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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.
N. J. Palladino
Nuclear Technology | Volume 27 | Number 1 | September 1975 | Pages 18-28
Technical Paper | Education | doi.org/10.13182/NT75-A15932
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 65 colleges and universities offering undergraduate degrees in nuclear engineering and the 15 schools offering strong nuclear engineering options are, in general, doing a good job to meet the current spectrum of job opportunities. But, nuclear engineering programs are not producing enough graduates to meet growing demands. They currently receive little aid and support from their customers—industry and government—in the form of scholarships, grants, faculty research support, student thesis and project support, or student summer jobs. There is not enough interaction between industry and universities. Most nuclear engineering programs are geared too closely to the technology of the present family of reactors and too little to the future breeder reactors and controlled thermonuclear reactors. In addition, nuclear engineering programs attract too few women and members of minority ethnic groups. Further study of the reasons for this fact is needed so that effective corrective action can be taken. Faculty in nuclear engineering programs should assume greater initiative to provide attractive and objective nuclear energy electives for technical and nontechnical students in other disciplines to improve their technical understanding of the safety and environmental issues involved. More agressive and persistent efforts must be made by nuclear engineering schools to obtain industry support and involvement in their programs.