Week 9 of 2024

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

📑 The second edition of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Small Modular Reactor Dashboard is out! It assesses the progress of 56 SMRs towards first-of-a-kind commercial deployment across six dimensions: licensing, siting, financing, supply chain, engagement and fuel. Must read! Access here.

🧂Thorizon (The Netherlands) selects engineering firm Tractebel (Belgium) for a three-year partnership to advance the development of the 250 MWth Thorizon One molten salt reactor. It encompasses support on the conceptual design, computational modelling, cost estimates and design reviews. The objective is to start building the first-of-a-kind by 2030.

🛳 ULC-Energy (The Netherlands) completes a study to investigate nuclear-based marine propulsion. Once again, the superiority of the nuclear option is confirmed in terms of longer range, faster transit, and near-zero emissions. The main hurdle remains to update the regulatory framework. The study was commissionned by global mining company BHP.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "Ab initio informed evaluation of the radiative capture of protons on 7Be", Physics Letters B (2023).

👉 Model for proton-beryllium fusion in the sun reduces uncertainty by 5x.

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