Blog
From fission heat to electricity: the steps in between
Fission, heat conduction, convection, steam, turbine and generator: a step-by-step account of how a nuclear power station turns nuclear energy into electricity.
Thorium fuel: following the neutron captures
How thorium-232 becomes uranium-233, why the 27-day protactinium stage matters, and how solid and liquid fuel cycles put thorium to work.
TRISO fuel: what high-temperature tests have measured
The structure, manufacture and testing of coated-particle fuel, including the AGR-1 furnace tests at 1,600 °C and 1,800 °C.
When can a reactor simulation be trusted?
Verification, validation and uncertainty quantification explained, with the role of international benchmarks and the graded approach to evidence.
Fission and fusion: different reactions, shared engineering questions
The physics of splitting and joining nuclei, how tokamaks confine plasma, what the 2022 NIF result measured, and the engineering problems both fields share.
Reactor accidents and what they taught the industry
Windscale, SL-1, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi: what happened in each, and the design, operating and regulatory changes that followed.
What reactor teams can learn from chip design workflows
How electronic design automation organises complex projects, and how its workflow practices carry over to reactor design studies.