Paragon Energy Solutions’ Post

The team at SEMAPCT, a U.S. Department of Transportation supported research center at CCNY, led by CCNY Grove School of Engineering's Anil Agrawal will host a virtual symposium on the protection of Bridge Piers from Large Ship Impacts on August 7, 2024. This is the first major technical event that will discuss status of the technology and research in this area and will explore the future needs to improve the safety of our bridges.  The symposium will be held on Zoom and is open to the public. The Frances Key Bridge in Baltimore stood for more than half a century until it collapsed when a massive ship it was never designed to withstand collided with it. Ship collision design provisions, established in 1991, well after the bridge was built, suggest that the chance of collision was extremely low, estimated to be around 1/100,000. This risk assessment, which ultimately proved to be overly optimistic, likely contributed to a false sense of security about the bridge’s vulnerability and may have impeded proactive measures to reinforce the structure.   National ship collision provisions have been mostly unchanged since they were published about 35 years old. The guidelines were derived from 1970s experiments focused on protecting the reactors of nuclear-powered ships from collision by other ships. The studies utilized 1:10 scale models and were geared towards ship-to-ship impacts rather than ship-to-bridge collisions. In addition to these substantial limitations, the provisions also failed to consider the scale and impact force generated by modern, significantly larger freighters that are now in operation. Although the Key Bridge was not constructed in accordance with these later-established provisions, its collapse under conditions deemed extremely unlikely by these standards underscores the pressing need for a comprehensive reassessment and possible revision of these guidelines. This is urgently needed to support the extensive, ongoing national efforts dedicated to evaluating and mitigating the risks of vessel collisions with existing bridge infrastructure.   To register and for further information on the symposium, visit:  https://lnkd.in/epHdQvbC Professional Engineers registered in New York State will receive approximately six (6) PDH hours upon confirmation of attendance during each of the presentations during the symposium.

Following the SBIR award, Aspen won its first R&D 100 award. The R&D 100 Awards is an annual award program that recognizes the top 100 technological innovations of the year across various fields, including industry, academia, and government research institutions. These awards highlight groundbreaking advancements in science and technology that have the potential to significantly impact society and industry.   In 2003, A spinoff Aspen Aerogels Inc.'s Flexible Aerogels received the R&D 100 Award for their exceptional contributions to thermal insulation technology. This recognition underscored the innovative nature of Aspen's aerogel products and their potential to revolutionize insulation solutions across various industries, including aerospace, construction, and energy.   Aspen's Flexible Aerogels demonstrated remarkable properties such as low thermal conductivity, flexibility, and ease of use, making them ideal for a wide range of applications, including cryogenic insulation for space shuttle launch applications.

Dr. Paul Quayle discusses the intricacies of space electronics at today's AFRL Regional Network - Midwest Annual Meeting. Here are 3 key takeaways: 1. Diamond emerges as a top contender for SWAP, and is predicted to be more resilient against solar and interstellar radiation. 2. GLCT, along with our AFRL collaborators, is at the forefront of advancing diamond electronics technology. 3. The AFRL network's strength lies in its capacity to foster and amplify relationships and collaboration across industry sectors, universities, and service branches. GLCT Team is excited about the future possibilities and advancements in space electronics!

Ineresting but.....reactor power-per-unit is just 1/10 of a conventional PWR/BWR... and the technology & equipoment investment huge.....and of course it still will produce nuclear waste.

This is absolutely something we need bipartisan efforts to correct- whether it’s AI, cloud computing advancements, or electric vehicle charging, the power grid needs a plan to enable US businesses to excel. Power outages in Central and South America occur still, so we’re talking about 1/2 the globe without excess power, even as more and more tech requires it. #infrastructure #ai #innovation

David Uberti provides an interesting outlook on America's energy demands. States that can provide clean energy may be positioned to attract America's Tech companies who are actively expanding across the country. I am openly an advocate for Nuclear Power, as such my opinion presents a bias. States seeking to create high-paying jobs should consider the advantage it would put them in to be able to meet the energy demands of projects like Microsoft supercomputer requiring 5 gigawatts of energy.

Chromacity 1280nm ultrafast laser demonstrates effectiveness in US Government lab. Chromacity Ltd, a world leader in the design and development of ultrafast femtosecond and picosecond infra-red lasers, has been cited on new research done by Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, USA. Sandia National Laboratories is one of the pre-eminent US Government labs, with a mission to undertake research focused on US national security, energy and nuclear. This research was focused on simulating the effectiveness of new semiconductor devices for radiation hardened applications. Sandia used the Chromacity 1280 ultra-fast laser as part of their system to simulate radiation-induced events in logic circuits. High energy particles are known to induce permanent or transitory effects in semiconductor devices. The recent outage in the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft, where its memory was damaged was likely caused by a high energy particle strike. Semiconductor devices are becoming more vulnerable to damage caused by high energy particles. Electronics in space have always been vulnerable, with engineers developing an array of countermeasures to mitigate the issues caused by these high energy events. Semiconductor devices are rapidly adopting process technologies with smaller feature sizes, exacerbating the problem and potentially opening up the possibility of damage in devices used in terrestrial applications. The Chromacity 1280 has a 1280nm centre wavelength and is able to deliver sub 250fs pulses at a 100MHz repetition rate. It is part of a family of fixed wavelength femtosecond lasers, utilising Chromacity’s patented hybrid free space and fibre architecture, delivering class leading efficiency in a compact and robust form factor. More information about the research can be found here.  https://lnkd.in/emnNHN6m More information about the 1280 laser and other members of the family can be found here. https://lnkd.in/efmRehnq

📢 Veridian Master Plan (3/3)  🔥A Breakthrough Battery: Grid Scale Storage for Speed and Scale 🔥 The Veridian Ecosystem with its SuperGrid and SuperFuel is enabled by one breakthrough innovation: The Radical Ion Flow Battery developed out of Sandia National Laboratories. Vanadium Redox batteries are advantageous because of their electron-based, reversible chemistry and flow battery architecture. The Vanadium chemistry minimizes capacity fade and the battery can be scaled easily with the size of the tanks. Vanadium is expensive, so Li-ion batteries outperformed commercially. The Radical-Ion Flow Battery, licensed to Veridian, allows the Company to replicate this Radical-Ion Chemistry and Flow Battery architecture using Lithium and Sodium which are much less expensive. https://lnkd.in/gQkmHvJ4

📢 Veridian Master Plan Part 3 I'm excited to release the third and final piece of the Veridian Master plan: a Breakthrough Battery for grid-scale storage. I spent the last year and a half designing and engineering the Veridian ecosystem around a suite of advanced technologies from Sandia National Laboratories in a novel architecture. It centers around 3 big ideas that I identified as critical for transitioning the world to sustainable energy quickly to meet zero 2050 goals during my time at Stanford University Graduate School of Business as a Sloan Fellow: 1) SuperGrid – A Layer 2 for the Grid (Grid Resilience) 2) SuperFuel - A Rechargeable Fuel (Clean Energy Transport & Long Duration Storage) 3) Breakthrough Battery - Grid Scale Energy Storage for Speed & Scale (Grid-scale Storage) I founded Veridian on the belief that the spirit of innovation, technical excellence, and sincerity towards the mission that allowed us to build the first Atomic Bomb and send a man on the moon will allow us to succeed in this generation’s transition to net zero. I've been excited to work on such an ambitious problem with amazing individuals and large organizations. Cheers to more exciting work in 2024!