Argonne National Lab
Mothers for Nuclear and Good Energy Collective both presented about how nuclear energy supports environmental justice to the Nuclear Legislative Working Group with NCSL in June, 2024. After our working group activities, we were able to join the state legislators on a trip to Argonne National Laboratory.
One of our favorite nuclear advocates from the Chicago area decided to come crash the tour. He also took us to the site of CP-2 afterwards.
Roger gives a really great tour of Argonne’s Nuclear Energy Exhibition Hall, which you can also see HERE.
This is a demonstration of molten core concrete interactions. Sound terrifying right? Well, many people that worry about reactor meltdowns might not know that we’ve actually done physical testing to help confirm computer modeling about what would actually happen in some of these worst-case scenarios. These experiments help determine standards for reactors around the world.
Argonne has lots of really amazing content on their website if you want to learn more, and you can even take a virtual tour of the Nuclear Energy Exhibition! Of particular interest to us was how Argonne works to help advance the nuclear energy industry. Here’s a great video.
Research done at Argonne (and Argonne West, which became INL) forms the basis for much of what we know regarding reactor operations and fuel management.
We were able to tour this glove box and learn about the electrorefining process for separating different materials from used fuel. Basically, depending what voltage you apply to two parallel plates, you can separate out individual elements one at a time. It’s pretty amazing chemistry!
The Advanced Photo Source (APS) is an extremely productive X-ray source that helps researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research to perform valuable experiments.
Heather, being the source
Heather and Jasper view the Advanced Photon Source (APS)
These rainbow peephole diffraction gratings help demonstrate scientific concepts related to light.
It’s always great hanging out with Christine!
In addition to all the fun nuclear and science learnings, Heather was super to excited to visit the site of one of her dad’s early employers. He did scientific glassblowing, creating specialized labware for various experiments at the lab. His boss, Fred Kocks, was a leader in materials science, which Heather ended up studying in college, and even obtained an autographed copy of his book, “Texture and Anisotropy”.
And finally, in addition to commemorative Argonne coins, we received a pretty special gift - pencil lead made with graphite from CP-1. It now has a place on Heather’s shelf of nuclear and materials engineering trinkets.