Author: Fission Today

Eleven MIT faculty, including nine from the School of Engineering and two from the School of Science, were awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Fifteen additional MIT alumni were also honored. Established in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, the PECASE is awarded to scientists and engineers “who show exceptional potential for leadership early in their research careers.” The latest recipients were announced by the White House on Jan. 14 under President Joe Biden. Fourteen government agencies recommended researchers for the award.The MIT faculty and alumni honorees are among 400 scientists and engineers recognized for innovation and scientific contributions.…

Report: Military Tells Trump It Needs More Time to Prepare for War With Iran Military commanders in the Middle East want more time to prepare for Iranian counterattacks by Kyle Anzalone | January 11, 2026 , Senior Department of War officials have told President Donald Trump they need more time to consolidate American troops deployed to the Middle East before the US launches an attack on Iran.  According to The Telegraph, “Trump has been warned that the US military needs more time to prepare for strikes against Iran.” Military commanders in the Middle East stated they need to “consolidate US military positions and prepare…

On April 17, 2023, a three judge panel for the Ninth Circuit issued an Opinion in California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley finding that the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) preempts a City of Berkeley’s ordinance that prohibits the installation of natural gas plumbing in new construction. This opinion is far reaching in its implication for local government authority to adopt municipal code language and amendments to state building codes in California, particularly where these amendments electrify end-uses that are “covered products” for consumer products and commercial products (e.g., hot water heaters, space heaters, driers, cooking appliances, etc.)…

Creating and sustaining fusion reactions — essentially recreating star-like conditions on Earth — is extremely difficult, and Nathan Howard PhD ’12, a principal research scientist at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), thinks it’s one of the most fascinating scientific challenges of our time. “Both the science and the overall promise of fusion as a clean energy source are really interesting. That motivated me to come to grad school [at MIT] and work at the PSFC,” he says.Howard is member of the Magnetic Fusion Experiments Integrated Modeling (MFE-IM) group at the PSFC. Along with MFE-IM group leader Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez,…

Levies, charges, and taxes make electricity expensive – and hinder the switch to the climate-friendly, electricity-based alternatives that we urgently need. Yet many companies and consumers have long been ready to make the change. The technology is already available, often from German manufacturers, who have been waiting for years for a market breakthrough. Instead, Katherina Reiche’s reckless wrong-way drive continues unabated. Jan Philipp Albrecht reports in the Presidents’ Column. Credits: picture: Sibylle Fendt / Collage: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, All rights reserved. The situation is paradoxical. Climate-friendly mobility and heating systems and clean, emission-free industrial production have long been technically possible. Here in…

Statehouse Happenings This Week: Whew, what a great week! We celebrated our first WEALTH event this Wednesday with the House Energy and Utilities Chair, Representative Leo Delperdang, in conversation with our Clean Energy Business Council’s Jessica Lucas. On Thursday we then traveled to Topeka for a day at the Capitol. (Reminder: there are three more opportunities to come to Topeka with WEALTH!) We were hard at work this week to defeat an anti-renewable budget provision that would have placed a moratorium on wind and solar projects while also requiring a broad study of some forms of energy. The language was unclear, overreaching, and brought…

Eight MIT researchers are among the 128 new members and 22 international members recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for 2025. Thirteen additional MIT alumni were also elected as new members.One of the highest professional distinctions for engineers, membership in the NAE is given to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”The eight MIT electees this year include:Martin Zdenek…

Deep Isolation Nuclear, an innovator in nuclear waste disposal technology, on January 13 said the company has successfully completed its Project SAVANT (Sequential Advancement of Technology for Deep Borehole Disposal), a two-year research initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). The project found that Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System (UCS) and borehole casing materials can sufficiently resist corrosion to safely store nuclear waste material, further validating the design and advancing the company toward a full-scale deep borehole disposal demonstration. Building on the project’s central objective, the project SAVANT team evaluated corrosion performance under realistic…

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High-temperature superconducting magnets made from REBCO, an acronym for rare earth barium copper oxide, make it possible to create an intense magnetic field that can confine the extremely hot plasma needed for fusion reactions, which combine two hydrogen atoms to form an atom of helium, releasing a neutron in the process.But some early tests suggested that neutron irradiation inside a fusion power plant might instantaneously suppress the superconducting magnets’ ability to carry current without resistance (called critical current), potentially causing a reduction in the fusion power output.Now, a series of experiments has clearly demonstrated that this instantaneous effect of neutron…