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ARPA-E to award $27M for advanced nuclear reactor systems operational technology: GEMINA

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The GE Research team aims to reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs by moving from a time- to condition-based predictive maintenance framework, using GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 boiling water reactor as the reference design. Digital twins of MSRs will require this critical data, which is currently unavailable.

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3 MIT-led teams win DOE NEUP funding for next-gen nuclear technologies

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Three MIT-led research teams have won awards from the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Programs ( NEUP ) initiative to support research and development on the next generation of nuclear technologies. Fluoride-salt High-Temperature Reactor.

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China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

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Molten salt nuclear reactors (MSRs) fit the bill—and, according to at least one source , China may be well on their way to developing MSR technology. Government researchers there unveiled a design for a commercial molten salt reactor (MSR) that uses. Uranium or thorium fuel can be mixed into the coolant salt.

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MIT team improves liquid metal batteries for grid-scale storage; lower operating temperature, cost

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Researchers at MIT have improved a proposed liquid battery system that could enable renewable energy sources to compete with conventional power plants. The fact that we don’t need a mountain, and we don’t need lots of water, could give us a decisive advantage. Earlier post.). Earlier post.). —Donald Sadoway.

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Researchers propose new aluminum–sulfur battery with molten-salt electrolyte; low-cost, rechargeable, fire-resistant, recyclable

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An international team of researchers led by Quanguan Pang at Peking University and Donald Sadoway at MIT reports a bidirectional, rapidly charging aluminum–chalcogen battery operating with a molten-salt electrolyte composed of NaCl–KCl–AlCl 3. —Pang et al.

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This Fusion Reactor Is Held Together With Tape

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Gretchen Ertl/CFS/MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center CFS, a startup spun out of decades of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is among the leaders of a new wave of fusion-energy projects that have emerged in the past decade, taking advantage of technological advances as well as a surge in private-sector investment.

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ORNL and Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics in CRADA for development of fluoride salt-cooled high-temp reactors

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The project will draw on ORNL’s expertise in fuels, materials, instrumentation and controls, design concepts, and modeling and simulation for advanced reactors, as well as the lab’s experience in the design, construction and operation of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, the only molten salt reactor ever built.