Author: Fission Today

PARSONS — Ground was broken on the world’s first mile-deep nuclear reactor Tuesday afternoon in Parsons. Deep Fission, an advanced nuclear energy company founded in 2023, is building the reactor as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program. It is the company’s first project.The concept is relatively simple. A mile-deep borehole will be drilled, and a pressurized water reactor will be placed at the bottom. The hole will be sealed and filled with water, with the reactor transferring heat to water that rises to the surface, becoming steam that turns turbines. The steam then cools down and…

The model presented here combines a database of primary damage configurations obtained through MD simulations with the PKA distribution given by a BCA code to generate the material damage produced by highly energetic ions in an efficient way.We focus our research on self-ion irradiation of Fe and W, both corresponding to body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal structures, since they are widely used and because of our particular interest in fusion reactor structural materials. Therefore, the parameters and results below correspond to them.Binary collisions approximation codeFor the BCA component of our model, we utilise SRIM31,32,33, a commonly used programme to calculate the…

At first glance, nuclear fission power doesn’t seem like the most obvious area for U.S. venture capital to cluster. After all, the last big boom for building American nuclear power plants was in the 1970s. Not long after that, environmental and safety concerns, project cost and broader availability of other affordable power options, among other factors, effectively brought new installations to a halt. In VC portfolios and IPO pipelines, however, nuclear has been making a comeback. So far this year, investors have poured close to $2 billion into an assortment of companies across stages working on nuclear power offerings outside…

MaterialsPotassium carbonate (K2CO3, 99%) was purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific. K2CO3 was kept in a Napco 5831 vacuum oven at 120 °C for at least 24 h to eliminate the residual water. Deuterium oxide (D2O, 99.9%) was purchased from Cambridge Isotope Laboratories and used as received. Iridium wire (0.5 mm, 99.95%) was obtained from Taobao. Ag/AgCl reference electrodes (CHI111) were purchased from CH Instruments. Potassium chloride saturated in H2O was purchased from Fisher Chemical and used as received. Potassium hydroxide (KOH, ≥85%, pellets) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich and used as a 40K radioactive gamma-ray-emitting source during the neutron detector calibration process.Plasma thrusterThe plasma…

PARSONS, Kan. (KWCH) – The City of Parsons is celebrating a project anticipated to bring the next generation of manufacturers to the Great Plains Industrial Park. On Tuesday, California-based Deep Fission broke ground on an underground nuclear reactor in Parsons’ industrial park. The reactor will be built one mile underground is one of 11 such projects in the U.S. Department of Energy’s larger reactor pilot program. Deep Fission is constructing what it calls an ‘advanced reactor pilot project’ at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kansas.(BRYAN GRABAUSKAS | KOAM)City officials in Parsons expressed hope for what the project could…

Physical modelTo model Marangoni convection within a three-dimensional, cubic cavity under the influence of a magnetic field, a physical model was established, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The cubic cavity is configured with each side having a length of one unit. The left wall of this cavity maintains a constant high temperature (Th = 1), while the right wall is kept at a constant lower temperature (Tc = 0). The remaining four walls of the cavity are insulated, exhibiting adiabatic properties. This configuration results in a temperature gradient between the walls at constant temperature. The top surface of the cavity is a free surface, with…

PARSONS, Kan. (WIBW) – Ground was broken Tuesday on a new nuclear plant coming to Southeast Kansas.Deep Fission is constructing what it calls an ‘advanced reactor pilot project’ at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kansas. The company says it is aiming to have the plant’s first reactor running by next July.Deep Fission is constructing what it calls an ‘advanced reactor pilot project’ at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kansas. (KOAM)(BRYAN GRABAUSKAS | KOAM)Regional leaders praised the project ahead of the groundbreaking held Tuesday.Discussions for another nuclear plant coming to the sunflower state, the project being bid…

Bill Gates speaks at the annual Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum in Manhattan, New York City, US, September 24, 2025.[ Caitlin Ochs/Reuters] Turkey is in talks with US-based TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates, to introduce small modular reactors (SMRs) as part of Turkey’s nuclear energy goal of 20,000 megawatts by 2050, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said. Speaking at the 15th Turkiye Energy Summit in Istanbul, Bayraktar said Turkey aims to achieve at least 5,000 MW of SMR capacity, advancing its strategy to diversify the energy mix and strengthen energy security through nuclear technology. Source link

How can you use science to build a better gingerbread house?That was something Miranda Schwacke spent a lot of time thinking about. The MIT graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) is part of Kitchen Matters, a group of grad students who use food and kitchen tools to explain scientific concepts through short videos and outreach events. Past topics included why chocolate “seizes,” or becomes difficult to work with when melting (spoiler: water gets in), and how to make isomalt, the sugar glass that stunt performers jump through in action movies.Two years ago, when the group was making a…

Radiation safety is a cornerstone of nuclear safety, playing a vital role across domains such as nuclear engineering, space exploration, medical physics, and various industrial applications1. In nuclear facilities, shielding is essential not only because of particles-induced activation structural materials—which leads to the emission of penetrating photon radiation (mostly gamma radiation)—but also because of its direct implications for personnel safety and long-term occupational health2. The effectiveness of shielding design directly affects exposure risks and is thus a critical determinant of facility safety compliance. Furthermore, shielding designs significantly influences the economic efficiency and overall feasibility of facility construction3. As such, accurate…