Google and a leading nuclear fusion company have developed a new computer algorithm which has significantly speeded up experiments on plasmas, the ultra-hot balls of gas at the heart of the energy technology.
Tri Alpha Energy, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has raised over $500m (£383m) in investment. It has worked with Google Research to create what they call the Optometrist algorithm. This enables high-powered computation to be combined with human judgement to find new and better solutions to complex problems.
Nuclear fusion, in which atoms are combined at extreme temperatures to release huge amounts of energy, is exceptionally complex. The physics of nuclear fusion involves non-linear phenomena, where small changes can produce large outcomes, making the engineering needed to suspend the plasma very challenging.
“The whole thing is beyond what we know how to do even with Google-scale computer resources,” said Ted Baltz, at the Google Accelerated Science Team. So the scientists combined computer learning approaches with human input by presenting researchers with choices. The researchers choose the option they instinctively feel is more promising, akin to choosing the clearer text during an eye test.
“We boiled the problem down to ‘let’s find plasma behaviours that an expert human plasma physicist thinks are interesting, and let’s not break the machine when we’re doing it’,” said Baltz. “This was a classic case of humans and computers doing a better job together than either could have separately.”
Working with Google enabled experiment’s on Tri Alpha Energy’s C2-U machine to progress much faster, with operations that took a month speeded up to just a few hours. The algorithm revealed unexpected ways of operating the plasma, with the research published on Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports. The team achieved a 50% reduction in energy losses from the system and a resulting increase in total plasma energy, which must reach a critical threshold for fusion to occur.
“Results like this might take years to solve without the power of advanced computation,” said Michl Binderbauer, president and chief technology officer at Tri Alpha Energy. He said the company was aiming to produce electricity within a decade and Tri Alpha Energy recently added former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz to its board of directors.
The C-2U machine ran an experiment every eight minutes. This involved blasting plasma with a beam of hydrogen atoms to keep it spinning in a magnetic field for up to 10 milliseconds. The aims was to see if it behaved as theory predicts and is a promising route to a fusion reactor that generates more energy than it consumes.
The Optometrist algorithm enabled the researchers to discover a configuration in which the hydrogen beam completely balanced the cooling losses, meaning the total energy in the plasma actually went up after formation. “It was only for about two milliseconds, but still, it was a first!” said Baltz.
The C2-U machine has now been replaced with a more powerful and sophisticated machine called Norman, after the company’s late co-founder Norman Rostoker. It achieved first plasma earlier in July and if experiments on Norman are successful, Tri Alpha Energy will next build a demonstration power generator.
Nuclear fusion has long held the hope of clean, safe and limitless energy and interest has increased as the challenge of climate change and the need to cut carbon emissions has become clear. But despite 60 years and billions of dollars of research, it has yet to be achieved and commercial scale nuclear fusion is still likely to be decades away.
But numerous other groups are chasing the nuclear fusion dream, with the largest by far the publicly funded Iter project in southern France. The €18bn (£16bn) project is a partnership of the US, the European Union, China, India, South Korea, Russia and Japan, and is building a seven-storey facility.
Iter uses a conventional tokamak, or doughnut-shaped, reactor and aims to create its first plasma in 2025, scaling up to its maximum power output by 2035. If successful, Iter could be the foundation of the first fusion power plants.
Other groups are experimenting with different fusion reactor designs that might be better and, in particular, smaller. A €1bn reactor opened in Germany in 2016 uses a stellarator in which the plasma ring is shaped like a Mobius strip, giving it the potential to operate continuously, rather than in pulses as in a tokamak.
There are also a series of private companies, staffed by experienced fusion researchers, including General Fusion, which uses a vortex of molten lead and lithium to contain the plasma and is backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
David Kingham, chief of Tokamak Energy said the Tri Alpha Energy was exciting progress: “While publicly funded laboratories excel at fundamental research, the private sector can innovate and adopt new technologies much more rapidly.” In April, Tokamak Energy achieved first plasma in a new reactor, its third in five years, and aims to reach the 100m degrees centigrade needed for fusion in 2018.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, departs after returning to the Senate to vote on health care legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
U.S. politics
After a months-long struggle, Republicans succeeded in bringing Obamacare repeal legislation to a debateon the U.S. Senate floor. Republican Senator John McCain appealed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to start over by having a Senate committee, in a bipartisan way, craft new healthcare legislation. His proposal was promptly ignored.
Top Republican lawmakers rallied to the defense of Jeff Sessions as allies of the attorney general said President Donald Trump appeared to be trying to pressure him to quit by repeatedly criticizing him on Twitter and in interviews.
On a sweltering evening in a rural corner of Ohio, the struggle for the soul and identity of the Democratic Party is playing out over wine, meatballs and recriminations about Hillary Clinton’s defeat in last year’s presidential election.
Russia
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry took a phone call with a Russian pranksterwho Perry thought was Ukraine's prime minister. Perry optimistically discussed expanding American coal exports to Ukraine and other energy matters during a lengthy phone call this month. Perry actually was talking with comedians known in Russia for targeting celebrities and politicians with audacious stunts, Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said in a written statement.
