Feature Channels: Nuclear Power

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Groundbreaking scientific discovery conducted at UChicago 75 years ago

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The newly upgraded CEBAF Accelerator opens door to strong force studies.

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Scientists need to learn how to take advantage of exascale computing. This is the mission of the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC), which held its annual two-week training workshops over the summer.

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A new method for capturing radioactive waste from nuclear power plants is cheaper and more effective than current methods, a potential boon for the energy industry, according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Article describes simulated prediction of heat flux that ITER divertor plates will be able to tolerate.

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Nuclear power is not merely an energy option for the future, geoscientist Scott L. Montgomery writes in his new book, it is a life-saving and essential way for the world to provide energy and avoid "carbon and climate failure."

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A new study from social psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago suggests people of all political backgrounds can be motivated to participate in science denial.

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For the second straight year, Los Alamos National Laboratory was recognized as a top diversity employer by LATINA Style and STEM Workforce Diversity magazine.

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Six small businesses receive GAIN vouchers to work with Argonne

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A new chemical principle discovered by scientists at Indiana University has the potential to revolutionize the creation of specially engineered molecules whose uses include the reduction of nuclear waste and the extraction of chemical pollutants from water and soil.

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For more than 50 years, Victor Reis has dedicated his career to advancing science and technology in support of U.S. national security. In recognition of his outstanding leadership and service to the nation, he has been named the third recipient of the John S. Foster, Jr. Medal. The medal commemorates the exceptional and inspirational career of Foster and recognizes innovative and inspirational leadership in providing a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent to ensure international peace and strategic stability. Recipients display the same qualities that have distinguished Foster throughout his career: strong national security and programmatic focus, inspiring leadership and team-building mentorship, scientific innovation, keen judgment and integrity.

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Since the world’s first nuclear chain reaction ignited 75 years ago, Argonne has led the way in developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. That legacy comes full circle through Argonne’s Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) Program, which has led the way in decommissioning nuclear facilities at the lab and around the world for over 40 years.

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Researchers at the Virginia Tech College of Science are carrying out a research project at Dominion Power’s North Anna Nuclear Generating Station in Virginia that could lead to a new turning point in how the United Nations tracks rogue nations that seek nuclear power.

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The University of Utah’s J. Marriott Library created an interactive, geospatial archive depicting the story of Utah radioactive fallout related to atmospheric nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site.

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A team of Notre Dame researchers are working in collaboration with researchers from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and the Colorado School of Mines.

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Article describes first experimental finding of constant temperature throughout a fusion plasma.

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Taking inspiration from an unusual source, a Sandia National Laboratories team has dramatically improved the science of scintillators — objects that detect nuclear threats. According to the team, using organic glass scintillators could soon make it even harder to smuggle nuclear materials through America’s ports and borders.

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The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and ATLAS Computing Facility (RACF) Mass Storage Service—part of the Scientific Data and Computing Center (SDCC) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory—now records 100 petabytes of data reflecting nearly two decades of physics research.

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Sandia National Laboratories physicist Peter Marleau has developed a new method for verifying warhead attributes. Called CONFIDANTE, for CONfirmation using a Fast-neutron Imaging Detector with Anti-image Null-positive Time Encoding, the method could help address the problem of conducting verification measurements while simultaneously protecting sensitive design information.

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It’s been a challenge for Sandia National Laboratories' Tonopah Test Range to keep decades-old equipment running while gathering detailed information required for 21st century non-nuclear testing. The Nevada test range has changed the analog brains in instruments to digital, moved to modern communications systems, and upgraded telemetry and tracking equipment and computing systems.

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The classic method for studying how electrons interact with matter is by analyzing their scattering through thin layers of a known substance. This happens by directing a stream of electrons at the layer and analyzing the subsequent deviations in the electrons’ trajectories. But researchers in Switzerland have devised a way to examine the movement of low-energy electrons that can adversely impact electronic systems and biological tissue. They discuss this in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.

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Penn State College of Medicine researchers have shown, for the first time, a possible correlation between the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and thyroid cancers in the counties surrounding the plant.

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For more than 40 years, Argonne has promoted the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and technology through its affiliation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

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To kick off the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Commencement weekend, the annual President’s Commencement Colloquy will take place on Friday, May 19, beginning at 3:30 p.m. The discussion, titled “Criticality, Incisiveness, Creativity,” will include the Honorable Ernest J. Moniz, former Secretary of Energy, and the Honorable Roger W. Ferguson Jr., President and CEO of TIAA, and will be moderated by Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson.

