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Tag: research

NSUF awards 19 Rapid Turnaround Experiments

September 27, 2024, 10:07AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded 19 experimental proposals access to Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) under the 2024 “third call” for Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) projects. In total, the awards are valued at about $1 million and were granted to 19 principal investigators from 11 institutions, including universities and industry researchers.

Dust: Trapped by a laser or threatening ITER, it’s making headlines

September 17, 2024, 7:02AMNuclear News
An optically trapped microparticle in high vacuum is visible as a white dot levitated between two lenses, which are used to focus and collect invisible infrared laser light used to trap the particle. (Photo: DOE/Yale Wright Lab)

Start talking about dust in a vacuum, and some people will think of household chores. But dust has featured in recent nuclear science and engineering headlines in curious ways: ITER is deploying oversized dust covers inspired by space satellites in the south of France, while at Yale University, researchers have watched every move of a dust-sized particle levitating in a laser beam for telltale twitches that indicate radioactive decay.

INL readies new Sample Preparation Laboratory

September 13, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News
The outside of the Sample Preparation Laboratory at the Materials and Fuels Complex at Idaho National Laboratory. (Photo: INL)

Idaho National Laboratory has completed substantial construction of the first new hot cell facility at the lab site in 49 years—a Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL) that will accelerate research, development, and qualification of structural nuclear materials for both existing and new nuclear reactors. In an announcement last week of the milestone and the ribbon-cutting ceremony held to mark it, INL said the SPL is expected to be fully operational in 2025.

DOE awards $17 million to answer critical questions with HALEU data

September 4, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure—including packaging and transportation containers—required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.

DOE funds AI-assisted hunt for biomarkers of low-dose radiation health effects

August 28, 2024, 12:38PMNuclear News

Funds earmarked for “integrated biological and computational low-dose radiation research” will go to 14 university research projects in a new approach to federally funded low-dose radiation research that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to find cellular markers of radiation health effects. The Department of Energy announced on August 21 that these 14 projects on cellular and molecular responses to low-dose radiation would collectively get $19.5 million in funding over three years.

DOE awards first Super Rapid Turnaround Experiments for nuclear energy tech

August 23, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy for the first time has awarded access to Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) for Super Rapid Turnaround Experiments (RTEs). The 13 selected research projects, announced August 21, will examine the performance of nuclear fuels and materials for existing and planned nuclear power reactors. The project teams include 13 principal investigators collectively representing six universities, three national lab facilities, and one industry partner. They are getting no-cost access to capabilities valued at about $1.8 million.

Modeling physical security can help lower costs for nuclear power plants

August 19, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear NewsCory Hatch
The MASS-DEF framework with prevention actions and timelines modeled in EMRALD software interacting with force-on-force (FoF) simulation and thermal hydraulics models. The risk-informed modeling in the MASS-DEF framework integrates physical security effectiveness analysis with safety measures, such as time to core damage. (Graphic: INL)

Today’s nuclear power plants are the nation’s largest source of carbon-free energy, but they come with high operating and maintenance costs.

Competition from other sources, especially natural gas, coupled with low electricity prices, has resulted in the closure of some plants in the last decade due to economic reasons.

One way to alleviate these economic pressures is to reduce the cost of operating nuclear power plants, including the costs associated with physical security.

General Atomics R&D team recognized for contributions to NIF’s fusion ignition

August 13, 2024, 9:43AMNuclear News
Members of the Metrology Research and Development team working with the 4Pi system in a clean room at GA headquarters. (Photo: General Atomics)

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has achieved fusion ignition at least five times, each time by directing its 192 high-powered lasers on a capsule containing a tiny, 2-millimeter target filled with hydrogen fuel. Not every shot achieves ignition, however. Tiny imperfections in the targets can mean fizzle, not fusion. But each of the targets used in successful experiments to date have something in common: they were characterized and selected by the 4Pi Integrated Metrology System, a new measurement system developed by General Atomics. Now, the team behind that system is being recognized.

GA announced last week that its Metrology Research and Development team had won the 2024 "Team of the Year" R&D 100 Professional Award from R&D World. The magazine that each year announces the R&D 100 awards that have been dubbed the “Oscars of Innovation” also selects just one “Team of the Year” and announces that award together with four other professional awards.

Custom equipment lets ORNL scale up molten salt investigations

August 8, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
A glass test cell that was fabricated to visualize noble gas behavior in a stagnant molten salt column. (Photo: ORNL)

Transparency is one advantage of certain molten salts that could serve as both a coolant and fuel carrier in an advanced reactor. For scientists studying molten salt chemistry and behavior at the laboratory scale, it helps if the test vessel is transparent too. Now, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created a custom glass test cell with a 1-liter capacity to observe how gases move within a column of molten salt, the Department of Energy announced August 5.

