Free Republic

Excerpt: "A 26-year-old white man who attempted to commit a terror attack on an Amtrak train in rural Nebraska also attended the doomed “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August on the white supremacist side, according to a court document. St. Charles, Missouri resident Taylor Michael Wilson has been charged with an attempt to commit terror by targeting an Amtrak train in southwest Nebraska in October 2017. FBI Special Agent Monte Czaplewski, writing in an affidavit attached to the criminal complaint, suggested that Wilson wanted to murder black people. The document suggests that he had weapons, as well...

Taylor Wilson has a Geiger counter watch on his wrist, a sleek, sporty-looking thing that sounds an alert in response to radiation. As we enter his parents’ garage and approach his precious jumble of electrical equipment, it emits an ominous beep. Wilson is in full flow, explaining the old-fashioned control panel in the corner, and ignores it. “This is one of the original atom smashers,” he says with pride. “It would accelerate particles up to, um, 2.5m volts – so kind of up there, for early nuclear physics work.” He pats the knobs. It was in this garage that, at...

Taylor Wilson built a fusion reactor at age 14 and remains interested in nuclear technology. So, at 19, he has presented his idea for a small reactor concept that uses molten salt to make the smaller reactor both more powerful and more efficient than their cousins. Wilson's fission reactor operates at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius. And because the laws of thermodynamics say that high temperatures lead to high efficiencies, this reactor is 45 to 50 percent efficient. Traditional steam turbine systems are only 30 to 35 percent efficient because their reactors run at low temperatures of about 200 to...

Underway on nuclear power By Denver Nicks As we finalized our upcoming issue of Nuclear Power International, a major milestone for the nuclear industry passed by quietly, almost stealthily—silent and deep, you might say. Vice Admiral Eugene P. Wilkinson passed away on Thursday, July 11, at the age of 94. Decades earlier, in 1955, the vice admiral made history when, while piloting a submersible ship named the USS Nautilus out of Groton, Conn., into Long Island Sound, he uttered the now-famous words, “Underway on nuclear power.” The moment was not only momentous because it marked the beginning of America’s nuclear...

Propulsion,” the nine-year-old says as he leads his dad through the gates of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “I just want to see the propulsion stuff.” A young woman guides their group toward a full-scale replica of the massive Saturn V rocket that brought America to the moon. As they duck under the exhaust nozzles, Kenneth Wilson glances at his awestruck boy and feels his burden beginning to lighten. For a few minutes, at least, someone else will feed his son’s boundless appetite for knowledge. Then Taylor raises his hand, not with a question but an...