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On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
Karin Rudman, Patricia Dickerson, Darrin Byler, Robert McDonald, Harn Lim, Pedro Peralta, Chris Stanek, Kenneth McClellan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 2 | May 2013 | Pages 145-154
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the Symposium on Radiation Effects in Ceramic Oxide and Novel LWR Fuels / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A16426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The oxygen content during the intermediate and final stages of sintering can have a strong effect on the microstructural evolution of oxide fuels. Two depleted urania (d-UO2.0 and d-UO2.14) samples, sintered up to a theoretical density of 90%, were serial sectioned using a focused ion beam and characterized with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The EBSD data were used to make three-dimensional reconstructions of the microstructures to evaluate their characteristics at an intermediate stage of sintering. The oxygen content was found to affect grain shape and grain boundary (GB) mobility, as curved and elongated grains were observed in UO2.0, as well as stronger pore-GB interactions, which is an indication that microstructure was less evolved in UO2.0. Both samples presented a similar fraction ([approximate]20%) of special, coincident site lattice boundaries, with larger amounts of Σ3n GBs, and a rather large fraction of Σ11 GBs for UO2.14. Crystallographic GB planes were also determined to study the distributions of all GB parameters. The UO2.0 sample had a large fraction of GB planes close to the Σ3 twinning planes, which suggests that lower-energy interfaces are used to minimize energy in this sample, potentially due to lower overall GB mobility as compared to UO2.14.