• Terrestrial Energy
• Commercializing a SMR for 2020s deployment
- Cost-competitive with fossil fuel combustion
- Ideal for industrial heat and SMR markets
• Technology – next generation Molten Salt Reactor (“MSR”)
• Proprietary MSR design – the Integral Molten Salt Reactor (“IMSR™”)
• High technology readiness
• Conducting basic/preliminary engineering work
- Concludes with construction and licensing of the first commercial IMSR power plant (400 MWth reactor)
• IMSR development and deployment
• Supported by power utility industry and senior executives, industrial companies, environmentalists and the Canadian Government and DOE
• Commenced VDR with Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (“CNSC”)
- First MSR vendor to commence regulatory process
• Terrestrial Energy is a leading advanced reactor developer in a fast developing cleantech sector
Advantages of Molten Salt Reactors• Safety
• Enhanced ability for passive decay heat removal
• Inherent Stability from strong negative reactivity coefficients
• Low pressure and no chemical driving force
• Caesium and Iodine stable within the fuel salt
• Reduced Capital Cost
• Inherent safety can simplify entire facility
• Low pressure, high thermal efficiency, superior coolants (smaller pumps, heat exchangers). No complex refuelling mechanisms
• Long Lived Waste Issues
• Ideal system for consuming existing transuranic wastes
• Even MSR-Burners can close fuel cycle and see almost no transuranics going to waste
• Resource Sustainability and Low Fuel Cycle Cost
• Thorium breeders obvious but MSR-Burners also very efficient on uranium use
Terrestrial Energy Integral Molten Salt Reactor• LEU fueled MSR-Burner design like the 1980 DMSR
• Integrates all primary systems into a sealed reactor Core unit
• 7 year Core unit “Seal and Swap” approach to graphite lifetime
• Shorter lifetime for vessel and HX simplify qualification
• Planned as 400 MWth (~ 192 MWe)
• Alternate salt and new off gas system
• New passive decay heat removal in situ without dump tanks
• Safety at forefront which leads to cost innovation
In-situ Decay heat removal - New Innovation• Freeze Valve and Dump Tank the “traditional” approach
• Results in unwanted lower penetrations and regulator likely to
assume failure to drain is possible
• IMSR approach has long been in-situ decay heat removal
• Convection and natural circulation brings decay heat to vessel wall
• Radiant transfer to Guard Vessel (Guard=Containment)
• 700 C surface 9x radiant heat compared to 300 C
• From there, water jacket options or PRISM type RVACS
• Reactor Vessel Auxiliary Cooling System
Terrestrial Energy's new “IRVACS”• IMSR utilizes a new innovative concept, proving extremely robust
• Basic concept is a closed cycle innovation of RVACS that retains a further barrier to the outside world
• New “Internal” RVACS or IRVACS moves heat by a closed cycle flow of nitrogen to a false roof acting as a large heat exchanger above the structural roof
• “Fails Better” If roof penetrated, outside air improves performance
• Modeling (including 140 million mesh CFD) showing excellent behavior for even most severe accident scenarios of losing all secondary heat transfer
Challenges solves with IMSR• “Sealed for life” offers enormous regulatory advantages to accelerate development
• Airborne release risk during graphite swap eliminated
• Long cool down time before moving unit
• Material lifetime and corrosion issues greatly eased
• Good fuel economy on Once Through
• Future recycling to “close” fuel cycle and improve fuel economy commercially attractive
• Offers obvious “razor blade” analogy of continuous sales to attract industrial partners
The early days of artificial intelligence (AI) have been met with some very public hand wringing. Well-respected technologists and business leaders have voiced their concerns over the (responsible) development of AI. And Hollywood’s appetite for dystopian AI narratives appears to be bottomless. This is not unusual, nor is it unreasonable. Change, technological or otherwise, always excites the imagination. And it often makes us a little uncomfortable.
But in my opinion, we have never known a technology with more potential to benefit society than artificial intelligence. We now have AI systems that learn from vast amounts of complex, unstructured information and turn it into actionable insight. It is not unreasonable to expect that within this growing body of digital data — 2.5 exabytes every day — lie the secrets to defeating cancer, reversing climate change, or managing the complexity of the global economy.
We also expect AI systems to pervasively support the decisions we make in our professional and personal lives in just a few years. In fact, this is already happening in many industries and governments.
However, if we are ever to reap the full spectrum of societal and industrial benefits from artificial intelligence, we will first need to trust it.
Trust of AI systems will be earned over time, just as in any personal relationship. Put simply, we trust things that behave as we expect them to. But that does not mean that time alone will solve the problem of trust in AI. AI systems must be built from the get-go to operate in trust-based partnerships with people.
The most urgent work is to recognize and minimize bias. Bias could be introduced into an AI system through the training data or the algorithms. The curated data that is used to train the system could have inherent biases, e.g., towards a specific demographic, either because the data itself is skewed, or because the human curators displayed bias in their choices. The algorithms that process that information could also have biases in the code, introduced by a developer, intentionally or not. The developer community is just starting to grapple with this topic in earnest. But most experts believe that by thoroughly testing these systems, we can detect and mitigate bias before the system is deployed.
