Week 2 of 2025

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

🚢 The NuProShip initiative (Norway) selects three Gen IV SMR designs for further evaluation in maritime propulsion: Kairos Power's fluoride high-temperature molten salt reactor, Ultra Safe Nuclear's helium-cooled gas reactor—both utilizing TRISO fuel—and Blykalla's lead-cooled reactor using uranium oxide fuel. Phase II of the project, spanning the next two years, aims to develop a workable prototype solution, with Phase III focusing on testing. The ultimate goal is to create a commercially viable zero-emission technology for deep-sea ships, aligning with the International Maritime Organization's target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

🩻 A team at the Idaho National Laboratory (US) manages to reduce X-ray CT scan times by 12x and improve defect detection capabilities by 4x in dense materials. This was made possible by the Simurgh algorithm, a deep learning-based framework developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US). The technology is now being adapted to inspect ceramic casings of irradiated nuclear fuel.

🌖 NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy select Westinghouse Electric Company to advance the design of its eVinci microreactor for lunar applications. It is designed to generate 40 kWe of electrical power using advanced uranium nitride (UN) fuel, with scalability up to 2 MWe. It builds upon NASA's Kilopower project, with a goal of demonstrating a lunar fission power system within the next decade.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "Analysis of reactor burnup simulation uncertainties for antineutrino spectrum prediction", The European Physical Journal Plus (2024).

👉 Improved method to simulate antineutrinos from nuclear reactors.

👉 More on nuclear reactor antineutrinos: https://nuclearenergydecoded.notion.site/Nuclear-Energy-as-a-Cutting-Edge-Tool-for-Particle-Physics-eb9de1168f714159b365792b75ecf3a2