ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
Kei Kodera, Yuto Takeuchi, Yasushi Yamamoto, Hiroshi Yamada
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 2 | September 2003 | Pages 554-558
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A396
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the purpose of making use a torus type magnetic confinement device as a high current electron source by extracting runaway electrons, we investigated magnetic fields' configuration and calculated electron orbits by numerical simulation. Extraction coils which generate field to lead electrons to outside of the device, also strongly disturbed magnetic field in partly installed case. We propose new cancellation coil setups. The numerical calculation shows influence of extraction coils are reduced, and as a results, the maximum radius of magnetic surface is almost the same as the case of setting up extraction coils all around device.We also traced the electron acceleration and extraction orbits from low energy in confinement area. Through that, we estimated the extraction ratio of the runaway electrons and their averaged energy. The results show that 70% of the runaway electrons can be extracted and the averaged energy of those electrons is 4 keV in case of all direction extraction.