Heavy nitrogen has the potential to become as important to the future of atomic fission power system development as heavy water has been up until now. That’s a bold statement, so let me explain why I believe it’s true. Are any nitrogen cooled reactors being used today? One nuclear fission power system – the US…
X-Energy is the lead recipient for one of two industry groups selected to receive $80 M in Department of Energy (DOE) funding as part of a public-private partnership program to demonstrate advanced nuclear power plants on an aggressive time table. Its primary partner in the endeavor is Energy Northwest, which currently owns and operates the…
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a stretch goal of completing its next research and test reactor by the end of 2025. It has assembled a team that includes several other major universities, national labs, and industrial partners. It has selected the MMRTM, a product that is being developed by USNC (Ultra Safe Nuclear…
Global First Power (GFP), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced that they had formed a joint venture called Global First Power Limited Partnership. That venture will build, own and operate an installation called the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR™) at the Chalk River Laboratories site. Mark Mitchell and Eric MGoey…
Atomic Show #278 transcript, lightly edited for clarity. Intro music (00:15): Rod Adams (00:21):This is Rod Adams and it’s time for Atomic Show show number 278. Yes, these Atomic Shows are coming almost regularly these days. I guess it helps to have not only myself, but all of my guests, working from home. Today I…
Simon Wakter is a strongly pro-nuclear engineer in a country that passed a referendum officially phasing out nuclear energy since several years before he was born. He has to round up to be called a thirty-something. Simon works in the nuclear energy branch of AFRY, a well-established 17,000 employee, all-of-the-above. engineering company that recently adopted…
HolosGen has attacked the nuclear power plant cost and schedule challenge from the opposite direction chosen by many nuclear reactor developers. Claiming to be agnostic about the reactor specifics – as long as it produces reliable heat in a small-enough configuration – HolosGen founder Claudio Filippone decided to focus on radical improvements to the “balance…
Managing any business is hard work, especially during a global pandemic with stay-at-home orders in place. It requires creativity and flexibility along with some amount of prior preparation. On May 11, 2020, I gathered a group of representatives from several start-up companies that are developing advanced nuclear technologies to talk about how they are making…
Copenhagen isn’t the first city name that comes to mind as the place to start a nuclear company. Denmark has decommissioned its last research reactor and has never had a nuclear power plant. That hasn’t deterred Thomas Jam Pedersen and his colleagues at Copenhagen Atomics. Starting a decade or more ago, they began learning about…
Liz Muller is a co-founder and the CEO of Deep Isolation, a company that makes the modest claim of having invented a solution to nuclear waste. The politically unsolved waste issue has plagued nuclear energy development since the mid 1970s. That was when it became abundantly clear that the original plan to recycle used fuel…
Suzanne (Suzy) Hobbs Baker serves as the Creative Director for Fastest Path to Zero. I recently spoke with Suzy and Steve Aplin, a consultant to the Canadian nuclear industry and frequent Atomic Show guest, about the work that Fastest Path to Zero has done and plans to do in the near future. Fastest Path to…
Oklo, Inc. announced yesterday that its combined license application (COLA) to build and operate an Aurora at INL was undergoing acceptance review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Key project specifics Oklo’s Aurora is a 1.5 MWe liquid metal fast reactor with heat pipes to move fission heat out of the reactor core and into the…