📌 TOPINDIATOURS Hot ai: US lab probes insider sabotage risks in next-generation nu

Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are testing how insider actions could disrupt passive safety systems in next-generation nuclear reactors before those designs are built and licensed.

Passive safety systems are already used in many operating reactors worldwide and have decades of data supporting their reliability.

Future reactors, including small modular reactors and other advanced designs, rely even more heavily on these systems. That makes understanding their vulnerabilities critical.

“We want to know what would cause these systems to not work. In this project, we’re focusing on bad guys who might have authorized access and knowledge of inside workings. What could they do to make things break?” said Darius Lisowski, group manager of reactor safety testing and analysis at Argonne.

Rather than treating sabotage as a hypothetical risk, Argonne researchers are testing real-world scenarios using large-scale experimental facilities.

Stress-testing passive safety

The work centers on Argonne’s Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility, which allows engineers to simulate how heat moves through reactor systems when pumps and power are unavailable.

Researchers examined potential insider actions, such as leaving access hatches open or deliberately blocking cooling pathways.

The project began more than two years ago and involved collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Idaho National Laboratory.

The team first identified plausible sabotage scenarios and then assessed how likely and damaging those actions could be.

Their findings were compiled into a report titled “Identifying Sabotage Risks and Adversarial Threats to Passive Decay Heat Removal Systems in Advanced Nuclear Reactors,” prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As expected, the researchers found that nuclear plants are built with multiple layers of protection. Controlled access, alarms, redundancy, and conservative design make successful sabotage difficult.

Even so, the team concluded that some vulnerabilities are worth addressing early, while reactor designs are still flexible.

To test those weak points, Argonne researchers intentionally recreated the most credible scenarios inside the test facility. They blocked cooling paths. They left components unsecured. They measured how systems responded under stress.

“Our research is relevant and applicable to every U.S. nuclear vendor out there,” said Matthew Bucknor, Argonne’s international nuclear security lead.

Designing out weak points

The experiments are not aimed at any specific reactor company or design. Instead, they focus on common features shared across many advanced reactor concepts.

According to the team, identifying risks early can prevent small oversights from becoming serious problems later.

“By using redundancy, focusing on the most severe threats, and meeting strict design tests, we can make sure passive safety features are robust,” Lisowski said.

“Design improvements will happen early, before the next generation of reactors goes into operation.”

The work is funded by the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration and has received support for continued research.

As countries look to nuclear energy to meet rising electricity demand from AI, data centers, and electrification, the researchers argue that safety and security must evolve alongside reactor technology.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Update ai: Trump Says the Military Deployed a Secret “Discombobula

Nations that defy the US-led world order may soon face a new weapon designed to hamstring defenses, disorient troops, and sow fear into the hearts of its enemies.

In a familiarly bizarre interview with the New York Post, president Donald Trump revealed that US troops had used what he colorfully termed a secret “discombobulator” during the air attack on Caracas, Venezuela earlier this month.

“The discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump told the Post. “I would love to,” he said, before claiming that, whatever it is, the device was used in Venezuela. As for what exactly it is, the president was pretty vague.

In the interview, Trump bragged that the device “made [Venezuelan] equipment not work” during the brutal offensive that killed about 100 people and led to the unlawful kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. “They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”

As a senior US official told CNN, Trump seems to be conflating a few different systems into one weapon. For example, the US did sabotage Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure and air defense radar systems in a powerful cyberattack, per the New York Times. The White House has also claimed that Venezuelan troops suffered from a “very intense sound wave” during the attack, a likely reference to the Active Denial System, an anti-personnel weapon designed to heat human flesh on contact.

The US wasn’t just interested in knocking out Venezuela’s military capabilities. Civilian infrastructure, such as the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), was also deliberately targeted in the blitz. Though it was 11 miles away from the closest military installation, the IVIC suffered extensive damage to its mathematics, physics, chemistry, ecology, and nuclear research buildings.

US troops also targeted the La Guaira port in Caracas, the country’s main international shipping hub. According to the publication Venezuela Analysis, medical warehouses belonging to the Venezuelan Social Security Institute were among the targets at La Guaira.

That situation has prompted an emergency response from health authorities in Brazil, who are mobilizing to send badly needed dialysis supplies and medicine to Venezuela.

In a statement to local press, Nelare Bermúdez, an official with La Guaira state’s healthcare authority, said that at least a three-month supply of medicine for kidney disease treatment had been destroyed. Yet if the discombobulator was meant to scare Venezuelans into submission, Bermúdez’s resolve suggests otherwise: “we remain undeterred in our fight to guarantee these health services,” he said.

More on Venezuela: War Profiteers Furious After Polymarket Refuses to Pay Out on Venezuelan Invasion Bets

The post Trump Says the Military Deployed a Secret “Discombobulator” Weapon in Venezuela appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com