Here's an innovation that just might have prevented the 2011 nuclear power plant explosions in Japan: safer fuel rods.
Fuel rods contain tiny pellets of specially prepared uranium encased in a sheath of zirconium alloy. This metal cladding doesn’t corrode and prevents any radioactive bits from escaping.
It all works fine when the temperature of the rods stays under control. But at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the rods were able to heat up well past design specs. And when zirconium gets hot in the presence of steam, it actually splits the water molecules, making hydrogen gas. If the hydrogen builds up and encounters a spark, boom.
Now M.I.T. researchers have come up with a new cladding made out of silicon carbide. This material forms very hard ceramics that also