Thorium Molten Salt prospects are good

Chinese teams have designed and built and are now commissioning an experimental thorium-powered molten salt reactor. This is exciting news for those who have long advocated for thorium-based energy. It is also a sad and poignant moment for the US's atomic energy legacy, that China is smart enough to do what we will not.

The very first prototype molten-salt reactor (MSR) was developed and tested by the United States in the 1960s and 70s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories under the direction of Alvin Weinberg. The design tested the use of a thorium-fluoride salt liquid which used Thorium 232 as the fertile material and Uranium 233 as the fissile fuel. This prototype experiment was known as the MSRE (Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment) and it operated successfully for almost five years before it was discontinued for a range of mostly political reasons.

According to the Thorium Energy Alliance, a non-profit educational group working to preserve the history of molten-salt development in the US and to lay the foundation for the use of thorium energy in the future, Interest in thorium has remained strong. The reason is simple: Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) holds significant technical, economic and safety advantages over traditional nuclear power plants.

By dissolving the uranium and thorium into salts of lithium and beryllium kept hot enough to stay liquid, you do not need to produce fuel rods or pellets, which saves considerable costs. Plus, the liquid salts are so chemically stable, they are virtually imperious to damage from the high temperature, neutrons or radiation, that they will not corrode the vessels that contain them. Although thorium is 4 times more abundant than uranium, one ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium or the equivalent of 3.5 million tons of coal. This means that with greater energy potential and fewer production costs, a LFTR could be developed at a fraction of the cost of a traditional nuclear reactor, while also being significantly safer.

Unfortunately, under the current NRC regulator (which has only ever licensed light water reactors), U.S. developers have been unable to license even prototypes of next-generation LFTRs, so now, the lead in this very promising technology has moved to China. According to WNN, construction of an experimental 2 MW thermal Molten-Salt Reactor began in September 2018 in Wuwei City, in the Gansu province of China and was reportedly completed in August 2021. That would mean this experimental plant took just three years to build. It has now been reviewed and approved for commissioning by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

[Aside: China clearly has a much better understanding of the critical role that nuclear power plays in protecting the environment than the US does, because it has new nuclear reactors approved by its "Ministry of Ecology and Environment." If the US were to rename the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the Commission on Regulation of Energy and Ecology, it might actually do its job better.]

UPDATE: The US NRC accepted a construction permit application from Abilene Christian University (ACU) to build a molten salt research reactor (MSRR) on Nov. 18, 2022. In a letter dated Dec. 16, 2022, the NRC estimates that the date that the permit review will be complete is in May 2024.

Read more at World Nuclear News: Chinese molten-salt reactor cleared for start up, published August 9, 2022. To learn more about thorium, please visit the Thorium Energy Alliance website where you ca browse their extensive Media Library.

July 14, 2019

Peter Diamandis on energy abundance and the future of nuclear

Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Co-Founder of Singularity University, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, writes a tech blog. We were sent a copy of the email that he sent out to subscribers on the future of nuclear, which begins as follows:

Yes, I want nuclear energy *in my back yard*!

Extraordinary new innovations are giving us failsafe nuclear fission and the potential to achieve our age-old dream of fusion.

This year, Bill Gates commented: “Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation.”

This blog is about convincing you to re-consider nuclear as a viable and critical idea. The upside of success is extraordinary, which is why, for the first time, we’re beginning to see venture capital make massive investments in the field.

Let’s dive in!

Read the rest of Diamandis' Tech Blog post: "Energy Abundance: The Future of Nuclear."

Published by Nucleation Capital in Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate policy, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, US technological leadership, Venture capital support for nuclear

June 1, 2016

Molten salt, not new but renewed

The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) achieved criticality on June 1, 1965, having taken about two years and a total of $80 million to build. In 1968, it became the first reactor to run on Uranium-233 and proved both that U-233 could act as a fuel source and also that the molten salt liquid fuel could act both as a carrier/energy container and as a coolant. During an event to introduce the MSRE, Alvin Weinberg pointed to barrels near an assembled crowd containing the salts and fuel that had no radiologocial protection—as none was needed.

The MSRE logged more than 13,000 hours at full power and many more at partial power levels—although it is not clear that the power was ever connected to an electric grid—but was eventually shut down in 1969 and the molten salt program itself in 1973, when the political decision was made by the Atomic Energy Commission to "focus on other designs."

Today, governments and industry are once again reviewing the achievements of the MRSE and re-evaluating whether molten salt technology provides some of the answers to the global energy challenge that we face. There are numerous next-generation groups working on variations on the MSRE design for deployment in the coming decade.

Read more in the ORNL Review: "Time Warp: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment—Alvin Weinberg's magnum opus" and at Energy from Thorium: MSRE 50th Anniversary" by Kirk Sorenson.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Construction costs, Future of Energy, Government support, LINKS, Nuclear R&D, US competitiveness