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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Latest News
Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
Technical Session|Sponsored by OPD
Wednesday, November 18, 2020|4:50–6:30PM EST
Session Chair:
Hitesh Bindra (Kansas State Univ.)
Alternate Chair:
W. Neal Mann (The University of Texas at Austin)
Session Organizer:
Staff Producer:
Paul LaTour (American Nuclear Society)
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To access paper attachments, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
Fission Batteries: Definition, Key Attributes, and Research and Development Needs
Vivek Agarwal (Idaho National Laboratory), Jess C. Gehin (Idaho National Laboratory), Youssef A. Ballout (Idaho National Laboratory)
Paper
Limits of Fission Battery Design: Sodium-Cooled Thermal-Spectrum Fission Battery
Charles W. Forsberg (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Patrick J. McDaniel (University of New Mexico)
Limits of Fission Battery Design: Fluoride-salt-cooled Thermal-Spectrum Fission Battery
Charles W. Forsberg (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Eugene Shwageraus (University of Cambridge)
Creating a Molten Salt Component Reliability Database: Initial Efforts and Path Forward
Megan E. Harkema (Vanderbilt University), Askin Guler Yigitoglu (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Steven L. Krahn (Vanderbilt University), Andrew G. Sowder (Electric Power Research Institute)
