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
As the U.S. paves the way for a nuclear renaissance to power the AI data center boom, the next frontier is building small nuclear reactors offshore to power coastal facilities and merchant ships. Strangely, the momentum could begin in California, a state that banned building new nuclear plants 50 years ago. This summer, the Port
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
A massive influx of jellyfish has led to the partial shutdown of a nuclear reactor in northern France. Two of Gravelines nuclear power station’s six units were shut down on Wednesday and Thursday because of the presence of jellyfish in the seawater filtration system, which is used for cooling, Électricité de France (EDF) said. A
Few scientific phenomena have been associated with such an eerie blend of menace and promise as nuclear fission. Within seven years of the discovery of fission, in which a heavy atomic nucleus is split into smaller fragments to release energy, the world watched as the United States used it to destroy two Japanese cities. Less
