Out with the Old, In with the New (Fuel)
The days are starting to get longer, March Madness is in full swing and pastel Easter candy has hit the shelves. Spring has sprung. As many of us start to leave our windows open while we swap our winter coats for rain jackets, thousands across the ...
Cherenkov Effect is Science, Not Science Fiction
In the movies, a nuclear reactor is always shown shrouded in an electric blue haze. It is easy to assume this is simply a special effect, but the blue glow is an actual real world phenomenon known as the Cherenkov effect or Cherenkov radiation. ...
Dry Cask Storage: An Alternative for Storing Used Fuel
McGuire Nuclear Station dry cask storage stores used fuel on site. One aspect of nuclear energy that makes it unique is the issue of used fuel storage. Used fuel is nuclear fuel that is no longer useful for sustaining a chain reaction in a reactor. ...
Nuclear Fuels Engineers Are Masters of Interior Design
Nuclear power plants in the United States produce electricity 24/7 and are baseload generating plants. Baseload power refers to generating resources that operate continuously and provide reliable power to customers, only shutting down for scheduled ...
Recent Nuclear Industry Survey Shows the Public Strongly Supports Nuclear Energy
Source: www.nei.org The nuclear industry prides itself on being one of the most transparent, heavily regulated and, most importantly, safe industries in the world. To make sure the public feels the same way, regular surveys take place across the ...
Do we have enough nuclear fuel?
Did you know? A single uranium fuel pellet contains as much energy as 480 cubic meters of natural gas, nearly a ton of coal or 149 gallons of oil. Where does it come from and do we have a plentiful supply for U.S. nuclear plants? Uranium is a common ...
Common Myths About Nuclear Energy
The nuclear energy industry sometimes gets a bad rap. Many of the negative opinions surrounding the public’s thoughts toward nuclear power production are rooted in information that is not factual. Since nuclear energy first became a power source six ...
Nuclear Fuel: What do we do with that stuff?
All nuclear power reactors use uranium fuel to generate electricity. This fuel consists of small ceramic pellets stacked into metal fuel rods, which are bound together into fuel assemblies that are eight to 12 feet in length. Once fuel has been used ...
The MOX Project
In an earlier blog post, we discussed the uranium fuel cycle and where the fuel that powers our commercial nuclear plants in the U.S. comes from. Today, we take a look at another nuclear fuel source: mixed oxide (MOX). MOX fuel is made up of ...
Setting the Record Straight
The Truth Behind the Top 5 Popular Misconceptions About Nuclear Energy The complexity of generating electricity through nuclear energy leaves the science open to many common misconceptions. Nuclear energy can be very difficult to explain and is often ...