Week 31 of 2024

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

🌞 Type One Energy Group (US) raises a $82.4 million Seed round with a range of investors including Centaurus Capital, GD1, and Foxglove. This is a key milestone in the startup's FusionDirect development program intended to culminate by 2030 with a stellarator-based fusion pilot power plant.

🎱 Researchers at Yale University introduce a new method to mechanically detect an individual nuclear decay, the process through which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy via the emission of radiation. It relies on sensitive micron-scale force sensors and accelerometers using optically trapped particles in vaccuum. The key objective is to detect the force imparted by individual fundamental particles, including those with no electric charge.

🌞 The South Korean government announces a KRW1,200bn ($866m) invesment to develop fusion reactors and related infrastructure. The investment over 10 years, starting in 2026, aims to develop nuclear fusion reactor components through a public-private partnership and establish a private-led industrial fusion energy ecosystem.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "A rumor propagation model based on nuclear fission", AIP advances (2024)

👉 Modified model designed to simulate nuclear fission sheds light on how rumors start, spread, and end.

👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me me know!