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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
Y. Li, C. D. Hu, Y. Z. Zhao, Q. L. Cui, X. L. Shu, Y. H. Xie, W. Liu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 4 | May 2022 | Pages 330-339
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1997044
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The timing synchronization system (TSS) in a radio-frequency–driven negative ion–based neutral beam injection system (NNBIS) is an important part of a negative ion–based neutral beam injection control system. In order to ensure the orderly conduct of experiments and the integrity of experimental data, the TSS needs to complete the corresponding timing synchronization function. There are two aspects to control of the NNBIS: controlling the synchronization of NNBIS subsystems within a certain precision and ensuring correct timing and amplitude output during the experiment. This paper presents the design and development of the TSS in the NNBIS, aiming at the characteristics of the IEEE 1588-2019, “IEEE Standard for a Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol for Networked Measurement and Control Systems,” clock synchronization protocol to achieve the demands of clock synchronization at a submicrosecond level, synchronously triggering other subsystems through the network trigger and hardware trigger. The TSS successfully implemented synchronization accuracy in less than 1 μs, and the network trigger is more efficient than the hardware trigger, which is about 80 μs faster. The TSS meets the requirements of timing synchronization accuracy of the NNBIS.