The partial collapse of PUREX Tunnel 1 in 2017 prompted a review of Hanford’s maintenance of the site’s unused, contaminated buildings.
A report released to the public on February 20 by the Government Accountability Office concluded that maintenance inspections at several contaminated excess facilities at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, near Richland, Wash., have not been comprehensive and that there are areas of some facilities that personnel infrequently or never enter, either physically or by remote means, to conduct inspections. The GAO reviewed surveillance and maintenance (S&M) requirements and activities at 18 of Hanford’s approximately 800 excess facilities that require cleanup and found that improvements to the site’s S&M program are needed.
BWXT is using advances in manufacturing and fuel to power exciting technology
The United States is pursuing the objective to land humans more than 100 million miles away on Mars, and nuclear power has the potential to be a key technology in getting to the Red Planet and providing power while there. Specifically, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) is a promising approach that could enable astronauts to travel from Earth’s orbit to Mars and back in a fraction of the time, and with greater safety, than is available with other options.
The awards will fund research into artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to developing fusion energy, as well as fundamental theory and simulation.
The Department of Energy announced on March 4 that it will provide $30 million for new research on fusion energy. The funding will provide $17 million for research focused specifically on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches for the prediction of key plasma phenomena, management of facility operations, and accelerated discovery through data science, among other topics. An additional $13 million under a separate funding opportunity will be devoted to fundamental fusion theory research, including computer modeling and simulation, focused on factors affecting the behavior of hot plasmas confined by magnetic fields in fusion reactors.
In its ongoing effort to keep its criteria relevant, ABET has revised its student outcome and curriculum requirements.
ABET, originally an acronym for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied and natural science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. ABET accredits degrees at the associate, bachelor’s, and master’s levels. Over the years, the organization has expanded its domestic and global accreditation presence, and it currently accredits over 4,000 programs in 32 countries.