Managing bias is an element of the larger issue of algorithmic accountability. That is to say, AI systems must be able to explain how and why they arrived at a particular conclusion so that a human can evaluate the system’s rationale. Many professions, such as medicine, finance, and law, already require evidence-based audit ability as a normal practice for providing transparency of decision-making and managing liability. In many cases, AI systems may need to explain rationale through a conversational interaction (rather than a report), so that a person can dig into as much detail as necessary.
In addition, AI systems can and should have mechanisms to insert a variety of ethical values appropriate to the context, such as the task, the individual, the profession, or the culture. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Ethical systems are built around rules, just like computer algorithms. These rules can be inserted during development, deployment, or use. And because these are learning systems, researchers believe that AI systems can, over time, observe human behavior to fill in some of the gaps.
It is incumbent upon the developers of AI systems to answer these questions in a way that satisfies both the industry and the general public. This is already well understood throughout the technology industry, which is why IBM is working together with some of its fiercest competitors — including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook — on the “Partnership on AI,” a unique and open collaboration designed to guide the ethical development of artificial intelligence.
Business leaders considering artificial intelligence solutions should include trust and accountability as part of their criteria for adoption. They should be thoughtful about how and where this technology is introduced throughout the organization. And they should work with their technology vendors to identify any unwanted behaviors and correct them if necessary.
But delaying the implementation of artificial intelligence is not an option. We pay a significant price every day for not knowing what can be known: not knowing what’s wrong with a patient, not knowing where to find a critical natural resource, or not knowing the hidden risks in the global economy. We believe that many of these ambiguities and inefficiencies can be eliminated with artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is an undeniably powerful technology. And as with any powerful technology, great care must be taken in its development and deployment. Just as it is our obligation to apply this technology to complex, societal problems, it is our obligation to develop it in a way that engenders trust and safeguards humanity. In other words, building trust is essential to the adoption of artificial intelligence.
And we believe that its adoption is essential to humanity.
____________________________________________________________
This story first appeared in the Harvard Business Review .
fighter according to a statement by the company.
The PAK-FA—which is under development—is currently powered by a pair of 33,000-pound thrust class Saturn AL-41F1 afterburning turbofans. However, the AL-41F1—a version of which is also installed on the Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker-E—is not powerful enough to meet the requirements for the PAK-FA. Ultimately, the AL-41F is a highly modified derivative of the original Sukhoi Su-27’s AL-31F powerplant.
While the new engine—often referred to as the izdeliye 30—is being designed by the Lyul'ka design bureau under the leadership of general designer-director Eugene Marchukova, it is being tested at the Lytkarinsky Machine-Building Plant. It’s only with the addition of the second stage engine that the PAK-FA will meet the requirements of both the Russian and Indian air forces.
The designers expect to start testing the new engine on fighter jets in 2018, and for the motor to be fully integrated in 2020.
“In addition to the engine, a radar station also needs to be modified, and engineers need to remove the last deficiencies in the airframe concept, which, among all the aircraft flying today, is the most modern in the world,” said the analyst.
The powerplant is expected to deliver 24,054lbs dry thrust and 39,566lbs of afterburning thrust. With the newengine installed, the PAK-FA should be able to offer kinematic performance comparable to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor—cruising without afterburner at speeds exceeding Mach 1.5 with a maximum speed greater than Mach 2.0 at altitudes of around 60,000ft
New PAKFA fighter weapons - 30-mm cannonThe firing unit consists of one of the lightest cannon in its class, the 9-A1-4071K, which is designed to destroy armored vehicles or armored enemy targets. During one flight, the pilot can shoot 150 rounds from the 30-mm cannon.
This new weapon is a modified single-barrel GSh-301 aircraft cannon, used in Russian fighters and bombers.
Aircraft bombsThe future T-50 5th generation fighter will also carry high-explosive and volume-detonating bombs, Sergey Rusakov, General Director of the Techmash Group, announced on September 22.
Rusakov said they are now considering high-explosive incendiary OFZAB-500 aviation bombs for the PAK FA, and volume-detonating ODAB-500PMV, which are currently being used in Russian operations in Syria. Engineers have already produced a set of warheads for future tests.
“The T-50 will go into serial production much later than the Raptor. This allows us to take into consideration all the pros and cons of the existing aircraft when constructing our own fighter. A similar situation existed when we were working on the multi-purpose 4 th generation Su-27 fighter. The prototype of that domestic aircraft came out much later than the American F-16, and took into account the shortcomings of its precursor. As a result, the domestic Sukhoi was able to beat the ‘American,’ in terms of combat characteristics,” Vadim Kozyulin, Professor at the Academy of Military Sciences, told RBTH.
The expert noted that the T-50 would be able to use the full range of existing high-precision air-to-air missiles, as well as all precision-guided munitions.
“As part of the ‘stealth’ concept, special missiles for the PAK FA are being developed, with a square cross section that will allow more warheads to be carried in hatches during combat missions,” Kozyulin added.
SOURCES- RBTH, National Interest
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