The authoritative guide to ensuring science and technology make life on Earth better, not worse.

Energy Department

The Energy Department just made one plutonium pit. Making more is uncertain

By Dylan Spaulding | Nuclear Weapons

Why US nuclear waste policy got stalled. And what to do about it.

By Victor Gilinsky | Nuclear Waste

SMR control room simulator

A small modular reactor’s demise calls for big change in Energy Department policy

By Henry Sokolski | Nuclear Energy

artist's rendition of guts of electric vehicles and hybrids

Charging ahead: Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winner and former Energy Secretary, on today’s battery research—and more

By Dan Drollette Jr | Climate Change

Color photo of Trinity test of atomic bomb on July 16, 1945

Introduction — Oppenheimer: The man behind the movie

By Dan Drollette Jr | Nuclear Weapons, Special Topics

Nichols presents charges

By K.D. Nichols | Nuclear Weapons, Opinion, Special Topics

Bulletin statement on the Energy Department’s Oppenheimer decision

By Rachel Bronson | Nuclear Weapons, Opinion, Personal Essay

The Oppenheimer case: A study in the abuse of law

By Harold P. Green | Nuclear Weapons, Personal Essay, Special Topics

Oppenheimer Replies

By J. Robert Oppenheimer | Nuclear Weapons, Personal Essay, Special Topics

National Ignition Facility operators inspect a final optics assembly during a routine maintenance period in August.

The Energy Department’s fusion breakthrough: It’s not really about generating electricity

By John Mecklin | Fusion Energy, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons

Trump and Kim impersonators

Gaseous molecules of freedom

By Dan Drollette Jr | Analysis, Climate Change, What We’re Reading

Taking stock: Steven Chu, former secretary of the Energy Department, on fracking, renewables, nuclear weapons, and his work, post-Nobel Prize

By Dan Drollette Jr | Interviews