(AGENPARL) – ven 10 giugno 2022 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for the content in the links below.
LLNL Report, June 10, 2022
Engineers work outside the structure where the array of lasers at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are focused.
[One big deal](http://www.history.com/news/largest-tools-in-the-world)
For every power tool and piece of equipment in the average tool shed or garage, there’s a super-sized version out there. When challenged to build some of the world’s largest structures and most powerful machines, engineers need tools that are sized up to the task. Here are some of the biggest and brawniest industrial and scientific tools on the planet.
The world’s most powerful laser is actually 192 separate beams aimed at a target roughly the size of a pencil eraser. Inside the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, these lasers emit a blinding flash of light lasting only a billionth of a second but delivering 2 million joules of energy. Temperatures at the target site instantly reach 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.
The job of this ultra-powerful laser is to apply extreme heat and pressure — similar to the conditions found inside stars — to fuse hydrogen atoms together and release massive amounts of energy (fusion reaction). Scientists hope that this technology will usher in an era of unlimited, carbon-free energy.
[Read More](http://www.history.com/news/largest-tools-in-the-world)
The Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s Martinez, California, refinery. A plan released by the California Air Resources Board recommends most of the state’s oil refineries install carbon capture technology by 2030. Such technology could be used to capture carbon emissions, so they don’t go out into the atmosphere. Photo courtesy of Marathon Petroleum Corporation.
The California Air Resources Board’s proposal, called a scoping plan, outlines policies that would transition the economy away from fossil fuels. The purpose of the plan is to fulfill state mandates to reduce planet-warming emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.
George Peridas, director of carbon management partnerships at Lawrence Livermore, said California is well-positioned to launch carbon capture and storage projects in parts of the state with deep sedimentary rock formations, including the Central Valley, which could serve as prime locations to store carbon dioxide.
“The Central Valley has a world class geology — that means just the right kinds of rocks for safe and permanent storage,” he said. “Carbon capture and storage is well-understood, heavily regulated, available for deployment today and has an overwhelmingly positive track record.”
Globally 27 carbon capture and storage projects are operating so far.
Three testbed machines for LLNL’s future exascale El Capitan all ranked among the top 200 on the latest Top500 List of the world’s most powerful computers, released at the International Supercomputing Conference. Photo by Katrina Trujillo/LLNL.
[Break on through](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/supercomputer-exascale-frontier-speed-record-computing-calculations)
The world’s fastest supercomputer just broke the exascale barrier. This milestone will allow for complex calculations that benefit a wide range of research areas
The world’s fastest supercomputer, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, performed more than a quintillion calculations per second, entering the realm of exascale computing. That’s according to a ranking of the world’s speediest supercomputers called the TOP500. The computer, known as Frontier, is the first exascale computer to be included on the biannual list.
Lawrence Livermore’s three predecessor machines for LLNL’s future exascale system El Capitan managed to rank highly on the latest Top500. El Capitan goes online in 2023.
[Read More](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/supercomputer-exascale-frontier-speed-record-computing-calculations)
Satellite image of the Hunga volcano on Jan. 21, 2022. Image courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
[That’s one big blast](https://earthsky.org/earth/tonga-volcano-biggest-of-21st-century/)
The volcanic blast that destroyed the uninhabited island of Hunga Tonga Ha’apai on Jan. 15 is now officially the largest explosive eruption of the 21st century so far. And it was the largest since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines.