# national laboratories (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover national laboratories. Page: Feed: --- ## [Processing spent nuclear fuel in salt](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/06/24/snf-process-salt/) _2026-06-25 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ Everyone would like to see something done about the world s growing inventory of spent nuclear fuel. We at Flibe Energy have been working on this problem for many years, and recently were selected by the US Department of Energy for an award. At the heart of what we want to do is a salt that \[ \] ## [How Detroit Edison Almost Built the Thorium Reactor](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/06/16/dte-thorium/) _2026-06-17 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ In November of 1951, a small group of engineers gathered at a private astronomical observatory on the shore of Lake Angelus, in Oakland County, Michigan. They had spent the previous year visiting nearly every nuclear facility in America that they could get into with an Atomic Energy Commission clearance Argonne, Hanford, Oak Ridge \[ \] ## [Rebuttal to CleanTechnica plutonium article](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/06/14/cleantechnica-pu-rebuttal/) _2026-06-14 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ For seventy years, the United States has been accumulating a problem. It was a problem it once had a plan to solve, but it gave up on that plan almost fifty years ago. During the Cold War, the US intentionally produced weapons-grade plutonium in quantities that were in excess of military needs about a \[ \] ## [ANS policy statement on U-233](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/25/ans-u233/) _2026-04-26 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ The American Nuclear Society — the professional organization of nuclear engineers and scientists in the United States — published Position Statement #47 in January 2026. It is titled Management of Surplus U.S. Nuclear Material. It calls out uranium-233 specifically. And it says, in the clearest possible professional language, that what DOE is doing to our \[ \] ## [Twenty years of “Energy From Thorium”](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/22/20-yrs-eft/) _2026-04-23 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ Twenty years ago today, on the afternoon of Saturday, April 22, 2006, I started this blog and wrote the first post. I was thirty-one years old. I was working at NASA s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as an aerospace engineer on nuclear-power concepts for deep-space missions. I was in my third year of \[ \] ## [Uranium from Fluorinated SNF to CANDUs?](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/21/repu-snf-candu/) _2026-04-21 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ A recent article at Decouple examined the CANDU reactor as a potential destination for reprocessed uranium (RepU) from LWR spent fuel. The concept is straightforward: CANDU reactors run on natural uranium, and the U-235 remaining in spent LWR fuel exceeds the natural uranium threshold, so RepU blended with depleted uranium to produce a natural uranium \[ \] ## [Rebuttal to Elina Charatsidou thorium video](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/20/elina-th-rebuttal/) _2026-04-21 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ Elina Charatsidou is a Greek PhD student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where she researches accident-tolerant solid fuels for lead-cooled fast reactors — specifically uranium nitride and SIMFUEL pellets. Before her PhD she completed a master s thesis internship at Westinghouse Electric, working on machine learning approaches to nuclear fuel fabrication. She \[ \] ## [The Rare-Earth Problem Has a Thorium-Shaped Hole in It](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/15/unr-ree-2026/) _2026-04-16 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ I just returned from two days in Reno, Nevada, where the Army Research Office s DEVCOM ARO had convened a workshop at the University of Nevada titled Closing the Gap: Research Priorities for U.S. REE Supply Chain Resilience. Researchers from Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore, Colorado School of Mines, the University of Minnesota, and the National \[ \] ## [The Hidden Tragedy Inside the Medical Miracle at Oak Ridge](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/12/u233-ornl-hidden-tragedy/) _2026-04-13 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ There s a genuinely exciting story coming out of Oak Ridge right now. Isotek Systems — the contractor operating at Building 3019 and Building 2026 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — has extracted more than 17 grams of thorium-229 (Th-229) from the uranium-233 (U-233) inventory stored there. That represents a 1,700% increase in the world s supply \[ \] ## [Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor attains criticality](https://energyfromthorium.com/2026/04/07/india-pfbr/) _2026-04-08 · Kirk Sorensen · Energy From Thorium_ Yesterday evening, at 8:25 PM Indian Standard Time, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu achieved first criticality — the initiation of a self-sustaining, controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is a milestone that has been a long time coming: more than two decades in the making, marked by repeated delays, \[ \] ## [AI QA that opens fix PRs (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/RugQqAEws0fz) _2026-04-08 · **Sponsored**_ Run a browser QA from plain-English instructions; get GitHub