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...

June 15, 2022

Seth Kanter never suspected that his love of the ocean, and more than eight years in the Navy, would eventually lead him to a career in the high desert of eastern Idaho. But as the Radiological Engineering manager at Idaho...

May 31, 2022

The United States invests more than $30 billion every year in its national laboratories, which are owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Their mission, according to DOE’s mission statement, is to “ensure America’s security and prosperity by...

May 16, 2022

Developing the nuclear power systems of the future requires innovative thinking and new approaches to solving complex challenges. For the first time, a team of Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and University of Idaho researchers has successfully applied machine learning to...

May 11, 2022

It’s one of the most persistent questions in nuclear energy: What about the waste? A new collaboration between Idaho National Laboratory and the University of Utah hopes to answer that question by making fuel recycling a reality for advanced reactors.  ...

April 13, 2022

A study that began in 2009 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has finished its third and final phase. The study provides important insight that will not only extend the life of...

March 24, 2022

Yasir Arafat is a MARVEL superhero. No, he’s not a Marvel Comics superhero. Rather, he’s a nuclear engineer leading development of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) project at Idaho National Laboratory. And from...

March 22, 2022

Advanced nuclear technologies could play an important role for nations seeking carbon-free energy solutions to reduce the impacts of climate change.    Companies around the world are developing advanced reactor designs to meet a range of needs, from microreactors for remote...