parts of Kairos Power’s reactors would likely last for 15 to 25 years before they’d need to be replaced, and because the replacement parts will be lighter than those of conventional reactors, they’ll consume fewer resources.

“As soon as you’re forced to make these high-temperature components replaceable, you’re systematically able to improve them. You’re building improvements, replacing the old parts and testing the new ones, iteratively getting better and better,” says Peterson.

Lowering energy costs

California is committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2045. It’s tempting to assume that this goal can be reached with renewables alone, but electricity demand doesn’t follow peak energy generating times for renewables. 

Natural gas power surges in the evenings as renewable energy wanes. Even optimistic studies on swift renewable energy adoption in California still assume that some 10% of energy requirements won’t be achieved with renewables and storage alone.

Considering the increasing risks to infrastructure in California from wildfires and intensifying storms, it’s likely that non-renewable energy sources will still be needed to meet the state’s energy needs.

Engineers in the Department of Nuclear Engineering expect that nuclear reactors will make more sense than natural gas for future non-renewable energy needs because they produce carbon-free energy at a lower cost. In 2022, the price of natural gas in the United States fluctuated from around $2 to $9 per million BTUs.

Peterson notes that energy from nuclear fuel currently costs about 50 cents per million BTUs. If new reactors can be designed with high intrinsic safety and lower construction and operating costs, nuclear energy might be even more affordable.

Molten salt sits on a microscope stage in professor Raluca Scarlat’s lab. Illustration by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering

Even if molten salt reactors do not end up replacing natural gas, Hosemann says the research will still prove valuable. He points to other large-scale scientific and engineering endeavors like fusion reactors, which in 60 years of development have never been used commercially but have led to other breakthroughs.

“Do I think we’ll have fusion-generated power in our homes in the next five years? Absolutely not. But it’s still valuable because it drives development of superconductors, plasmas and our understanding of materials in extreme environments, which today get used in MRI systems and semiconductor manufacturing,” says Hosemann. “Who knows what we’ll find as we study molten salt reactors?”

Source: UC Berkeley

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