issues and optional fix PRs. ## [Business & Operations](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/business-operations/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ More ways to grow and advance Sandia redesigned its promotion and advancement processes to provide year-round flexibility, increasing advancement opportunities for employees. The Labs’ career development event expanded from one to multiple events, connecting more employees than ever before with resources and support to explore career options at Sandia. A new internal talent marketplace capability… ## [Energy](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/energy-5/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Research improves geothermal energy drilling rates Sandia partnered with Calpine Corp., Texas A&M University and the University of Utah to improve geothermal energy drilling rates, which are a major barrier to widespread deployment of geothermal energy. The team implemented redesign workflows and alternative bit designs to significantly reduce the on-bottom time, the period when the \[…\] ## [Infrastructure](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/infrastructure/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Enhanced environmental testing capabilities Infrastructure Operations, Engineering Sciences and Nuclear Deterrence System Modernization teams collaborated to design and build a cutting-edge package system for new six-degree-of-freedom shakers for mission use. This system is vital for W80-4 warhead qualifications, enhancing Engineering Science’s testing capabilities, reliability and capacity for… ## [Nuclear Deterrence](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/nuclear-deterrence-10/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ B61-13 realized one year ahead of schedule To reduce the weapon’s production timeline by 50%, the B61-13 team developed a novel approach to system qualification resulting in completion of the newest weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile a year ahead of schedule. Activities included Pantex authorization basis reviews, final design review, system qualification evaluation releases, \[…\] ## [Global Security](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/global-security-12/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Enhancing nuclear explosion monitoring capabilities Experiments at Sandia’s Large Centrifuge Facility advanced U.S. capabilities in monitoring low-yield underground nuclear explosions. The team used the superfuge to achieve acceleration-scaled yield and depth conditions that nearly matched those of field-scale experiments. These methods significantly lowered costs and increased the frequency of… ## [National Security](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/national-security-5/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ A researcher measures film thickness on wafers at MESA. MESA Silicon Microfabrication team reduces production cycle time The Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications Silicon Microfabrication team has significantly reduced production cycle times, enabling early wafer deliveries and accelerating product teams’ learning cycles and risk mitigation testing. They have made important… ## [Science and Technology](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/science-and-technology/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Joint appointments increase university collaborations Sandia added four new joint appointment agreements, bringing the total number of partnerships to 20 universities and increasing the Labs’ collaboration with academic institutions. The program includes 25 joint appointments. About a dozen more joint appointments are in progress, which will enhance research capabilities and knowledge exchange… ## [AI and Computing](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/ai-and-computing/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Federated AI model Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories have developed a federated machine-learning model prototype to advance AI for national security. Federated learning is a technique for training AI models on decentralized data. Each of the three labs possesses datasets that are not easily shareable, yet they hold valuable insights for collaboration \[…\] ## [Cyber and Physical Security](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/cyber-and-physical-security/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ Delivering new classified solutions Sandia implemented commercial solutions for classified technology that were approved by the National Security Agency, delivering a significant mobile classified solution to enhance NNSA’s classified capabilities. The initiative enables secure remote access to the national security network via unclassified transport, allowing people to conduct classified work… ## [Transcript-Driven Stock Discovery (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/trb61BZKd5gz) _2026-03-25 · **Sponsored**_ Ranked, evidence-backed watchlists from indexed executive transcripts for 1–2 quarter horizons ## [Overview](https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labs-accomplishments/article/2026/overview-12/) _2026-03-25 · kgbeher · News_ A letter from the Labs Director Welcome to the 2026 edition of Labs Accomplishments, our annual look at the work Sandians delivered throughout the previous fiscal year. This publication offers a window into the talent, creativity and determination that define our laboratory. It captures what we achieved and how we achieved it through collaboration, technical \[…\]