Nuclear Energy News

November 14, 2016

Swirling Rings Exist in Subatomic 'Soup'

Supercomputer Creates a Profile of Dark Matter

Can Radioactive Waste Be Immobilized in Glass?

Clean Energy: New Record for Fusion

Latest Headlines

updated 5:45pm EST

Radioisotopes Have Potential for Medical Diagnosis and Treatment

Nov. 14, 2016 — Using its electron linear accelerator, researchers have enabled two companies to demonstrate new methods for the production of molybdenum-99, the parent isotope of ... read more

Can We Meet Global Energy Demands With Nuclear Power?

Nov. 9, 2016 — An international team of scientists suggests that we must ramp up energy production by nuclear power if we are to succeed in warding off the worst effects of greenhouse gas emissions on climate ... read more

Physicists Build Diagnostic That Measures Plasma Velocity in Real Time

Nov. 8, 2016 — Physicists have developed a diagnostic that provides crucial real-time information about the ultrahot plasma swirling within doughnut-shaped fusion machines known as ... read more

Nuclear CSI: Noninvasive Procedure Could Identify Criminal Nuclear Activity

Nov. 1, 2016 — Determining if a person has handled nuclear materials, such as uranium or plutonium, is a challenge national defense agencies face. The standard protocol to detect uranium ... read more

A New Twist for Fusion Research

Oct. 28, 2016 — This past year saw the commissioning and initial operation of a new large-scale plasma experiment, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) in Greifswald, Germany. And while the device is ... read more

Extinguishing a Fusion Fire in a Flash of Light

Oct. 28, 2016 — Fusion energy researchers have discovered that they can rapidly extinguish and cool a magnetically confined fusion plasma hotter than the center of the sun by injecting a ... read more

Nickel-78 Is a 'Doubly Magic' Isotope, Supercomputing Calculations Confirm

Oct. 26, 2016 — Theoretical physicists recently used Titan, America’s most powerful supercomputer, to compute the nuclear structure of nickel-78 and found that this neutron-rich nucleus is ... read more

A Disappearing Feast: Mean Flows Remain Slim After Eating Eddies

Oct. 27, 2016 — Magnetic confinement fusion holds the promise of almost limitless amounts of energy, available on demand and producing zero carbon dioxide. But in order to harness that ... read more

Gamma Ray Camera Offers New View on Ultra-High Energy Electrons in Plasma

Oct. 28, 2016 — A new kind of gamma ray camera has been invented that can image beams of energetic electrons inside ultra-hot fusion plasma, ... read more

Launching Fusion Reactions Without a Central Magnet, or Solenoid

Oct. 28, 2016 — The tokamak is an experimental chamber that holds a gas of energetic charged particles, plasma, for developing energy production from nuclear fusion. Most large tokamaks ... read more

Fusion Project Construction Kicks Into Gear as Costs Balloon

British Trio Win Nobel Physics Prize for Exotic Matter Research

Science of 'exotic' States of Matter Lands Nobel Physics Prize

The US Is Down To Just One Major Nuclear Fusion Lab

New SPIRAL2 Particle Accelerator in France

Nov. 3, 2016 — The new SPIRAL2 particle accelerator at the French large heavy-ion accelerator GANIL (CNRS/CEA), inaugurated on November 3, will be able to produce immensely powerful particle beams, enabling ... read more

Establishing an Advanced Bonding Technique for Tungsten and Copper Alloys

Nov. 2, 2016 — The divertor is the device that continuously receives the extremely high heat and particle loads from the nuclear fusion plasma. Research and development on the divertor, which is highly reliable for ... read more

Turbulent Solution to a Growing Problem

Oct. 28, 2016 — Plasma turbulence, the wildly fluctuating pattern of particle motion, is a concern for fusion energy devices because it allows heat to escape the plasma. However, an even more serious concern is ... read more

Breakthrough in Z-Pinch Implosion Stability Opens New Path to Fusion

Oct. 28, 2016 — Researchers have demonstrated improved control over and understanding of implosions in a Z-pinch, a particular type of magneto-inertial device that relies on the Lorentz force to compress plasma to ... read more

General Atomics Breakthrough Enables Greater Control of Fusion Energy

Oct. 28, 2016 — An important new tool has been created for controlling fusion plasmas that are hotter than the sun. Changing the way the current system operates is a significant effort, considering the size and ... read more

Steering a Fusion Plasma Toward Stability

Oct. 28, 2016 — Plasmas in fusion-energy producing devices are gases heated to millions of degrees that can carry millions of amperes of current. These superhot plasmas must be kept away from material surfaces of ... read more

Scientists Measure How Ions Bombard Fusion Device Walls

Oct. 28, 2016 — For the first time, researchers have directly measured the complicated 3D patterns of flowing plasma as it strikes the walls of fusion and space propulsion ... read more

New Method to Help Solve the Problem of Nuclear Waste

Oct. 27, 2016 — In the last decades, nanomaterials have gained broad scientific and technological interest due to their unusual properties compared to micrometre-sized materials. At this scale, matter shows ... read more

Impact of the Fukushima Accident on Marine Life, Five Years Later

Oct. 18, 2016 — 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. Approximately ... read more

Novel Imaging Technique With Potential for Medical Diagnostics

Oct. 12, 2016 — A unique new imaging method, called "polarized nuclear imaging" - combining powerful aspects of both magnetic resonance imaging and gamma-ray imaging and developed by two physicists in the ... read more

Don't Panic, but Your Avocado Is Radioactive: Study Eyes Radiation of Everyday Objects

Oct. 7, 2016 — Most people assume all radioactive materials are dangerous, if not deadly. But a new study on the radiation emitted by everyday objects highlights the fact that we interact with radioactive materials ... read more

Sled Track Simulates High-Speed Accident in B61-12 Test

Oct. 6, 2016 — Investigators 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 ... read more

Nucleon Interactions Key to Quantum Phase Transition

Sep. 20, 2016 — New light has been shed on the ways in which protons and neutrons can bind and even undergo a quantum phase transition. This work has implications for understanding the connections between nuclear ... read more

Scientists Demonstrate a Novel Physical Cryptographic Technique That May Have Applicability to Future Nuclear Disarmament Agreements

Sep. 20, 2016 — A new article describes successful demonstration of cryptographic technique that may have applicability to future nuclear disarmament ... read more