D-shaped magnets form part of a tokamak that is being built for a nuclear-fusion pilot project. Credit: Commonwealth Fusion Systems About a dozen technicians, in hard hats and protective clothing, move around a large, double-height room. Some are checking pipes coming up through the floor into a raised, circular platform. Others work on instruments installed
Most spacecraft use solar panels to power their equipment — but missions to places such as the shadowed craters of the Moon or the deep Solar System can’t rely on energy from the Sun. Could nuclear fuel, with its high energy density, be a promising alternative? In this film, Nature explores the work of a
Inside a nondescript warehouse in an industrial park in Oakville, Canada, sits a squat forklift truck that requires no driver. When activated by its remote operator, the vehicle trundles to a stack of huge clay blocks, each weighing 8,000 kilograms, and carries them into a narrow rock tunnel. Another custom-built machine then fills the spaces
Light emitted by a microplasma could be used to monitor a molten-salt nuclear reactor.Credit: ORNL New insight into an old material Because it can tolerate high temperatures and neutron damage, the carbon material graphite is used in several ways in nuclear reactors. It has a role in structural components and in fuel coatings, and it
Over the past decade or so, the once- sleepy nuclear sector has become a hive of activity. Venture capital drove innovative reactor designs promising lower risk. The need for low-carbon energy eroded environmental opposition. Electrification and artificial intelligence boosted energy demand, and the geopolitical weaponization of energy put a premium on domestic generation. As a
Almost since the first nuclear power plant started generating electricity in the 1950s, critics have pointed out the difficulty of safely disposing of highly radioactive spent fuel. In those days, radiation was among the few carcinogens that were recognized and could be measured easily. Cold-war anxieties amplified public fear of nuclear technologies and radiation. As
