Week 4 of 2024

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

📡 The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program selects an innovative nuclear propulsion technology. The Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER), relies on ~10 um thin sheets of Thorium-228 and uses the momentum of its decay products to generate thrust. A ~50-um thick absorber layer on one side forces alpha particles in the direction opposite of travel.

🚀 Zeno Power (US) selects Westinghouse Electric Company (US) to process radioisotopes for fabricating heat sources, a key component of its radioisotope power systems (RPSs). These systems convert heat from radioisotopes into a continuous and reliable supply of clean energy, particularly suited for off-grid environments. Zeno Power aims to introduce the first commercial RPSs to the market by 2026.

🚢 Prodigy Clean Energy (US) and Westinghouse Electric Company (US) collaborate on a Transportable Nuclear Power Plant (TNPP). Expected to be deployed in Canada by 2030, it would comprise 5 MWe eVinci microreactors on a floating Prodigy Microreactor Power Station. It is designed for remote industrial sites, data centers, communities, defense installations, islands, and island nations.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "Improved neutral and plasma density control with increasing lithium wall coatings in the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-β (LTX-β)", Nuclear Materials and Energy (2023).

👉 Liquid lithium walls enhance the performances of fusion devices.

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