Research & Applications

Argonne’s newest beamline uses heavy ions to degrade a material’s properties as much in a day as a nuclear reactor does in a year, without introducing radioactivity. That’s according to an article published January 16 by Argonne National Laboratory. The Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) now boasts a new beamline—the ATLAS Material Irradiation Station, or AMIS—that uses the accelerator’s lowest high-energy beams to displace atoms and mimic the degradation of materials inside an operating reactor over time. AMIS makes it easier and faster to test candidate fuel and structural materials for existing and future reactors.

A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in cooperation with Argentina, launched a scientific research expedition on January 6 to study microplastics in Antarctica—one of the planet’s most remote areas—as part of an effort to combat widespread microplastic pollution.

A new material based on amidoxime chemical groups may allow electrochemical extraction technology to extract uranium ions from seawater more efficiently than previous methods, according to a recent study published by the American Chemical Society’s ACS Central Science. If put into practical use, the new method, which was developed by researchers in China, could offer an environmentally sustainable source of fuel for nuclear power plants.

Radiopharmaceutical biotech company ITM Isotope Technologies Munich announced it has received regulatory approval to begin production of the medical radioisotope lutetium-177 at the company’s NOVA facility in Neufahrn, near Munich, Germany.

The government of China has formed a new national industrial consortium focused on the development and advancement of nuclear fusion technology, news outlets have reported.

A new type of cold spray coating, made from the metal tantalum and applied to the plasma-facing steel walls of fusion reactors, could lead to efficient, compact fusion reactors that are easy to repair and maintain, according to a study recently published in the journal Physica Scripta. The study was led by scientists and engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and involved researchers from South Korea, France, and Germany.

The American Nuclear Society is soliciting qualified members who are interested in becoming the editor of Fusion Science and Technology (FST). Leigh Winfrey, SUNY-Maritime, has served as editor of FST since January 2018. During her term, she has successfully shepherded FST, maintaining the journal’s reputation for technical excellence and arranging a schedule of eight issues annually covering the most important topics in fusion science and technology.

Winfrey has indicated that she intends to step down from the editorship as of June 2025, providing an opportunity for a fresh voice to lead FST. Consequently, ANS is seeking a qualified individual to fill this position. The selected person will be appointed editor-­designate and will undergo a period of training before taking over the full editor’s role.

The same high energy density that makes nuclear energy a clean and efficient source of power could make it a good alternative to defend the planet against catastrophic asteroid impacts. NASA demonstrated the world’s first planetary defense technology in September 2022 by deliberately crashing a “kinetic impactor”—a heavy, box-like spacecraft—into an asteroid. Now, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new tool to model how a nuclear device could deflect—or even destroy—an asteroid threat to Earth in a more efficient and controlled way.

The Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science introduced a new plan—"Building Bridges: A Vision for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences”—during a Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) hearing on December 13, and announced that news December 14. What’s included? A plan for the DOE to “establish the steps needed to help advance fusion energy, including addressing key science and technology gaps in the supply chain and industry.” The vision is less a guiding document than a preview of DOE-FES’s near-term intentions, which include drafting a fusion science and technology road map in 2024 to shape investments for the coming decade.

“The tools of the academic designer are a piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. If a mistake is made, it can always be erased and changed. If the practical-reactor designer errs, he wears the mistake around his neck; it cannot be erased. Everyone sees it.”

Many in the nuclear community are familiar with this sentiment from Admiral Rickover. A generation of stagnation in the industry has underscored the truth of his words. But as economies around the world put a price on carbon emissions, there’s a renewed sense of urgency to deploy clean energy technologies. This shifts the global balance of economic competitiveness, and it’s clear that the best path forward for nuclear requires combining the agility of private innovators with the technology and capabilities of national laboratories.

The Department of Energy recently announced that it was establishing three inertial fusion energy (IFE) hubs and funding them with a total of $42 million over four years. The leaders of the three hubs selected by competitive peer review—Colorado State University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of Rochester—all issued press releases touting the attributes and plans of their facilities and their research collaborators on the same day—December 7.

