Research & Applications


Ukrainian nuclear innovator competition winners announced

May 14, 2024, 12:00PMANS News

For the second consecutive year, the Ukrainian Nuclear Society (UkrNS) held its Nuclear Innovators competition, which was organized in partnership with the American Nuclear Society and other leading institutions in the nuclear sector worldwide. The two winners were announced on May 7.

DIII-D upgrades to shape the future of magnetic fusion energy research

May 13, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
An engineer adjusts mirrors while installing new diagnostic equipment inside the DIII-D tokamak. (Photo: General Atomics)

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is starting up after an eight-month experimental hiatus, equipped with new and improved plasma control and diagnostic systems. The upgrades will help researchers from around the nation and the world resolve key physics questions to bridge the gap between current magnetic confinement fusion research and the first fusion power pilot plants. General Atomics, which operates DIII-D for the Department of Energy, announced the completion of upgrades on May 8.

PPPL study points to better fusion plasma control

May 9, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The image on the left shows the tokamak and 3D magnetic perturbation generated by 3D coils, with the purple-blue hues representing lower amplitude perturbations and the red representing higher amplitude perturbations. The image on the right is a closer view showing the top half of the tokamak and plasma. The coils are used to generate the magnetic field perturbations that produce the islands (blue). Another coil can also be found on the bottom of the machine. The injection system for the ECCD microwaves is depicted on top (red). These can be used to adjust the width of the islands. (Image: Qiming Hu / PPPL)

The combination of two previously known methods for managing plasma conditions can result in enhanced control of plasma in a fusion reactor, according to a simulation performed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Max Planck’s ELISE reaches record values for ITER plasma heating

May 8, 2024, 10:01AMNuclear News
The IPP’s Dirk Wünderlich and Ursel Fantz at the experimental testing facility ELISE in Germany. (Photo: MPI for Plasma Physics/Frank Fleschner)

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) announced that it recently has achieved a new record for ion current density for neutral particle heating at its ELISE (Extraction from a Large Ion Source Experiment) experimental testing facility in Garching, Germany. ELISE is being used to test neutral beam injection (NBI) systems that will be used to heat the plasma of the ITER fusion experiment in France.

Steam is a sign of cooling system function . . . at ITER

May 7, 2024, 7:03AMNuclear News
ITER’s 10 cooling cells in the background have 11-meter-long 12-blade fans rotating at 92 rpm to induce an upward draft, which is reason for the yellow-vested assemblage in front to give a thumbs up. (Photo: ITER Organization)

Steam from one of ITER’s ten induced-draft cooling cells offers visual confirmation of a successful cooling system test, the ITER organization announced April 30. ITER’s cooling system features 60 kilometers of piping with pumps, filters, and heat exchangers that can pull water through at up to 14 cubic meters per second. Once fully operational, two cooling loops—one to remove the heat generated by the plasma in the ITER tokamak and one for its supporting infrastructure—will be capable of extracting up to 1,200 MW of heat.

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Fusion Energy Week begins today

May 6, 2024, 7:03AMNuclear News
Illustration by Ana Kova for U.S. Fusion Outreach

Fusion is riding a surge of attention that began in December 2022 when researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition. The organizers of Fusion Energy Week—a group called the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team—on the other hand, trace fusion development back 100 years to the doctoral research of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered that stars, including our Sun, are mostly made of hydrogen and helium, which in turn led to the understanding that those elements are the “fuel” of potential fusion energy systems on Earth. In recognition of Payne-Gaposchkin’s birthday—May 10—the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team plans to hold a “grassroots celebration of fusion energy” May 6–10, 2024, and annually during the second week of May.

Strontium: Supply-and-demand success for the DOE’s Isotope Program

May 2, 2024, 3:15PMNuclear News
ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor, where Sr-89 and other radioisotopes are produced, photographed during a 2015 refueling. (Photo: ORNL)

The Department of Energy’s Isotope Program (DOE IP) announced last week that it would end its “active standby” capability for strontium-82 production about two decades after beginning production of the isotope for cardiac diagnostic imaging. The DOE IP is celebrating commercialization of the Sr-82 supply chain as “a success story for both industry and the DOE IP.” Now that the Sr-82 market is commercially viable, the DOE IP and its National Isotope Development Center can “reassign those dedicated radioisotope production capacities to other mission needs”—including Sr-89.

Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age

April 26, 2024, 3:03PMNuclear NewsAlex Gilbert, Harsh S. Desai, and Jake Matthews
Astronaut Alan Bean prepares fueling of a Pu-238 radioisotope thermoelectric generator during the Apollo 12 mission to the lunar surface. (Photo: NASA)

In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.

Zap Energy hits 37-million-degree electron temperatures in compact fusion device

April 25, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
A bright flash of light from a FuZE (Fusion Z-pinch Experiment) plasma. (Photo: Zap Energy)

Zap Energy announced April 23 that it has reached 1-3 keV plasma electron temperatures—roughly the equivalent of 11 to 37 million degrees Celsius—using its sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch approach to fusion. Reaching temperatures above that of the sun’s core (which is 10 million degrees Celsius temperature) is just one hurdle required before any fusion confinement concept can realistically pursue net gain and fusion energy.

How can the nuclear community support space applications?

