(AGENPARL) – ven 19 gennaio 2024 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, Jan. 19, 2024
LLNL’s Skyfall lab includes a substation programmed to behave as if it were
connected to a live power grid. Researchers can feed signals on voltage,
current and other characteristics as though they were coming from the grid
itself to model possible distribution, transmission and communications
implications of a cyberattack. Photo by LLNL.
… Power play
https://www.ecmag.com/magazine/articles/article-detail/keeping-power-in-play-the-national-effort-to-create-a-more-secure-grid
The U.S. electrical grid, sometimes called the world’s greatest machine,
remains vulnerable to malicious actors due to a combination of age,
complexity and increasing operational connectivity. Defending it has become a
significant priority for security agencies across the U.S. government.
The ability to take control of a local distribution system poses significant
threats to health and safety, but that extreme example is just one form a
cyberattack might take. Threats run the gamut from inconvenient to
catastrophic.
“When we’re talking about a cyberattack, this could be anything from a
kid in the parents’ basement who’s messing around, to organized crime
groups, to highly sophisticated nation-state attacks — those are very
different types of attacks,” said Nate Gleeson, program leader for Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). 
LLNL’s mission focuses on security and defense issues, with cybersecurity
now high on its priorities list. The facility’s Skyfall laboratory (yes,
named for the James Bond film) has become a critical resource for helping
LLNL’s researchers better understand and protect against grid-threatening
attacks. The facility connects real-world equipment, including a grid-scale
power substation, with high-performance computers to model how transmission
and distribution systems might respond to a broad range of power
irregularities caused by bad actors (or just really bad weather).
“The Skyfall laboratory allows us to merge our high-­performance computing
simulation capabilities with the actual hardware that is being used on the
electric grid,” Gleeson said, describing work his group carried out to help
California utilities understand the possible damage cyber criminals could
cause to the state’s power system. 
Read More
https://www.ecmag.com/magazine/articles/article-detail/keeping-power-in-play-the-national-effort-to-create-a-more-secure-grid
An artistic rendition of how a new computational modeling system simulates a
cancer cell traveling through the human body. To account for millions of
cellular interactions, it only creates detailed simulations of cells in the
immediate vicinity of the cancer cell as it circulates in the bloodstream.
Image courtesy of Duke University.
… Tracking the stream of cancer cells

The Power of Adaptive Physics Refinement

Biomedical engineers at Duke University and Lawrence Livermore National Lab
(LLNL) have significantly enhanced the capabilities of a computational model
that simulates the movement of individual cancer cells across long distances
within the entire human body.
Called “Adaptive Physics Refinement (APR),” the approach captures
detailed cellular interactions and their effects on cellular trajectory,
offering invaluable insights into the travels of metastatic cancer cells.
Deciphering the dynamics of how cancer cells navigate through the body’s
blood vessels remains a critical and complex issue in cancer studies, crucial
for early detection and potential targeted treatment. Studying these
processes in living patients, however, is not feasible, and instead requires
advanced computational models to simulate cancer cell dynamics. The team has
created advancing computational methods that explore these fundamental
processes for over a decade. But even supercomputers have their limits.
To calculate the trajectory of a single cancer cell, models must capture its
microscopic interactions with the surrounding red blood cells. The human
body, however, contains around 25 trillion red blood cells and five liters of
blood. Using today’s largest supercomputers, state-of-the-art models can
only recreate a region containing 1% of this volume at cellular resolution
— a limited domain that still includes several hundred million red blood
cells.
To skirt this issue, a large team with collaborators from LLNL and Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL, has taken a new approach. Extending the lab’s
existing algorithm to include interactions with millions of neighboring red
blood cells, APR creates a high-resolution window that tracks the cell of
interest as it moves through the vasculature.
Read More

The Power of Adaptive Physics Refinement

An artist’s illustration of an asteroid that would pose an actual threat to
Earth. Asteroid 2016 NF23 will passed by Earth in December but was not
dangerous for anyone here on our planet. Image courtesy of the European Space
Agency.
… Beating asteroids to the punch
https://www.space.com/asteroid-nuclear-defense-model-x-rays-study
Last year, a NASA mission proved that humans could change an asteroid’s
course by crashing into one with a spacecraft. But if an impact alone is not
enough, we do have at least one alternative option: nuking it.
A new study, released after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)
mission successfully moved an asteroid moonlet, shows how a nuclear device
could redirect an errant space rock coming to Earth.
“If we have enough warning time, we could potentially launch a nuclear
device, sending it millions of miles away to an asteroid that is headed
toward Earth,” said Mary Burkey, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory.
Planetary defense researchers are actively investigating the very possibility
of fending off an impending asteroid with a nuclear detonation. As part of
that research, Burkey and colleagues developed a new model that simulates
what a nuclear detonation’s high-energy X-ray emissions will do to an
asteroid.
On paper, nuking an asteroid has advantages over a mission like DART. The
biggest is energy: Nuclear devices are capable of producing more energy per
mass than any human technology. And because space launches must always
minimize mass, a nuclear warhead can deliver a far more powerful punch than a
DART-like spacecraft can ever manage. 
Read More https://www.space.com/asteroid-nuclear-defense-model-x-rays-study
Agricultural biomass results from existing agricultural operations: crop
residues, such as corn stover and cereal straws; processing wastes, such as
cotton gin trash and sugarcane bagasse; and wet waste, such as manure from
livestock and dairy operations. Image by LLNL.
… Biomass is where it’s at
https://www.wri.org/insights/sustainable-biomass-carbon-removal
Biomass can fight climate change, but only if you do it right. To build a
net-zero economy by 2050, biomass needs to come from only those sources that
are truly carbon-negative. As many industries, including carbon removal, turn
to biomass to help fight climate change, sustainable sourcing will be
critical.   
The molecular structure of biomass contains a lot of carbon that originates
from absorbed atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). This means that biomass has
high carbon removal potential when it is used to make products, such as
hydrogen or fuels, and is paired with a method for durable carbon
sequestration.
Biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) can provide decarbonization
benefits both by producing products that replace fossil fuels and by
producing carbon that can be stored. Whereas some plans for biomass
energy prioritize energy generation, BiCRS prioritizes carbon removal and
produces byproducts that can be used for energy.
According to Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s “Road to Removal”
report, the amount of CO2 removal that can be achieved by 2050 in the U.S.
using a sustainable biomass supply is estimated to be 884 million tons per
year, equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted by about 200 million cars each
year.
Read More https://www.wri.org/insights/sustainable-biomass-carbon-removal
DOE recently funded the newly established, LLNL-led IFE STARFIRE Hub, which
seeks to accelerate scientific accelerate inertial fusion energy science and
technology development.  
… The fusion future is looking bright
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/02/fusions_future_is_looking_bright/
To say 2023 was a big year in the world of fusion research would be an
understatement.
After achieving fusion ignition in late 2022, scientists at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF)
repeated the feat in late July, and then twice again in recent months,
bringing to four the total number of times they’ve managed to generate more
energy from a small pellet of fusion fuel than they put in.
We’re finally on the path to fusion energy, however, we’re still likely a
long way off from production fusion reactors.
With the Department of Energy recently releasing $42 million in funds for
fusion energy research divided between LLNL, Colorado State University and
the University of Rochester, the fusion forecast is calling for some
breakthroughs.
Read More
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/02/fusions_future_is_looking_bright/
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