(AGENPARL) – ven 23 febbraio 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, Feb. 23, 2024
An atmospheric river making landfall on the U.S. West Coast. Simulation by
LLNL’s Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM).
… Planning for the future
https://www.diablomag.com/health-wellness/solving-the-climate-crisis-with-ai/article_46d9788e-ca23-11ee-aa84-b72854bf8fef.html
From students cheating with ChatGPT to artificially generated “deepfake”
videos, the downsides of artificial intelligence (AI) are causing alarm. But
AI’s potential upsides also are far-reaching.
Software models that predict what will happen to our planet as the climate
changes are an important tool for dealing with the environmental crisis.
Peter Caldwell, lead of the Climate Modeling Group at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL), described them as “digital copies of the planet
that we can fast-forward.”
There are two reasons to do climate modeling now, Caldwell explained: “One
is to make better policy decisions. The other is to plan for the future.”
Since an increase in extreme weather events is very likely over the next 50
years, planning for the future may involve reinforcing dams and building up
seawalls. To do that effectively, we need detailed predictions.
The Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM), created by the
LLNL along with scientists from Sandia National Laboratories and other
Department of Energy labs, does just that. SCREAM can simulate the entire
Earth’s future climate for years, predicting extreme weather events down to
a few miles’ radius.
SCREAM doesn’t contain any AI. And yet the team needs AI to make effective
use of SCREAM. That’s because the model can only run on the world’s
mightiest supercomputers, as it requires a massive amount of computing power.
That’s where AI comes into play. In collaboration with the Allen Institute
for AI, Caldwell’s team created machine learning algorithms to complement
SCREAM. The team can have SCREAM simulate a short period of time, then use
machine learning to estimate what’s likely to happen next.
“We’re using AI to emulate the behavior of the high-resolution model,
just much, much faster,” Caldwell said.
Read More
https://www.diablomag.com/health-wellness/solving-the-climate-crisis-with-ai/article_46d9788e-ca23-11ee-aa84-b72854bf8fef.html
AI can be used to detect failures in aging power lines. Image by Adobe Stock.
… Tapping AI to detect grid defects

Energy companies tap AI to detect defects in an aging grid

A rapid advancement of AI and machine-learning technology has opened the door
to faster detection of potential failures in aging power lines, guiding
transmission owners on how to upgrade the grid to meet clean energy and
extreme weather challenges.**
President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI last October emphasized
caution.. Safety requires “robust, reliable, repeatable and standardized
evaluations of AI systems,” the order said, “as well as policies,
institutions, and as appropriate, other mechanisms to test, understand and
mitigate risks from these systems before they are put to use.”
There also is a case for accelerating AI’s adoption, according to
Department of Energy experts speaking at a recent conference. Balancing
supply and demand on the grid is becoming more complex as renewable
generation replaces fossil power plants.
“There are definitely risks associated with AI,” said Colin Ponce, a
computational mathematician at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “A
lot of utilities have a certain amount of hesitation about it because they
don’t really understand what it will do.
“If we get too scared of AI and completely put the brakes on, I fear that
will hinder our ability to respond to real threats and significant risk we
already have evidence for, like climate change,” he said.**
Read More

Energy companies tap AI to detect defects in an aging grid

Lasers pummeled a small cylinder called a hohlraum (shown) in experiments
aimed at generating nuclear fusion. The hohlraum acts like an X-ray oven,
heating a capsule within that holds the heavy types of hydrogen that act as
the fuel. Photo by Jason Laurea/LLNL.
… A lot of artwork goes into science

Here’s how scientists reached nuclear fusion ‘ignition’ for the first time

One of nuclear fusion’s biggest advances wouldn’t have happened without
some impeccable scientific artistry.
In December 2022, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
created fusion reactions that produced an excess of energy — a first. In
the experiment, 192 lasers blasted a small chamber, setting off fusion
reactions — in which smaller atomic nuclei merge to form larger ones —
that released more energy than initially kicked them off. It’s a milestone
known as “ignition,” and it has been decades in the making.
Now, researchers have released details of that experiment in five
peer-reviewed papers published online Feb. 5 in /Physical Review Letters/ and
/Physical Review E/. The feat demanded an extraordinary level of finesse,
tweaking conditions just so/ /to get more energy out of the lasers and create
the ideal conditions for fusion.
After decades of slow progress on fusion, scientists are beginning to get
their atomic orchestras in sync.
Read More https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-fusion-ignition-first
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers and their collaborators
have created a new responsive material called a liquid crystal elastomer,
made by incorporating liquid crystals into the molecular structure of a
stretchable material. Adding gold nanorods to the material, the researchers
created photo-responsive inks and 3D printed structures that could be made to
bend, crawl and move when exposed to a laser light. Photos by Michael
Ford/LLNL.
… Can you see the light
https://hitechglitz.com/researchers-are-developing-light-responsive-material-for-soft-robots/
Researchers have developed a new 3D-printable, light-responsive material that
can be used to create machines that move without electronics.
These “soft robots” or “soft machines” are made of a new material, a
so-called liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), in which gold nanorods are
embedded. So far, the researchers have successfully used their material to
print rollable cylinders, forward-moving “crawlers” and lattice
structures that oscillate when exposed to laser light.
“Rigid robots might not be ideal for interacting with humans, so we need
systems and materials that are more compliant,” said lead author of the
research Michael Ford, a postdoctoral fellow in the High Performance
Materials group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “You start with
the components that make up our robots, and one of those components is an
actuator. This is where these materials come into play; They could
potentially be an actuator.
“It reduces computational complexity; They make a material that eliminates
the need for onboard electronics and replaces them with a single material
that can do all of these things,” he said. “This will allow you to put
more computational effort into another component or power other sensors,
which would not have been possible with traditional rigid materials.”
Read More
https://hitechglitz.com/researchers-are-developing-light-responsive-material-for-soft-robots/
Microbes can break down any molecule in soil. Image by Adobe Stock.
… Dishing the dirt on soil microbes
https://www.farmingportal.co.za/index.php/agri-index/86-other/6681-a-soil-science-revolution-upends-plans-to-fight-climate-change
With civilization continuing to pump ever-increasing amounts of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere, perhaps plants — nature’s carbon scrubbers
— might be able to package up some of that excess carbon and bury it
underground for centuries or longer.
That hope has fueled increasingly ambitious climate change mitigation plans.
Over the past 10 years or so, soil science has undergone a quiet revolution,
akin to what would happen if, in physics, relativity or quantum mechanics
were overthrown. Except in this case, almost nobody has heard about it —
including many who hope soils can rescue the climate.
In the second half of the 20th century, powerful new microscopes and
techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance and X-ray spectroscopy allowed
soil scientists for the first time to peer directly into soil and see what
was there, rather than pull things out and then look at them.
What they found — or, more specifically, what they didn’t find — was
shocking: there were few or no long “recalcitrant” carbon molecules —
the kind that don’t break down. Almost everything seemed to be small and,
in principle, digestible.
“We don’t see any molecules in soil that are so recalcitrant that they
can’t be broken down,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, a soil scientist at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “Microbes will learn to break
anything down — even really nasty chemicals..”
Read More
https://www.farmingportal.co.za/index.php/agri-index/86-other/6681-a-soil-science-revolution-upends-plans-to-fight-climate-change
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