Sukesh Aghara

In an era when affordable, clean energy is as much an economic imperative as it is an environmental one, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has an opportunity to lead not just through legislation but through partnership—between state leadership and its world-class universities.

Massachusetts has long led on decarbonization through electric vehicle adoption, rooftop solar, and offshore wind. We have reduced energy consumption through efficiency investments. From 2022 to 2024 alone, the state’s Mass Save programs facilitated energy savings equal to the annual usage of over 852,000 homes, avoided 684,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, and delivered $2.3 billion in customer incentives. But to meet growing demand and industrial needs, it’s time to invite universities to help craft a bolder vision—one that includes advanced nuclear technologies.

Graphite is a key component of traditional nuclear reactors—many of which are aging. Because graphite tends to swell and fail after lengthy exposure to radiation, it is essential to maintain its structural integrity over the lifetime of a plant.

Recently, a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and other institutions reported a new and better way to evaluate the quality of the graphite. This new procedure could allow nuclear power plant operators to predict structural failure before it happens in a more accurate and less destructive way than is currently available.

A new study, “Building Confidence in Models for Complex Barrier Systems for Radionuclides,” highlights a breakthrough in the modeling and simulation of underground nuclear waste interactions. Led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. student Dauren Sarsenbayev, assistant professor and ANS member Haruko Wainwright, and scientists Christophe Tournassat and Carl Steefel, the research shows how cutting-edge, high-performance computing simulations closely align with real-world experimental data from the Mont Terri underground laboratory in Switzerland. The alignment enhances confidence in the long-term safety of geological nuclear waste repositories.

...and today.

Levin in the late 1980s...

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and ’60s, I had interests in two areas that ultimately had major impacts on my education and career. The first was science—especially nuclear physics—and the second was science fiction.

One early influence was undoubtedly Disney’s short film “Our Friend the Atom.” I don’t recall exactly when or where I saw it, but I clearly remember the demonstration of a chain reaction with mousetraps and ping pong balls. It looked like an exciting area about which to learn.

I also had a shelf full of Tom Swift Jr. sci-fi/adventure books, and around the fourth grade I discovered Robert Heinlein—specifically, his book Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Kip Russell, the teenage hero of the book, is abducted by hostile space aliens but manages to escape and, with the help of a friendly alien, saves Earth from destruction. At the end, having returned to Earth, Kip prepares to go off to college at MIT. With the assistance of my trusty World Book Encyclopedia, I researched MIT and decided—rather audaciously at the age of 10—that I would go there, too.

Researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Orléans, have modeled radionuclide behavior in deep geologic formations, offering a tool for developing a defensible safety case for the underground disposal of radioactive waste.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has launched the Schmidt Laboratory for Materials in Nuclear Technologies (LMNT). Backed by a philanthropic consortium led by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, LMNT is designed to speed up the discovery and evaluation of cost-effective materials that can withstand extreme fusion conditions for extended periods.

Wright

The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Chris Wright, President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Energy. The confirmation vote was 59–38. Eight Democrats, including both senators from Colorado, signed off on Wright.

Wright—a Colorado native—is founder, chief executive, and chair of the board of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based energy development company specializing in fracking. He also sits on the board of directors for Oklo, a Silicon Valley–based developer of small modular reactors.

Wright was grilled by the Senate’s committee on Energy and Natural Resources during a January 15 hearing, where he made comments in support of nuclear energy and efforts to expand domestic generation in the near future.

He also repeated an earlier stated belief that “there’s no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy.” Wright was called out during the hearing by Senate Democrats for comments he made arguing that climate change has not fueled more frequent and severe wildfires, which, the Washington Post reported, is a claim at odds with the scientific consensus.

I like to say that I ended up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology because of my father. He saw that I seemed intimidated by the prospect of going there, so he dared me, figuring I would take the bait. And I did.

I graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s in physics in 1968, and two days later I married my classmate, Mike Marcus. After a summer at Ft. Monmouth, where I studied radiation damage to semiconductors, we spent the next few years back at MIT in grad school—Mike in electrical engineering and I in nuclear engineering. It was Mike who steered me toward nuclear engineering, noting that my interest was radiation damage to materials, and the nuclear engineering department was doing more of that than the physics department.

Some 30 nuclear engineering departments at universities across the United States graduate more than 900 students every year. These young men and women are the present and future of the domestic nuclear industry as it seeks to develop and deploy advanced nuclear energy technologies, grow its footprint on the power grid, and penetrate new markets while continuing to run the existing fleet of reactors reliably and economically.