Cloud cover cuts solar generation, and on calm days wind turbines won’t spin. When cloudy and windless conditions coincide for hours or days, the result is called a compound energy drought. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently found that these energy droughts can last nearly a week in some parts of the country and that they overlap with periods of peak grid demand more often than would be expected by chance.

Kathryn Huff

President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations General Assembly in December 1953. In this historic address, he invoked the existential threat of nuclear weapons proliferation and the potential horror of nuclear war to muster the diplomatic energy of the United Nations toward establishing peaceful uses for the atom. The speech launched domestic and international initiatives, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, that would underpin decades of robust, peaceful nuclear power commercialization and expansion.

This month, as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of that speech, we celebrate Eisenhower’s prescience in suggesting that “experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities” and “to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.” Mobilizing American experts, of course, would mean refocusing the work of the national laboratories toward peaceful uses of the atom and repurposing the vast weapons complex investments of the 1940s toward more peaceful ends.

John Kerry speaks on U.S. fusion energy policy. (Photo: Craig Piercy)

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has a new plan for international partnerships in fusion energy development that would build on over 60 years of collaborative fusion research and development to address the climate crisis and ensure energy security. The plan, first released December 2, was announced December 5 at COP28 in Dubai, UAE, by John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate. He delivered “a call to action” during an Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum. The plan follows on the administration’s Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy of March 2022, which recognized fusion energy’s increasing technical readiness and strong market interest—$6 billion to date.

“I'm pleased to announce the U.S. international engagement plan for fusion energy,” Kerry said. “This strategy identifies five areas of work that will help us to realize the promise of this technology, and they are R&D, supply chain and marketplace, regulation, workforce, and education and engagement.”

Hussein Khalil

Within the next decade, it is expected that the first round of advanced reactor (AR) demonstration units will be successfully started up and operated, with additional industry-led nuclear energy initiatives progressing toward demonstration. These AR prototypes will be first-of-a-kind systems incorporating significant technological advances. Attracting the required investment for construction and operation will require persistent efforts to improve performance, reduce costs, attract an investor/-customer base, and establish the supply chain and workforce needed to meet this emerging demand.

Public-private partnerships focused on technology and design advancements will likely be needed through at least 2050. These partnerships will require the research community—and the national labs in particular—to play a key role in developing technical solutions for economically competitive systems and helping address other challenges to sustained and expanded use of nuclear energy. These challenges include managing used nuclear fuel, minimizing nuclear security and proliferation risks, and pursuing international markets.

One year ago today, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a record shot at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) that set the world talking about the potential of fusion energy. And the buzz hasn’t stopped. Fusion energy is getting its most significant attention yet on the world stage at COP28 in Dubai, UAE, where John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, delivered a keynote address today titled “An inclusive fusion energy future,” followed by a panel discussion.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations issued a draft environmental assessment (EA) in early November for a test and fill facility (TFF) that TerraPower plans to build in Kemmerer, Wyo.—the town selected two years ago to host the company’s first Natrium sodium fast reactor. The draft EA, open for comment through December 1, describes TerraPower’s plans to construct a nonnuclear facility that would safely store about 400,000 gallons of sodium to test coolant system designs and ultimately fill the planned reactor.

In October, staff at Kairos Power’s testing and manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, N. M., began transferring 14 tons of molten fluoride salt coolant into an Engineering Test Unit (ETU)—the largest transfer of FLiBe (a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride) since the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment in 1969.

Richard A. Meserve

Climate change presents a grave threat, demanding increasing reliance on low-carbon energy over the coming decades. Nuclear power today contributes half of U.S. low-carbon generation, and achievement of climate goals requires the continued operation of existing plants. But there are competitors for low-carbon energy, and nuclear’s further role remains uncertain. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) conducted a study to explore the challenges that must be overcome for widespread new nuclear deployment.¹ This article provides my summary of the study, highlighting and abbreviating some of its principal recommendations. Note that the italicized portions of the article are shortened versions of the recommendations in the report.