Author: Fission Today

Electric bills have shocked Duke Energy customers across North Carolina in recent months, with some households reporting bills of over $1,000. More than 70,000 people have signed a petition launched by a Raleigh resident calling for an audit of the company’s billing system and refunds for customers. Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks told WRAL News that unusually cold weather was to blame, with heating use rising during a key winter billing period. Cold weather was a real factor. But it is not the whole explanation – and for many customers, it may not even be the primary one. A clearer…

For decades, the United States and Europe cast themselves as leaders of the global energy transition. Instead, China has seized that role through massive industrial policy and relentless investment in clean technology. The world’s largest emitter is now also the driving force behind the expansion of renewable energy. This shift is changing the economics – and the politics – of climate action. Credits: Fahroni | Shutterstock, All rights deserved. By the COP30 climate summit in Belém, it had become evident: China is streaking past the United States and European Union in terms of clean energy technology and its industries. China…

Like many people who end up going into physics, Sophia Henneberg had a hard time, when she was young, choosing between that discipline and mathematics. Both subjects came easily to her, and she — unlike many of her peers — thought they were fun. Henneberg grew up in a small town in central Germany, and it was not until one week before applying to college that she decided on physics, reasoning that it would still give her the chance to do plenty of math, while also affording opportunities to connect with a broad range of applications. Midway through her undergraduate studies…

A new Texas-based startup has launched an effort to build what would be the first U.S. uranium conversion facility in more than seven decades to restore a domestic capability it says has become “an unacceptable chokepoint” in America’s nuclear fuel supply chain. FluxPoint Energy made its public debut this week at CERAWeek by S&P Global, announcing plans to convert uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) at a Texas facility. Headquartered in Houston and McLean, Virginia, the company was founded by Mike Chilton, an industry veteran who has more than 30 years of experience in uranium processing and nuclear fuel development.…

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Particle accelerators reveal the heart of nuclear matter by smashing together atoms at close to the speed of light. The high-energy collisions produce a shower of subatomic fragments that scientists can then study to reconstruct the core building blocks of matter.An MIT-led team has now used the world’s most powerful particle accelerator to discover new properties of matter, through particles’ “near-misses.” The approach has turned the particle accelerator into a new kind of microscope — and led to the discovery of new behavior in the forces that hold matter together.In a study appearing this week in the journal Physical Review…

Amsterdam – Greenpeace International has condemned threats by Donald Trump to target Iran’s electricity infrastructure, warning it could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe, trigger a blackout over a large part of the country and risk nuclear disaster escalating into a wider regional crisis. Greenpeace warns that attacks on the grid could have a knock-on effect that increases the danger of a nuclear emergency at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, with potential consequences across the region.[1] “Bombing civilian electricity infrastructure is illegal under international law. The electricity grid is essential for hospitals, clean water, desalination and the operation of nuclear facilities. Cutting…

Report: Key Bottlenecks Facing New Reactor Builds Oklo’s Atomic Alchemy Granted NRC License for Isotope Production TerraPower Isotopes Announces cGMP Manufacturing Facility General Matter to Export American Nuclear Fuel to Japan Aalo Completes Assembly of Micro Test Reactor at INL Key Contracts Awarded in UK Fusion Program EU €330 Million in Funding for Fusion Energy, Nuclear Medicine Realta Fusion and Kyoto Fusioneering Forge Strategic Partnership Helical Fusion Announces Construction Start in Japan DOE Offers $230M for National Science Challenges Report: Key Bottlenecks Face New Reactor Builds A new report from the Nuclear Scaling Initiative (NSI), Landscape of U.S. Domestic Advanced…

Three North Carolina Democratic state House members who crossed the aisle to cast key votes to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of a controversial Duke Energy-backed utility bill were rejected by voters in their own party’s primaries this month — after receiving the maximum $10,000 campaign contributions from the utility. In 2025, state Reps. Carla Cunningham, Nasif Majeed, and Shelly Willingham, all Democrats, joined Republicans to override Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of Senate Bill 266, a sweeping energy policy measure that is likely to raise electricity costs for residential customers while reducing financial risk for Duke Energy. S. 266…

One of the sleeper news items of last week was that the Department of Energy officially vacated the Atomic Energy Commission decision that stripped J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance in 1954. It did come as a surprise to me. I knew that there was a campaign to overturn Oppenheimer’s clearance loss — I had been asked to give representatives from the American Institute of Physics a background talk about it, in order to help them determine whether to take a stance on it — and also knew that there had been previous, unsuccessful efforts in this respect. “Beyond…