Ian Wall early in his career . . .

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1958. Nuclear power was viewed favorably at the time, so I took a 1-year course on the subject. I was then offered fellowships at Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and thought the latter would be more interesting, so I moved to Cambridge, Mass., to study nuclear engineering. After completing my doctorate in 1964, I joined the American Nuclear Society and took a job with General Electric, then in San Jose, Calif.

In 1967, GE assigned me to explore the use of probability in reactor safety. At that time, the prevailing opinion was that the probability of a severe accident was infinitesimally small and the consequences would be catastrophic.

Crownhart

“I’ve got nuclear power on the brain this week.” So writes climate and energy reporter Casey Crownhart in a recent edition the Spark, the MIT Technology Review’s climate newsletter. In her article, Crownhart describes how, while she was conducting research on advanced nuclear energy for another article, she “went down some rabbit holes on . . . potential options for future nuclear plants” and has “reached new levels of obsession” about nuclear energy.

Nuclear primer: Crownhart’s article could serve as a primer for both basic nuclear and advanced nuclear technologies. She begins by discussing the “two absolutely essential pieces” of conventional nuclear power plants—namely, the enriched uranium fuel and the pressurized water cooling system—and explains that the cooling system “keeps the whole thing from getting too hot and causing problems.”

The Department of Energy, in conjunction with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas A&M University, will conduct a biweekly webinar series aimed at providing a broad overview of nuclear waste management and disposal in the United States as well as the latest research activities. The target audience is undergraduate and graduate students in science, engineering, policy, sociotechnical, and social science programs.

Researchers at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), in concert with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Florida International University, are leading the Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Systems (ALTEMIS) project to move groundwater cleanup from a reactive process to a proactive process, while also reducing the cost of long-term monitoring and accelerating site closure.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Clean Air Task Force are offering a three-day course “Nuclear Energy in a Low-Carbon Future: Key Facts and Issues” on August 1–3. The course is organized by MIT’s Jacopo Buongiorno, Tokyo Electric Power Company Professor in Nuclear Engineering and director of science and technology for the university’s Nuclear Reactor Laboratory.

The daily schedule runs from 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (Eastern) on the first two days and 9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. on the third day.

The in-person version of the course is fully booked, but slots for remote attendance are still available—at no cost. Registration is required by completing a registration form.

Nuclear power is the single largest source of clean energy in the United States, but how can the value of “clean” be measured? Two recent reports by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, respectively, measured the clean energy benefits of nuclear energy in different ways: the benefits to human health from the air pollution avoided and the future economic value of avoided carbon emissions.

The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $10 million in funding on February 17 for eight projects designed to determine whether low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR)—historically and sometimes disparagingly known as “cold fusion”—could someday be a carbon-free energy source. ARPA-E intends the funding to “break the stalemate” and determine if LENR holds any merit for future energy research.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) hosted visiting officials for a tour and ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open its new headquarters in Devens, Mass., on February 10. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and Sen. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) were among the national, state, and local leaders invited to celebrate what CFS heralded as a “fusion energy campus.”

Lester

As part of the Purdue University–Duke Energy Understanding Tomorrow’s Nuclear Energy Lecture Series, Richard K. Lester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will give a speech on Wednesday, November 30, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. EST. Lester, associate provost and a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, was previously head of the university’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. The event will also feature a panel discussion with Lester, Lefteri H. Tsoukalas, and Morgan Smith.

Register now: The lecture, “Tough Tech for Climate: Innovation Challenges, University Responsibilities, and Some Comments on the Nuclear Role,” can be attended in person at Eliza Fowler Hall, in the Stewart Center of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The talk will also be available to watch on YouTube, where it will be live streamed. Advance registration is required. Following registration, individuals will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

There is still a chance for California’s last remaining nuclear power plant to stay open.

Last Friday, more than 50 nuclear advocates testified in support of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant at a California Energy Commission workshop. Many spoke of the need for California to shore up its electricity grid in the face of coming heat waves and power outages. Others emphasized that closing the plant, which generates 2.2 GW of electricity and currently provides 8.6 percent of the state’s total supply and about 15 percent of its low-carbon electricity, would be devastating to California’s emission-reduction goals.

The Department of Energy announced awards for 18 Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) projects on July 6 that link private fusion energy developers with DOE national laboratories (and, in a first for the program, with U.S. universities) to overcome scientific and technological challenges in fusion energy development. The 18 selected projects include representation from 10 private companies, three national labs, and eight universities.