Making AI fit for purpose: DOE-led applications in energy and nuclear research

August 5, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The ALCF AI Testbed includes the AI systems represented in this collage: Cerebras, Graphcore, Groq, and SambaNova. (Image: Argonne National Laboratory)

Generative artificial intelligence paired with advanced diagnostic tools could detect potential problems in nuclear power plants and deliver a straightforward explanation to operators in real time. That’s the premise of research out of the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, and just one example of the DOE’s increasing exploration of AI applications in nuclear science and technology research. Training and restraining novel AI systems take expertise and data, and the DOE has access to both. According to a flurry of reports and announcements in recent months, the DOE is setting out its plans to ensure the United States can use AI to its advantage to enhance energy security and national security.

The IAEA targets seafood contaminants and plastic pollution in oceans

July 16, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear News
Researchers take samples of a microorganism that could produce toxins. (Photo: CEAC)

Oceans link all the continents of the world, and fish don’t respect boundary lines. So it’s fitting that a global organization—the International Atomic Energy Agency—is helping nations detect and monitor both plastic pollution and biotoxins in marine algae that can lead to outbreaks of contaminated seafood.

FIRE: The DOE’s new plan for “building bridges” to fusion energy

June 4, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
A slide on the FIRE collaboratives presented during a recent FES webinar. (Graphic: FES)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) wants Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) collaboratives to be a bridge between FES’s basic science research programs and the growing fusion industry. A funding opportunity announcement released May 22 explains that FIRE will be a “transformative initiative aimed at creating a fusion innovation ecosystem” with virtual, centrally managed collaboratives working on “end-use inspired” fusion science and technology R&D.

Max Planck’s ELISE reaches record values for ITER plasma heating

May 8, 2024, 10:01AMNuclear News
The IPP’s Dirk Wünderlich and Ursel Fantz at the experimental testing facility ELISE in Germany. (Photo: MPI for Plasma Physics/Frank Fleschner)

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) announced that it recently has achieved a new record for ion current density for neutral particle heating at its ELISE (Extraction from a Large Ion Source Experiment) experimental testing facility in Garching, Germany. ELISE is being used to test neutral beam injection (NBI) systems that will be used to heat the plasma of the ITER fusion experiment in France.

Argonne to investigate Pu chemistry to aid Hanford cleanup

May 7, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant. (Photo: Bechtel National)

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are investigating the details of plutonium chemistry with the goal of aiding the cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. For more than 40 years, reactors located at Hanford produced plutonium for America’s defense program, resulting in millions of gallons of liquid radioactive and chemical waste.

Bacteria found to reduce uranium mobility in clay

April 18, 2024, 7:04AMRadwaste Solutions
An artistic representation of a Desulfosporosinus cell with immobilized uranium on the surface. (Image: B. Schröder/HZDR)

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) research laboratory in Germany have investigated a microorganism capable of transforming water-soluble hexavalent uranium [U(VI)] to the less-mobile tetravalent uranium [U(IV)]. The researchers found that the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfosporosinus hippei, a relative of naturally occurring microorganisms present in clay rock and bentonite, showed a relatively fast removal of uranium from clay pore water.

Electron-Ion Collider coming to Brookhaven gets substantial U.K. investment

April 1, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
John Hill, deputy director for science and technology at BNL, with Ruqaiyah Patel, deputy director of UKRI North America, at a recent reception held by UKRI's North America office to mark the funding of the EIC. (Photo: BNL)

The U.S. Department of Energy is constructing the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory to explore the boundaries of nuclear physics—both for the sake of science and to support diverse applications, including in nuclear medicine, radiation safety, and nuclear energy. The project, already supported by international collaborators in 40 countries, just secured a significant commitment from the United Kingdom.

Penn State welcomes neutron scattering device—a first of a kind in the U.S.

March 19, 2024, 9:37AMNuclear News
The Penn State RSEC recently received a SANS device. (Photo: Poornima Tomy/Penn State)

Staff and researchers at Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center (RSEC) will work this year to install a small angle neutron scattering (SANS) device and become the first and only U.S. university research reactor to host SANS capability. The $9.8 million device, donated by Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in Germany, will help researchers determine the structure of organic materials such as polymers, complex fluids, and biomolecules.

IAEA microplastic pollution research goes on location in Antarctica

January 17, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
An IAEA researcher collects samples from the Antarctic shoreline. (Image: IAEA)

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.

NRC plans to spend $11.7 million on university R&D in 2024

September 19, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on September 18 that it expects to award 24 research and development grants totaling more than $11.7 million in fiscal year 2023 University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP) funds to university researchers in early 2024.

U.S. agrees to share data, expertise with NEA Data Bank

August 17, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News
DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy Kathryn Huff and NEA director general William D. Magwood IV affirmed U.S. membership in the NEA Data Bank at DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: OECD NEA)

The United States has joined the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Data Bank, a decision that marks “a significant stride in international collaboration for nuclear energy research, safety, and knowledge exchange,” according to the August 16 NEA announcement. “As a country renowned for its scientific and technological excellence, the United States will undoubtedly enrich the Data Bank's repository of data, software, and benchmarks and enhance its role in fostering responsible nuclear development.”