Weekly Nuclear Innovation Brief

Week 22 of 2024

Thank you for reading Weekly Nuclear Innovation Brief. This post is public so feel free to share it. 🌝 ispace, inc. (JP) and the University of Leicester (UK) partner on radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) for future lunar landers and rovers. The lunar night lasts for 12 days, with temperatures plunging down to -133 °C, which requires robust heating so…

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Wordcount: 249

Week 21 of 2024

⚫ Radiant and Amsted Graphite Materials sign a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at fortifying the US domestic supply chain for nuclear-grade graphite. Key objectives include collaborative efforts in policy advocacy, exploration of public-private partnerships with the U.S. government, and participation in testing and R&D programs with universities and g…

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Wordcount: 193

Week 20 of 2024

💻 A team of researchers led by the University of Washington successfully uses a hybrid quantum computing scheme to simulate the scattering of two neutrons. Scattering requires Monte Carlo simulations or other statistical approaches. As the mass of the colliding nuclei grows, the required computational resources become enormous. This type of phenomena, …

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Wordcount: 236

Week 18 of 2024

Thank you for reading Weekly Nuclear Innovation Brief. This post is public so feel free to share it. 🎥 Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory develop a new plasma measurement instrument to gain information about the density of neutral atoms within plasmas. The diagnostic tool, known as ALPACA, presents itself as a pinhole camera that obs…

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Wordcount: 239

Week 17 of 2024

⚽ Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US) demonstrate a non-destructive identification method for pebble-bed reactors. It relies on the unique 3D distribution of TRISO particles associated with each pebble, which can be extracted through X-ray CT. The method performed with 100% accuracy over 100k arbitrarily rotated pebble, under…

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Wordcount: 232

Week 16 of 2024

🏋‍♂️ Blykalla closes a 80 mSEK (6.9m€) funding round led by Norrsken Launcher and Nucleation Capital, with participation from Earth Venture Capital, Farvatn, and several private investors. The funds will be used to advance the advanced the development of the SEALER, which stands for Swedish Advanced Lead-cooled Reactor. One of the immediate next steps …

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Wordcount: 227

Week 15 of 2024

🍩 Proxima Fusion (DE), a stellarator startup that already came up a few times on this newsletter, closed a €20m Seed. The round was led by redalpine with participation from multiple new and existing investors. The company leverages on the experience gained at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics while building and operating the Wendelstein 7-X, …

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Wordcount: 240

Week 14 of 2024

⛽ The ANEEL Fuel, a blend of thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium, was inserted in the Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory for irradiation testing and qualification. The fuel was developped by Clean Core Thorium Energy for use in pressurized heavy water reactors and Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactors. The 300 fuel pellet…

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Wordcount: 188

Week 11 of 2024

Thanks for reading Weekly Nuclear Innovation Brief! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. 🌘 Interlune (US) announces a $15m raise from Seven Seven Six, Aurelia Foundry, Gaingels, Liquid 2 Ventures and Shasta Ventures. Founded by two of Blue Origin's earliest employees, the company aims to mine Helium-3 from the lunar surface and r…

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Wordcount: 259

Week 10 of 2024

Thank you for reading Weekly Nuclear Innovation Brief. This post is public so feel free to share it. 🔵 ITOCHU Corporation and SoftBank invest in Blue Laser Fusion (US). The startup is headed by Shuji Nakamura, who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics for the development of the blue light-emitting diode. Their approach involves MJ laser pulse intensificat…

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Wordcount: 267