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NEXT Lab students

ACU NEXT Lab partners with Teledyne Brown to design molten salt research reactor

Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory has contracted Teledyne Brown Engineering to perform front-end engineering and design work to produce the first university-based molten salt research reactor (MSRR). “We received interest in working on this first-of-a-kind project from over a dozen top engineering companies,” said Dr. Rusty Towell, director of NEXT Lab and … Continued
NEXT Lab

ACU’s NEXT Lab awarded infrastructure grant from Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) announced a grant of $367,793 to be used for infrastructure at ACU’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Lab. The funding will support the radiochemistry aspect of NEXT Lab – specifically, establishing new and unique real-time direct chemical analysis capabilities for molten salt systems. For 2021, NEUP … Continued

NEXT Lab student researcher awarded National Science Foundation fellowship

        When Keaton Brewster graduates in May with a degree in physics and mathematics, he’ll be taking with him more than a diploma. A research proposal stemming from his work in ACU’s NEXT Lab has earned him a prestigious fellowship from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowships Program. With his annual … Continued

NEXT Lab students

NEXT Lab advances reliable nuclear energy

  Energy and electricity topics are dominating conversations in Texas after residents spent a week battling a major winter storm. Abilene Christian University, along with two other Texas universities, is at the forefront of advancing nuclear technology to address problems plaguing traditional energy sources – including unpredictable weather. Nuclear is the most dependable form of … Continued

Douglass Robison

10 Questions with ACU trustee and energy expert Doug Robison

  A thin volume of Galileo’s 1610 landmark treatise The Starry Messenger sits on a bookshelf at oil and gas executive Doug Robison’s Abilene home. Within its pages, the famous astronomer, who turned his telescope to the stars to provide firsthand observation that ours is a sun-centered solar system and not an Earth-centered one, describes … Continued