We are sending this month’s FE eNews out midway through since a very special and rare opportunity is happening this coming week with our first Story #1. As you know, IRI focuses on program areas of energy, propulsion, and bioenergetics. To me, it is unusual to find another group taking this same gauntlet and running with it. However, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has done just that, along with the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE), with a five (5) day conference from Jan. 18-22, 2022, FREE and online too. Normally, this "Advanced Propulsion & Energy" program is held in person only in Boston MA and the previous years are not easily accessible. Plus this year, the event is being run by a retired Lockheed Skunkworks engineer, Charles Chase, so the quality of the presenters is up there. Not only is Dr. Thibado’s graphene electricity spearheading the lineup on Saturday at 11 AM EST but on Thursday at 4:15 PM EST, you can see NASA’s Dr. Harold (Sonny) White talking about his passion for warp drive.

Story #5 is a big surprise since many of us thought that magnetic confinement would remain about 25 years in the future forever. Instead, we hear that Tokamak Energy, a private company funded by the US DOE, claims that it now has achieved twice the efficiency of its superconducting magnets. Therefore, the news is that Tokamak Energy Has Just Made a Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion (interestingengineering.com) and hope that means energy from actual nuclear fusion is close at hand.

Sincerely,

The Fourth Advanced Propulsion and Energy Meeting - APE 22 hosted by UnLAB at MIT, is scheduled this Tuesday, January 18 through Saturday, January 22. The online program is free and open to the public, with Zoom links at the bottom of each page of the Agenda. Presentations are scheduled from 10:00 to 5:00 PM EST (eastern time zone) with the Zoom meeting starting at 9:30 AM.

Saturday (1/22) is a Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) Symposium hosted by Professor Garret Moddel (UC Boulder) and Professor Dan Sheehan (UC San Diego). Prof. Paul Thibado (U of Arkansas) will be presenting at 11 AM EST his research on continuous electricity generation from fluctuating graphene, which took him ten years to discover how to charge capacitors with this free energy from the quantum vacuum. Also, Dr. Dan Sheehan will be discussing the many ways the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is being challenged.

 "We need to take strong action now," states Charles Chase, Director and Co-Founder of the UnLab at MIT. "The planet is on a rapid course to be less habitable for us and the current biome. We believe there are ideas, technologies, and new science that can change the course. Given the right conditions, the concerted efforts of a few can alter everything". He further stated, "We try to create an environment to explore such ideas with real and varied discussions and the freedom to speculate and be an explorer. Discussing disparate fields can bring about breakthroughs in understanding, and most importantly, refine our "questions. We wish to further the work by forming collaborations needed to answer these key questions.

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Here are some of the themes being presented each day:

In conjunction with the SSE, papers based on all the talks given during the week will be considered for a special issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration.

For further information, please go to the UnLab at MIT website.

According to The Drive, the plan is to truck the X-59 to its Texas plant for structural tests before bringing it back to the U.S. Air Force's Plant 42 in Palmdale, California where it was under construction since 2018. It will undergo its first round of flight testing at the site known for hosting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter assembly line. 

Researchers in Belgium have unveiled the design for a fabric that could keep a person warm when worn one way, while cooling them down if worn inside out. Through simulations, Muluneh Abebe and colleagues at the University of Mons showed how the infrared-emitting properties of their “Janus textile” could allow it to be comfortably worn across a temperature range of 13°C. Although large-scale manufacturing of the material is not yet feasible, the researchers hope their results will inspire further research into similar fabrics. In previous studies, researchers have shown that some materials can absorb infrared radiation from the wearer’s skin, and then allow it to escape from a highly emissive outer surface. The effect of this is to cool the wearer in warm environments.

InterestingEngineering.com January 2022

Tokamak Energy, a company working on nuclear fusion technology, has recently announced a major breakthrough in its research and development. Testing of its cryogenic power electronic technology for its superconducting magnet's high-efficiency operation was, by all accounts, a big success. 

The company's bid to provide the world with near-limitless energy uses a combination of spherical tokamaks and high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. According to reports, tests of the new power electronics showed twice the efficiency of previous systems. “We have now invented a new type of cryogenic power supply, based on the latest power electronics devices, that is highly efficient at low temperatures. This means we have the potential to reduce cryogenic capital and running costs for HTS magnets, by 50%, or more. This novel approach will provide significant cost savings, contributing to the achievement of commercial fusion energy,” said Tokamak Energy CEO Chris Kelsall. 

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