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New research by a Florida State University professor reveals that plutonium's electronic properties are more complex than previously thought and that the element operates more like lighter elements such as iron or nickel.

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A new tool at Berkeley Lab will be taking on some of the periodic table’s latest heavyweight champions to see how their masses measure up to predictions.

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New leadership takes the helm at Sandia National Laboratories

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The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors carried out the largest time-dependent simulation of a nuclear reactor ever to support Tennessee Valley Authority and Westinghouse Electric Company during the startup of Watts Bar Unit 2, the first new US nuclear reactor in 20 years. The simulation was carried out primarily on OLCF resources.

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The drop of a mock nuclear weapon on Tonopah Test Range in Nevada marked the start of a new series of test flights for the nation's B61-12 weapon refurbishment program.

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More than a decade after the Ford Nuclear Reactor shut down for the last time, the building comes back to life today as the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory.

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Sandia National Laboratories is transforming how it assesses nuclear weapons in a stockpile made up of weapons at different stages in their lifecycles — some systems that have existed for decades alongside those that have undergone life extension programs.

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Sandia National Laboratories explores the evolution of nuclear deterrence in a new documentary that combines modern and historical footage with a wide range of interviews. On Deterrence features interviews with former secretaries of defense, general officers, policymakers, analysts, scholars and scientists with varied viewpoints to describe the impact of nuclear deterrence since the end of World War II.

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Scientists experimentally validated the predicted damage mechanism for materials in nuclear energy environments.

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Sandia National Laboratories computer scientists have recently adapted augmented reality to enhance training of nuclear power security personnel around the world.

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Techniques to investigate chemical properties of super heavy elements lead to improved methods for separating certain metals. This work could also lead to better methods of re-using indium, a metal that is part of flat-panel displays but is not currently mined in the US.

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Click here to go directly to the Physics News Source Sponsored by AIP.

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Article describes the remarkable fidelity of the magnetic field of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator to the complex design of the field.

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Bob Hill, technical director of advanced nuclear energy R&D at Argonne, was honored last week as a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society.

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Two researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected fellows of the American Nuclear Society. Alan S. Icenhour and Jess C. Gehin were recognized for their outstanding scientific and technical leadership in nuclear energy research and development.

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Article describes appointment of PPPL Physicist Richard Hawryluk as chair of the Nuclear Fusion editorial board.

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Renewed interest in molten salt technology was evident at a recent gathering of advanced nuclear reactor experts at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Nearly 200 attendees from national labs, industry, utilities, reactor design firms, and international development companies shared progress in molten salt technology with the hope that their work will move molten salt reactors (MSRs) from concept to construction in the coming years.

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How do you handle nuclear waste that will be radioactive for millions of years, keeping it from harming people and the environment? It isn’t easy, but Rutgers researcher Ashutosh Goel has discovered ways to immobilize such waste – the offshoot of decades of nuclear weapons production – in glass and ceramics.

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Five years ago, the largest single release of human-made radioactive discharge to the marine environment resulted from an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

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Sandia National Laboratories sent a mock B61-12 nuclear weapon speeding down the labs’ 10,000-foot rocket sled track to slam nose-first into a steel and concrete wall in a spectacular test that mimicked a high-speed accident. It allowed engineers to examine safety features inside the weapon that prevent inadvertent nuclear detonation.

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Since 1952, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has been home to a national resource whose existence is not widely known outside of its customer base: the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC), a user facility with a research mission. Alejandro Sonzogni, the new director of the NNDC, sees his mission as adapting the NNDC group’s activities to meet the changing needs of the nuclear community and spreading the word about the services the group offers.

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A research group from the University of Saskatchewan has found that the mining and milling of Canadian uranium contributes very few greenhouse gases to nuclear power’s already low emissions. The study, conducted by David Parker, a graduate student in the College of Engineering co-supervised by U of S professor emeritus Gordon Sparks and environmental engineer Cameron McNaughton, was published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology.

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In the latest edition of the journal Science, Florida State University Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt captures the fundamental chemistry of the element berkelium, or Bk on the periodic table.

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Sandia National Laboratories, which has been in the business of nuclear detonation detection for more than 50 years, is working on the next generation system.