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2025: The year in nuclear
As Nuclear News has done since 2022, we have compiled a review of the nuclear news that filled headlines and sparked conversations in the year just completed. Departing from the chronological format of years past, we open with the most impactful news of 2025: a survey of actions and orders of the Trump administration that are reshaping nuclear research, development, deployment, and commercialization. We then highlight some of the top news in nuclear restarts, new reactor testing programs, the fuel supply chain and broader fuel cycle, and more.
J. Pace VanDevender
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 433-440
Large Project | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40082
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator II (PBFA II) is being constructed at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) with initial operation scheduled for January 1986. PBFA II is the only facility currently under construction that has the possibility of achieving ignition or breakeven in the laboratory. It will deliver 1 to 2 MJ of lithium ions for experiments covering a wide range of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) target designs. PBFA II will be used for studying weapons physics and implosion hydrodynamics in the near-term. In the early 1990s, we anticipte that PBFA II could be modified to produce a pulse-shaping option for exploring high-gain target physics. The achievement of high-gain may require a different accelerator. The potential advantages of pulsed power driven light ions for an energy application include very low cost, small size, small capital investment for an initial power plant, and greater than 20% efficiency for economical power production.