Nuclear power

Why China Is Building a Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor

December 30, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

After a half-century hiatus, thorium has returned to the front lines of nuclear power research as a source of fuel. In 2025, China plans to start building a demonstration thorium-based molten-salt reactor in the Gobi Desert. The 10-megawatt reactor project, managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of…

December 4, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Fusion power has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with billions of dollars in private investment flowing into the field. Acceleron Fusion is the latest startup to take a swing at this challenging nuclear-energy technology, banking on a novel approach that uses beams of heavy subatomic particles called muons to…

October 21, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The two reactors once used to train the Soviet Union’s elite nuclear submariners on the Estonian coast are going to stick around a lot longer than the October revolution.And to make sure they’re safe, Estonia’s government—which after years of independence, likes to think of itself as forward-looking—turned to the latest…

October 2, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Data centers’ need for clean electricity is so ravenous that a shuttered nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island—the site of the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history—may be revived just to power them.Constellation Energy in September announced that it plans to restart Unit 1 at Three Mile Island, which will…

September 19, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

In an effort to meet net-zero targets, India plans to build a large fleet of small nuclear reactors to power hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel and cement. During her budget speech in July, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman unveiled plans to develop the 220-megawatt Bharat Small Reactor (BSR) in partnership with private…

September 2, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

By any measure, Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of…

July 3, 2024
Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

A day after the United States Senate passed legislation on 18 June to develop advanced nuclear technologies, in Australia, opposition leader Peter Dutton promised, if elected, to build seven nuclear plants along the coasts of the island continent. The U.S. legislation passed with a vote of 82-2, but Dutton’s proposal…

23 Jan 24

Can the World Meet the U.N. Climate Summit’s Nuclear Goal?

Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Nuclear power, whose proponents have so often felt pushed to the margins of climate policy, is now firmly at the center of the climate conversation. At last month’s United Nations climate summit (known as COP28), 22 countries pledged to triple 2020’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050.Meeting this dramatic goal will…

31 Dec 23

2023’s Top Stories About Energy

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Energy storage and nuclear fusion—two reliable crowd pleasers when the crowd you’re talking about is readers of IEEE Spectrum—are well represented among our most widely read energy stories of 2023. But atop the list are a couple of surprises. Number one? Heat pumps. Number two? A real corker, and the…

13 Dec 23

This Engineer’s Job Is to Keep Arkansas Nuclear One Safe

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Every workday, Sarah Ansari strives to ensure that the nuclear power plant where she works is operating safely. The IEEE member is an electrical design engineer at Arkansas Nuclear One, in Russellville. The pressurized-water plant provides electricity to the majority of the state’s businesses and residents and to customers beyond…

Why China Is Building a Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor

Acceleron Banks on Muons for Colder Fusion

A Cosmic View of Soviet Estonia’s Nuclear Legacy

How to Restart a Nuclear Reactor

India Backs Small Nuclear Reactors to Power Heavy Industry

How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig

Australia Debates Going Nuclear

Can the World Meet the U.N. Climate Summit’s Nuclear Goal?

2023’s Top Stories About Energy

This Engineer’s Job Is to Keep Arkansas Nuclear One Safe

Google won two major awards at MWC Barcelona 2025.

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This MRI Can Run on Batteries

The Tiny Star Explosions Powering Moore’s Law