Many scientists say “subcritical” experiments and computer simulations make nuclear weapons testing unnecessary.

July 16, 1945, marked a turning point in history with the first nuclear test, named Trinity, in the New Mexico desert in the ...

The radioactive "ashes" of the reactors that make plutonium are potentially a valuable source of radiant energy. A recent study summarizes the ways in which they could be put to work By Paul J ...

Nuclear fission reactors struggle with two key problems: poor fuel utilization and complicated radioactive waste handling. To address these challenges, Russia’s A.I. Leypunsky I ...

The reason was that weapons-grade uranium or plutonium was then (and is now) an essential ingredient for any nuclear bomb, whether a low-yield fission device or city-busting H-bomb. Doorstop’s ...

Radioisotope thermoelectric generators can turn heat into electricity using a principle called the Seebeck effect, discovered ...

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) are nuclear fission reactors in which either the fuel and/or the coolant is a molten salt. Molten salt is salt which liquifies at elevated temperatures and can store ...

In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission began operations at Rocky Flats as a federal atomic weapons facility, producing plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs. (A hydrogen bomb or H-bomb uses fission in ...