March 13, 2023

Researchers solving today’s most important and complex energy challenges can’t always conduct real-world experiments.     This is especially true for nuclear energy research. Considerations such as cost, safety and limited resources can often make laboratory tests impractical. In some cases, the...

March 6, 2023

Over the next few decades, dozens of coal power plants around the country will reach the end of their operational lives, and will need to be replaced with new, clean energy sources.   The city of Kemmerer, Wyoming, home to a...

December 5, 2022

Although the likelihood of a terrorist nuclear attack is extremely low, a lot of work is required to prepare for such an unthinkable event. That’s why a response team assembled by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently trained in...

December 1, 2022

Wyoming’s embrace of advanced energy and manufacturing technologies has positioned the state to become a trailblazer in the global low-emissions economy.   Wyoming’s leadership in the nation’s energy future was the topic of this year’s Frontiers Project Meeting Oct. 7 in...

November 21, 2022

Idaho National Laboratory researchers have won funding from one of the nation’s largest sponsors of research in the natural sciences. At $3.8 million over three years, it is one of the largest Department of Energy Office of Science’s Basic Energy...

November 3, 2022

In the future, the biggest breakthroughs in aerospace and elemental energy will likely result from thinking small. Really small. Whether it’s rocket engines or fusion reactors, advances in these technologies require new materials equipped to handle their extreme operating environments....

November 1, 2022

Scientific progress is anything but automatic. The path to new discoveries is not a straight line. But while the route to nuclear energy breakthroughs may be circuitous, automated solutions can enhance the efficiency of the research process and get to...

October 5, 2022

In the past, finding the right energy solution for a community was relatively straightforward.   Fossil-fuel power plants dominated energy production, with large nuclear power plants and renewables playing a smaller role. A utility would evaluate these technologies for a given...

September 7, 2022

Last year, Bill Gates was speaking at the Nuclear Energy Assembly’s virtual conference about his company’s plans to build an advanced reactor in Wyoming.  Julian Colvin, a 22-year-old nuclear engineering student at North Carolina State University, was listening and posted...

August 31, 2022

The science of radiation chemistry flourished from the 1940s through the 1960s as the United States weighed the benefits of several different reactor technologies to power an energy-hungry planet.  During that time, researchers needed to understand how chemical reactions occurred...