💡 Three nuclear energy innovation news this week!
🌙 Westinghouse Electric Company and Astrobotic sign a Memorandum of Understanding to develop space nuclear technology and delivery systems. In 2022, Westinghouse was awarded a NASA contract for an initial design concept of a 40 kW fission system able to last at least 10 years in the lunar environment.
🌞 The UK Atomic Energy Authority awards a total of £6.8m worth of contracts in the frame of its Fusion Industry Programme. The focus of this slice is digitalization as well as the production and handling of hydrogen isotopes. The companies involved include Full Matrix Ltd, Gencoa Ltd, AQSORPTION Ltd and IS-Instruments Ltd while the universities include the University of Manchester, the University of Bristol, and the University of Liverpool.
🧪 Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop an approach to derive chemical information on radioactive and enriched stable isotopes which requires 1,000x less material than previous state-of-the-art methods, with no loss of data quality. This could prove instrumental in a context given the current cost and low-availability constraints for research isotopes.
🎓 Paper of the week: "Estimation of fuel operating ranges of fusion power plants", Nuclear Engineering and Technology (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2023.04.024
👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me know!