Russia warned that new U.S. sanctions against Moscow approved by the House of Representatives take already battered ties into uncharted waters and said it was close to taking retaliatory measures of its own.
Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the airwith giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun's rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet.
Fireflies seeking mates light up in synchronized bursts inside a forest at Santa Clara sanctuary near the town of Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala state, Mexico, July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
The Trump administration's refusal to publicly accuse Russia and others in a wave of politically motivated hacking attacks is creating a policy vacuum that security experts fear will encourage more cyber warfare. Chris Painter, the official responsible for coordinating U.S. diplomacy on cyber security, will leave his post at the end of July. No replacement has been named and the future of the position in the State Department is in flux.
Viacom has informed Scripps Networks Interactiveit is willing to make an all-cash deal to acquire to acquire the U.S. TV network operator, sources familiar with the matter said.
The Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and possibly hint that it will start winding down its massive holdings of bonds as soon as September in what would be a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy.
Breakingviews
Harvard Business School has trained world leaders, like President George W. Bush, and billion entrepreneurs, including Steve Schwarzman and Mike Bloomberg. It also churned out convicted felons like Enron's Jeff Skilling and former McKinsey boss Raj Gupta. Duff McDonald, author of “The Golden Passport,” discusses the seamier side of Harvard's teachingswith Breakingviews Global Editor Rob Cox.
World
A brewing political scandal in Sweden intensified when center-right opposition parties said they would call a no confidence vote in three government ministers, a vote they are likely to win. The opposition is seeking to boot out the ministers of infrastructure, defense and the interior for their role in outsourcing IT-services for the Swedish Transport Agency in 2015. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said his country and its citizens were exposed to risks by potential leaks as a result of the contract.
As people return home to Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq freed from Islamic State, homemade booby-traps laid by insurgents in houses, schools, mosques and streets are claiming hundreds of victims and hampering efforts to bring life back to normal.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose to near eight-week highs on Wednesday, with Brent crude futures at over $50 a barrel, as a fall in U.S. inventories bolstered expectations that the long-oversupplied market was moving toward balance.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 67 cents to $50.87 a barrel by 10:39 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT). Prices surpassed levels seen Tuesday when Brent futures strengthened more than 3 percent.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures CLc1 climbed 83 cents to $48.72 a barrel.
U.S. crude stocks fell last week as refineries hiked output and imports dropped, while gasoline stocks decreased and distillate inventories fell, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories fell 7.2 million barrels in the week ending July 21, more than the expected decrease of 2.6 million barrels. The decline was the fourth consecutive drop, giving support to the market.
This added to hopes a long-awaited rebalancing was underway in the oil market. Saudi Arabia said on Monday it would limit oil exports to 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, down nearly 1 million bpd from a year earlier.
"Today’s report has strengthened the bullish sentiment already prevailing in the market, although the longevity of the move remains in doubt," said Abhishek Kumar, Senior Energy Analyst at Interfax Energy’s Global Gas Analytics in London. "Nevertheless, the country’s crude and gasoline stockpiles remain above their five-year averages, which will cap price gains."
The drawdown was a combination of higher exports from the United States, marginal decline in oil output and a rise in the refinery utilization rate, he said.
"The market has been tightening and the refinery margins are strong," said PetroMatrix managing director Olivier Jakob, saying the U.S. stock draw offered a boost to prices. "You add geopolitical risk premium for Venezuela, and you've got a strong market."
Venezuela, an OPEC member producing about 2 million bpd of oil, faces deepening economic woes and protests.
President Nicolas Maduro's opponents launched a two-day national strike on Wednesday to push him to abandon a weekend election. The United States is considering financial sanctions to halt dollar payments for Venezuelan oil.
Nigerian output slipped this week as leaks forced Shell to shut a pipeline exporting some 180,000 bpd of oil. Nigeria, which has been exempted from OPEC-led production curbs, has agreed to cap or cut output when it stabilized at 1.8 million bpd.
But analysts said the current oil price rally could encourage more production, particularly from the United States.
"Relieved bulls should be careful what they wish for. Any price rebound will only embolden U.S. shale producers at a time when rumors have started to emerge that the U.S. shale boom is slowing," PVM oil analyst Stephen Brennock said in a note.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC.N) said on Monday it would cut its 2017 capital budget by $300 million because of depressed oil prices, the first major U.S. oil producer to do so, after posting a larger-than-expected quarterly loss.
Additional reporting by Fergus Jensen in Singapore and Libby George in London; Editing by Edmund Blair and Frances Kerry
(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Apple Inc to pay $506 million for infringing on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing arm, more than doubling the damages initially imposed on Apple by a jury.
U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison added $272 million to a $234 million jury verdict the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation won against Apple in October 2015. Conley said WARF is owed additional damages plus interest because Apple continued to infringe the patent, which relates to computer processor technology, until it expired in December 2016.
Apple is appealing Conley's ruling, according to court papers. An Apple spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
WARF sued Apple in 2014, alleging processors found in some versions of the iPhone infringe on a patent describing a "predictor circuit," which improves processor performance by predicting what instructions a user will give the system. University of Wisconsin computer science professor Gurindar Sohi and three of his students obtained the patent in 1998.