April 22, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear NewsSean Doherty

Sean Doherty

The most important thing the nuclear community can do to support space nuclear applications is the same thing we must focus on for terrestrial nuclear science: developing the trust of the American public.

Americans are widely supportive of NASA, and space has long captivated our imaginations. Recently, the publicity surrounding the new U.S. Space Force and the popularity of commercial rocket launches have drawn the public eye skyward. We don’t need to convince people that space is important and exciting, but we do have a long way to go in promoting nuclear power to the public.


Framatome, KHNP to investigate producing Lu-177 in South Korea

April 19, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News
Catherine Cornand of Framatome and Chang Hee-Seung of KHNP (center) with Framatome and KHNP employees following the signing of the MOU. (Photo: Framatome)

Framatome and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) have announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility of producing the medical isotope lutetium-177 at KHNP’s Wolsong nuclear power plant in South Korea. The companies also will investigate the feasibility of using the plant to support Korean production of medical radioisotopes in the future.

U.S., Japan near end of HEU-to-LEU transition, plan expanded fusion partnership

April 17, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
U.S. deputy secretary of energy David M. Turk (left) and Japan’s minister of education, sports, science, and technology Masahito Moriyama, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: DOE)

During a state visit to the White House by Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida on April 10, the Department of Energy announced that U.S. and Japanese agencies had cooperated to remove all high-enriched uranium (HEU) from the Japan Materials Testing Reactor Critical Assembly (JMTRC) of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) two years ahead of schedule.

Radiant horizons: Fission surface power on the moon, Mars, and beyond

April 12, 2024, 7:02AMNuclear NewsLindsay Kaldon
A concept image of NASA’s Fission Surface Power Project. (Image: NASA)

Imagine what our world would be like today without the benefits of electric energy. Think of the inventions and technologies that never would have been. Think of a world without power grids and the electricity that makes them run. Without this power, we’d find it difficult to maintain our industrial and manufacturing bases or enable advancements in the fields of medicine, communications, and computing.

Now consider the moon, our closest celestial neighbor about which we still know so little, waiting for modern-day explorers in spacesuits to unveil its secrets. Lunar exploration and a future lunar economy require reliable, long-lasting, clean sources of power. Nuclear fission answers that call. When assessing the application of nuclear power in space, three Ps should be considered: the present, the potential, and the partnerships.

PPPL’s new tabletop stellarator uses off-the-shelf magnets

April 11, 2024, 12:08PMNuclear News
MUSE, the first stellarator to use permanent magnets. (Photo: Michael Livingston/PPPL Communications)

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are using a stellarator they designed and built using permanent rare-earth magnets and a 3D-printed shell to help test new fusion power concepts. MUSE—the first stellarator built at PPPL in 50 years—took one year to construct and generated its first plasma in February 2023. The work that went into its design has already inspired a stellarator power plant concept being developed by a commercial spin-off, Thea Energy.

Curaçao receives IAEA support for legacy sources management

April 9, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News
In Curaçao, IAEA experts built national capacity through demonstrations, including practicing removing the Ra-226 source from the container, characterizing it, and placing it into a stainless-steel capsule. (Photo: IAEA)

Once used for applications in medicine, industry, and research, many countries now have legacy radium-226 sources, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. With the support of the IAEA’s technical cooperation program, these disused sealed radioactive sources are being recovered, and countries are improving national capacities for their long-term management, including their potential reuse and recycling.

AI and data center growth equal power demand

April 3, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear NewsKen Petersen

Ken Petersen
president@ans.org

Nuclear has been on a good roll lately and it is getting better. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides a nuclear power production tax credit. This has stopped the early retirement of deregulated units. The IRA also provides a benefit for the clean production of hydrogen. Many utilities have committed to a net-zero goal by 2050. Duke and other utilities have plans to transition coal plants to nuclear with small modular reactors.

And now, nuclear has a new supporter—tech companies.

The big U.S. utility companies (like Exelon, Duke, Dominion, Southern, and Entergy) are all projecting growth in electricity demand—primarily in the commercial sector but some residential growth is also expected. Commercial growth is being driven by new factories (thank you, IRA and CHIPS, that is, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act). It is also being driven by data centers.

Electron-Ion Collider coming to Brookhaven gets substantial U.K. investment

April 1, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
John Hill, deputy director for science and technology at BNL, with Ruqaiyah Patel, deputy director of UKRI North America, at a recent reception held by UKRI's North America office to mark the funding of the EIC. (Photo: BNL)

The U.S. Department of Energy is constructing the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory to explore the boundaries of nuclear physics—both for the sake of science and to support diverse applications, including in nuclear medicine, radiation safety, and nuclear energy. The project, already supported by international collaborators in 40 countries, just secured a significant commitment from the United Kingdom.

From South Korea to Belgium: Testing a high-density research reactor fuel

March 28, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
Irradiation of test fuel at SCK-CEN's BR2 reactor in Belgium. (Photos: KAERI)

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed a high-density uranium silicide fuel designed to replace high-enriched uranium in research reactors. Recent irradiation tests appear to be successful, KAERI reports, which means the fuel could be commercialized to continue a key global nuclear nonproliferation effort—converting research reactors to run on low-enriched uranium fuel.