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Fast Flux Test Facility
The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) is a 400 MW thermal, liquid sodium cooled, nuclear test reactor owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. It does not generate electricity. It is situated in the ''400 Area'' of the Hanford Site, which is located in the state of Washington. History The construction of the FFTF was completed in 1978, and the first reaction took place in 1980. From April 1982 to April 1992 it operated as a national research facility to test various aspects of commercial reactor design and operation, especially relating to breeder reactors. The FFTF is not a breeder reactor itself, but rather a sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, as the name suggests. It is stated on the site dedicated to the FFTF, that it tested "advanced nuclear fuels, materials, components, nuclear power plant operations and maintenance protocols, and reactor safety designs." By 1993, the number of uses to which the reactor could be put was diminishing, so the decision was taken in Decem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fusion Power
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2025, no device has reached net power. Fusion processes require fuel, in a state of plasma, and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time. The combination of these parameters that results in a power-producing system is known as the Lawson criterion. In stellar cores the most common fuel is the lightest isotope of hydrogen (Protium (isotope), protium), and gravity provides the conditions needed for fusion energy production. Proposed fusion reactors would use the heavy hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium for DT fusion, for which the Lawson criterion is the easiest to achieve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 15th-most populous of the 50 states. According to the United States Census Bureau, the state's estimated population as of 2024 is 7.22 million. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of Tennessee, Grand Divisions of East Tennessee, East, Middle Tennessee, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Tennessee has dive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UT–Battelle, UT–Battelle, LLC. Established in 1943, ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system by size and third largest by annual budget. It is located in the Roane County, Tennessee, Roane County section of Oak Ridge. Its scientific programs focus on materials science, materials, nuclear power, nuclear science, neutron science, energy, high-performance computing, environmental science, systems biology and national security, sometimes in partnership with the state of Tennessee, universities and other industries. ORNL has several of the world's top supercomputers, including Frontier (supercomputer), Frontier, ranked by the TOP500 as the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), Washington and Oregon to the west; the state shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border to the north with the Canadian province of British Columbia. Idaho's State capital (United States), state capital and largest city is Boise, Idaho, Boise. With an area of , Idaho is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 14th-largest state by land area. The state has a population of approximately two million people; it ranks as the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 13th-least populous and the List of U.S. states by population density, seventh-least densely populated of the List of US states, 50 U.S. states. For thousands of years, and prior to European colonization, Idaho had been inhabited by Native American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idaho National Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the laboratory does other research as well. Much of current knowledge about how nuclear reactors behave and misbehave was discovered at what is now Idaho National Laboratory. John Grossenbacher, former INL director, said, "The history of nuclear energy for peaceful application has principally been written in Idaho". The present facility resulted from the 2005 merger of two neighboring laboratories, the National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the Idaho site of the western branch of Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne-West). Various organizations have built more than 50 reactors at what is commonly called "the Site", including the ones that gave the world its first usable amount of electricity from nuclear power and the power plant fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Versatile Test Reactor
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was a project by the U.S. United States Department of Energy, Department of Energy to build a fast-neutron reactor, fast-neutron test reactor by 2026. Funding for the project was canceled in 2022. History After the Fast Flux Test Facility and the Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II, Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) were decommissioned in 1992 and 1994, respectively, the United States was left with no fast-neutron reactor in its fleet. Fast-neutron research was limited to a few restricted reactors located in Russia, including the BOR-60. To address this problem Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017 included a provision directing the Department of Energy to begin planning for a fast-neutron source. Congress included $35 million in 2018 and $65 million in 2019 in the budget in support of this. In February 2019, VTR cleared Critical Decision 0, demonstrating a mission need requiring investment, the first in a series of project approv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isotope
Isotopes are distinct nuclear species (or ''nuclides'') of the same chemical element. They have the same atomic number (number of protons in their Atomic nucleus, nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), but different nucleon numbers (mass numbers) due to different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. While all isotopes of a given element have similar chemical properties, they have different atomic masses and physical properties. The term isotope is derived from the Greek roots isos (wikt:ἴσος, ἴσος "equal") and topos (wikt:τόπος, τόπος "place"), meaning "the same place"; thus, the meaning behind the name is that different isotopes of a single element occupy the same position on the periodic table. It was coined by Scottish doctor and writer Margaret Todd (doctor), Margaret Todd in a 1913 suggestion to the British chemist Frederick Soddy, who popularized the term. The number of protons within the atomic nuc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioactive Waste
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment. Radioactive waste is broadly classified into 3 categories: low-level waste (LLW), such as paper, rags, tools, clothing, which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity; intermediate-level waste (ILW), which contains higher amounts of radioactivity and requires some shielding; and high-level waste (HLW), which is highly radioactive and hot due to decay heat, thus requiring cooling and shielding. Spent nuclear fuel can be processed in nuclear reprocessing plants. One third of the total amount have already been reprocessed. With nuclear reprocessing 96% of the spent fue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technetium-99
Technetium-99 (99Tc) is an isotope of technetium that decays with a half-life of 211,000 years to stable ruthenium-99, emitting beta particles, but no gamma rays. It is the most significant long-lived fission product of uranium fission, producing the largest fraction of the total long-lived radiation emissions of nuclear waste. Technetium-99 has a fission product yield of 6.0507% for thermal neutron fission of uranium-235. The metastable technetium-99m (99mTc) is a short-lived (half-life about 6 hours) nuclear isomer used in nuclear medicine, produced from molybdenum-99. It decays by isomeric transition to technetium-99, a desirable characteristic, since the very long half-life and type of decay of technetium-99 imposes little further radiation burden on the body. Radiation The weak beta emission is stopped by the walls of laboratory glassware. Soft X-rays are emitted when the beta particles are stopped, but as long as the body is kept more than 30 cm away these should p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radionuclide
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferred to one of its electrons to release it as a conversion electron; or used to create and emit a new particle (alpha particle or beta particle) from the nucleus. During those processes, the radionuclide is said to undergo radioactive decay. These emissions are considered ionizing radiation because they are energetic enough to liberate an electron from another atom. The radioactive decay can produce a stable nuclide or will sometimes produce a new unstable radionuclide which may undergo further decay. Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms: it is impossible to predict when one particular atom will decay. However, for a collection of atoms of a single nu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioactive Decay
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered ''radioactive''. Three of the most common types of decay are Alpha decay, alpha, Beta decay, beta, and Gamma ray, gamma decay. The weak force is the Fundamental interactions, mechanism that is responsible for beta decay, while the other two are governed by the electromagnetic force, electromagnetic and nuclear forces. Radioactive decay is a randomness, random process at the level of single atoms. According to quantum mechanics, quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay, regardless of how long the atom has existed. However, for a significant number of identical atoms, the overall decay rate can be expressed as a decay constant or as a half-life. The half-lives of radioactive atoms have a huge range: f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
