Loose Cable Behind CERN Faster-than-light Result

The controversial finding that cast a large shadow of doubt over Einstein’s belief that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light might have been caused by a loose cable, the lab behind the result said. Physicists at the CERN laboratory near Geneva appeared to contradict Albert Einstein last year when they reported that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos could travel fractions of a second faster than light. Einstein had said nothing could travel faster than light.

James Gillies, a spokesman for CERN, said the lab’s startling result was now in doubt. Earlier on Wednesday, the website ScienceInsider reported the surprising result was down to a loose fibre optic cable linking a Global Positioning System satellite receiver to a computer. ScienceInsider is run by the respected American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mr Gillies confirmed a flaw in the GPS system was now suspected as a possible cause for the surprising reading. Gillies’ says further testing was needed before any definite conclusions could be reached :: Read the full article »»»»

SMRs: Back to the Future of Energy – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?

2012 is an historic year for nuclear power, with the first new reactors gaining U.S. government approval in almost 35 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission - NRC – has approved the first nuclear reactors to be built in the U.S. since 1978.

The NRC voted 4-1 in favour of Southern Company building two new nuclear reactors at an existing Georgia plant. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko voted against, expressing concern that the licence was being approved “as if Fukushima never happened”. The reactors are expected to cost $US14 billion/£8.8 billion and could begin operating as early as 2016. No reactors have been approved for construction since a year before the accident at Three Mile Island, a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, in 1979.

Some have seen the approval of the Southern Company’s two Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors – to be built in Georgia – as the start of a revival of nuclear power in the West, but this may be a false dawn because of the problems besetting conventional reactors.

Safety concerns around nuclear power have risen following a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami cut the plant off from the power grid.

In the wake of the Japanese disaster the commission launched a review into whether existing and new US reactors could withstand natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. It may be that when a new boom in nuclear power comes, it won’t be led by giant gigawatt installations, but by batteries of small modular reactors – SMRs – with very different principles from reactors of past generations :: Read the full article »»»»

OPERA :: Faster Than The Speed of Light

Scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research and the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics, under the experiment banner of OPERA  are reporting that sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos have the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, a discovery that if verified, would completely disassemble Einstein’s theory of special as well as general relativity. Or, at the outside these findings – if correct – may force science to re-calculate the speed of light :: Read the full article »»»»