Cupertino, California-based Apple denied any infringement during a 2015 jury trial and argued the patent is invalid. Apple also urged the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to review the patent's validity but the agency rejected that bid.
WARF brought a separate lawsuit against Apple in 2015, alleging chips in later versions of the iPhone infringe the same patent. Conley said he would not rule in that case until Apple has had an opportunity to appeal the 2015 jury verdict.
MUMBAI (Reuters) - The board of Indian e-commerce firm Snapdeal has agreed to a deal with bigger rival Flipkart for up to $950 million, two sources said on Wednesday, bringing the two a step closer to forming a combine to challenge Amazon.com's (AMZN.O) domestic growth.
The board of Jasper Infotech, which runs Snapdeal, approved Flipkart's (IPO-FLPK.N) bid of $900 million-$950 million last week, the sources who were familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named as the talks are private.
Two other sources said, however, that obstacles still remain and that the deal will need approval from smaller shareholders of Snapdeal before it gets finalized.
The shares-swap deal would help SoftBank Group (9984.T), Snapdeal's biggest investor, gain a stake in Flipkart, the leading homegrown player, at a time when Indian e-commerce is booming.
Helped by a spurt in availability of cheap phones and data plans, more and more Indians are shopping on the web. A 2016 report from accounting firm EY said that e-commerce had grown at a compound annual growth rate of over 50 percent in the last five years in India and the pace of growth is expected to continue, with e-commerce sales topping $35 billion by 2020.
The rapid growth has been accompanied by severe competition and a fierce war for supremacy between Flipkart and U.S. online retail giant Amazon, which has committed to investing $5 billion in the country.
The acquisition of Snapdeal means one less rival for Flipkart, said Harminder Sahni the founder of Wazir Advisors, a boutique consultancy firm.
"Flipkart may have a plan to run Snapdeal as a differently positioned business just like they run Myntra and Jabong," he said. Myntra and Jabong are Flipkart's fashion portals.
Flipkart has bid for Snapdeal's marketplace business and its e-commerce solutions unit Unicommerce.
Snapdeal declined to comment, while Flipkart was not immediately available for comment.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of India's largest e-commerce firm Flipkart is seen on the facade of the company's headquarters in Bengaluru, India July 7, 2017.Abhishek N. Chinnappa/File photo
The Jasper board also considered a $700 million share-swap offer by listed e-commerce firm Infibeam (INFC.NS) but rejected it as too low, one of the sources said.
Infibeam declined to comment.
Freecharge Deal
The two initial sources also said Indian lender Axis Bank (AXBK.NS) is the frontrunner in the race to acquire Snapdeal's digital payments unit FreeCharge and that it has bid roughly $60 million for the asset.
Axis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sources said Snapdeal's founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal still have reservations about an acquisition by Flipkart however, and are mulling an alternate path.
Bahl and Bansal want to use the money from the sale of Snapdeal's logistics arm Vulcan Express and FreeCharge to run a downsized marketplace, they said.
One of the sources said the two founders were hoping for the backing of some early stage investors in Snapdeal and hoped to take the proposal to Jasper's board.
Both sources said it was unlikely the board would approve this, however, as Snapdeal's largest shareholder is keen to forge a deal with Flipkart.
A Snapdeal spokeswoman was not immediately reachable for comment on the founders' plans.
Bengaluru-headquartered Flipkart had revised its initial offer for Snapdeal to up to $950 million, Reuters reported last week.
Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman
MILAN (Reuters) - Suspected hackers have accessed client data of Italy's biggest lender, UniCredit (CRDI.MI), in two attacks in the past 10 months and affected about 400,000 Italian customers, the most serious data breach ever reported by a major Italian lender.
No passwords were stolen in the attacks, which first occurred in September and October of 2016 and again in June and July of this year, but personal and banking details could have been accessed, UniCredit said in a statement.
The attacks were carried out through an external commercial partner, which UniCredit did not identify. Wednesday's statement also did not describe how the intruders accessed the data nor when the bank became aware of the first intrusion.
A source familiar with the matter said the bank had only uncovered the data breaches between Monday and Tuesday.
"The bank immediately adopted all necessary measures to prevent a repeat of such intrusions," the bank said, adding that it had notified law-enforcement authorities.
Unicredit bank logo is seen in the old city centre of Siena, Italy June 29, 2017.Stefano Rellandini
The head of UniCredit's information technology unit, Daniele Tonella, said none of the data accessed by the attackers allowed any financial transaction to be carried out.
"We don't know why this data was acquired," he told Reuters, adding that it also did not know who was behind the attacks.
Attacks on banks in recent years have become more sophisticated and resulted in mounting financial losses.
They have evolved beyond data breaches, in which personal information are stolen, to include denial-of-service attacks which have knocked out access to online banking services for up to several days and even intrusions into core banking systems.
Last November, attackers stole more than 2.5 million pounds ($3.25 million) from Tesco Bank in Britain's largest disclosed cyber heist.
UniCredit shares were down 0.9 percent at 16.87 euros in late morning trade.
Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Edmund Blair
