MIT’s analysis reactor was constructed within the Fifties, and its function has shifted over the a long time. At varied factors, it’s been used to check all the pieces from nuclear physics to medical therapies, alongside its constant use for instructing the subsequent technology of nuclear scientists. 

However I used to be most excited to listen to about an energy-focused mission, which is aimed toward bringing novel reactor know-how to actuality. 

Whereas just about all business nuclear reactors as we speak are cooled utilizing water, a rising variety of startups want to molten salt as a substitute. MIT’s nuclear reactor lab is engaged on a brand new analysis area that would assist illuminate how properly different applied sciences face up to the extraordinary circumstances inside a nuclear reactor. 

So for the publication this week, come alongside on my tour of MIT’s nuclear reactor lab. On the best way, we will get into what all the excitement is all about with molten-salt reactors. 

Sizzling matters

The primary cease on my tour was the entrance desk, the place I and every member of my group picked up a private dosimeter to trace any potential radiation publicity. We then handed over our baggage and telephones and acquired stern warnings to not contact something or wander out of our tour information’s sight. 

Lastly, we filed by means of a set of strengthened metallic doorways and into the lab. We handed rows of yellow lab coats as David Carpenter, the top of reactor experiments and our tour information, walked us by means of some historical past and primary information.  

That is the second-largest college analysis reactor working within the US as we speak, producing about six megawatts of thermal energy. Industrial reactors are likely to have capacities tons of of occasions better than that—round 3,000 megawatts (or three gigawatts) of thermal energy. 

(Speedy nuclear fundamentals: nuclear reactors are powered by fission reactions, the place uranium atoms break aside. These reactions produce neutrons, that are a sort of ionizing radiation, in addition to warmth that may be harnessed and reworked into electrical energy.)