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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
DOE’s latest fusion energy road map aims to bridge known gaps
The Department of Energy introduced a Fusion Science & Technology (S&T) Roadmap on October 16 as a national “Build–Innovate–Grow” strategy to develop and commercialize fusion energy by the mid-2030s by aligning public investment and private innovation. Hailed by Darío Gil, the DOE’s new undersecretary for science, as bringing “unprecedented coordination across America's fusion enterprise” and advancing President Trump’s January 2025 executive order, on “Unleashing American Energy,” the road map echoes plans issued by the DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) in 2023 and 2024, with a new emphasis on the convergence of AI and fusion.
The road map release coincided with other fusion energy events held this week in Washington, D.C., and beyond.
Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, Yasir Arafat, Chandrakanth Bolisetti, Botros Hanna, Joshua Belvedere, James Blocker, Brandon Cooper, Shanda Harmon, Dan McCarthy
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 11 | November 2023 | Pages 1697-1732
Regular Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2206779
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Microreactors present promising opportunities to open new nuclear energy markets. However, it is expected that the economic competitiveness of this new class of reactors will hinge on potential cost reductions via mass production. It is therefore critical to begin assessing important considerations for the factory production of microreactors. An overview of the important aspects of the general layout of a microreactor factory, along with best practices to be incorporated early in the design process, is provided in this study. Then, a detailed use case is considered and modeled using a dedicated tool that can map workflows and activities within a factory. The end product is a 242 000 sq. ft. factory model that can ramp up production from 10 to 100 units per year.
Based on the activities and workflows needed, cost estimates for equipment and staffing needs are generated. These are expected to be first-order estimates, but would still provide guidance on the level of investment needed to reach mass production levels of microreactors. Furthermore, the potential cost reductions from scaling production are quantified. It was found that for a 100-unit factory throughput, reductions above 70% per unit cost relative to a prototype demonstration, could be observed for tasks conducted within a factory. These estimates focus solely on component fabricated at a factory and do not account for fuel costs nor any site activities. Because the analysis is design specific, not all findings are expected to be applicable across different microreactors (notably larger varieties), but it still provides a foundation establishing the basis for the mass production of these reactors.