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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Hash Hashemian is the Immediate Past President of the American Nuclear Society and has been an active member since 1975.
Dr. Hashemian is the CEO of Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation (AMS), a nuclear engineering firm headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., that he cofounded in 1977. Under his leadership, AMS has developed instrumentation and control system testing analysis equipment, training, and services that have been delivered to 26 countries. Plants serviced by AMS include virtually every U.S. nuclear power plant, as well as many in Europe and Asia.
Aside from his work in the industry, Hashemian teaches at two universities. He is an adjunct professor of practice at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and an adjunct professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. He holds three doctoral degrees in electrical, nuclear, and computer engineering.
Hashemian is the author or coauthor of 22 U.S. patents. In addition to hundreds of peer-reviewed journal and magazine articles, conference papers, reports, and guideline documents, he has written three books on instrumentation and control in nuclear power plants. He has also authored standards for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Electric Power Research Institute, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the International Electrotechnical Commission, among others.
He is a member of the European Nuclear Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the International Society of Automation, and the American Nuclear Society. Within ANS, Hashemian has served in a number of roles across various conferences and committees, including as vice chair of the Development Committee; chair of the Honors and Awards Committee; and chair of the Human Factors, Instrumentation, and Control Division.
He is also an active nuclear advocate in Tennessee politics, having served on both the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Advisory Council and the state’s Energy Policy Council. At the national level, he served as a member of the Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee.