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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Bipartisan commission report urges national fusion strategy
In the report Fusion Forward: Powering America’s Future issued earlier this month by the Special Competitive Studies Project’s (SCSP) Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy, it warns that the United States is on the verge of losing the fusion power race to China.
Noting that China has invested at least $6.5 billion in its fusion enterprise since 2023, almost three times the funding received by the U.S. Department of Energy’s fusion program over the same period, the commission report urges the U.S. government to prioritize the rapid commercialization of fusion energy to secure U.S. national security and restore American energy leadership.
SCSP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative making recommendations to strengthen America’s long-term competitiveness in emerging technologies. Launched in fall 2024, the 13-member commission is led by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) and Jim Risch (R., Idaho), along with SCSP president and commission co-chair Ylli Bajraktari.
Ury Passy, Naftali H. Steiger
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 15 | Number 4 | April 1963 | Pages 366-374
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A26452
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Most of the energy generated during the fission process is released as kinetic energy of the fission products. This energy moves the fission products a distance of a few microns in solid materials. When the fissionable material is prepared as a powder of particles with diameters smaller than the range of the fission products in the material used, it is expected that the fission products will leave the particles of the fissionable material. To avoid the penetration of the fission product into an adjacent particle of fissionable matter, the latter may be diluted with a liquid or solid diluent. The use of solid diluents having strong adsorption properties is believed to improve the separation between fission products and fuel when sedimentation in water is chosen as the separation method. In a series of experiments, mixtures of U3O8 with infusorial earth and silica gel as diluents having strong adsorbing properties were irradiated. About 95% of the fission products were found in the diluent. Most of the activity of the U3O8 was due to Np. The readsorption of fission products to U3O8 was smaller than in previous experiments in which no adsorbent was mixed with the fissionable material. Surface activation of the U3O8 was found after irradiation. About half of the fission products taken up by the diluent were found to be adsorbed at its surface. Mean fission-product ranges in U3O8 were estimated on an experimental and theoretical basis and agreement between theory and experiment is found to be good for most of the fission products.
