Modular Thorium Reactor - ThorCon MSR

itheo.org ^ | 12 January, 2015

[ckilmer]

Modular Thorium Reactor - ThorCon MSR

12 January, 2015

Martingale reveals a bold approach to solving the global issues of poverty, pollution, energy security, and climate. Today Martingale is announcing its ThorCon liquid-fuel nuclear reactor design for cheap, reliable, CO2-free electricity.

ThorCon is a complete system of power generation modules, interchange maintenance, and liquid fuel service that produces energy cheaper than coal. Principal engineer Jack Devanney led a four-year “skunkworks” project that has created a new kind of nuclear power plant, integrating proven technologies with breakthrough approaches to manufacturing and licensing. Production can start by 2020.

Former MIT professor Devanney’s background in shipbuilding created respect for low-cost, high-precision, block-unit manufacturing at Korean shipyards. He saw how such prefabricated blocks could enable production of enough nuclear power plants to make a global difference, a hundred a year.

Author Robert Hargraves writes that selling so many power plants requires clear, simple economics, cheaper than coal. Coal is today’s energy choice of developing nations, now planning to build over 1400 gigawatt-size coal power plants to enable their economic development.
Hargraves says “Yes, at 3 cents/kWh the ThorCon electricity will be cheaper than gas. But for most of the world coal will be the fuel of choice for electric generation, unless we can provide a cheaper alternative.”

Lawrence Livermore Lab veteran nuclear scientist Ralph Moir says that today’s nuclear power industry is wedded to expensive solid-fuel nuclear reactors, even though the simplicity of liquid fuels was demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Moir and Devanney modernized that design for mass production. ThorCon uses uranium and thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt to create a power plant that makes electricity cheaper than coal.

Stanford engineering alums Chris Uhlik and Lars Jorgensen contributed to the design of passive safety functions that operate without mechanical or electronic controls, even with no power. The reactor is 30 meters underground. Overheating drains the fuel salt from the reactor. There are four barriers between the fuel salt and the atmosphere. ThorCon is walk-away safe.

Taking another lesson from Oak Ridge, Martingale advocates a return to staged testing of physical prototypes for new nuclear reactor designs. This made the US the world standard for nuclear designs in the 1960s. Martingale supports adoption of the same license-by-test model that has enabled US leadership in aviation and drug discovery.

Martingale is designing ThorCon in the US while targeting its first installations in forward-looking countries that support technology-neutral nuclear regulations and see the benefits of the license-by-test process. ThorCon opens up a practically limitless supply of low-cost, reliable, carbon-free power by 2020.

ThorCon Power

Last updated 12 January, 2015

Media Coverage

[ckilmer]

More than likely, Martingale is looking for non-thinking suckers to give them money. ...................

Well, yes that's what these articles are all about. They need to draw attention to themselves so as to draw money to support their development.

Is this work a scam to skim money from unsuspecting investors?

Hmm.

To answer this question it would be helpful to look at the backgrounds of the principles in the company.

For that: go to http://thorconpower.com/team

Team

Jack Devanney

Jack Devanney is the principal engineer and architect of the ThorCon molten salt reactor power plant. Since 2011 he has pursued his idea of using shipyard construction technology to mass-produce safe, inexpensive power plants that can bring the benefits of electricity to all the world, with no CO2 emissions. He married the advanced nuclear technology developed and demonstrated by Oak Ridge Laboratory with his own engineering experiences with ships, power plants, and energy. His prior 25-year career dealt with designing, building, and operating oil tankers, up to 440,000 ton ultra large crude carriers — the world’s largest. Devanney was responsible for specifications, financing, yard negotiations, supervision, and all major technical and commercial decisions. Devanney’s MIT education includes a BS and MS in naval architecture and a PhD in management science. There he served on the faculty of Ocean Engineering for ten years.

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Ralph Moir

Ralph Moir is a physicist and engineer who has reviewed and improved the ThorCon reactor design during its development. Since leaving Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories he has continued research in magnetic and inertial fusion energy and in molten salt fission reactors. In 2004 together with Manhattan Project veteran Edward Teller he published a design for an underground thorium-fueled molten salt reactor. His Livermore work included research in plasma physics and on hybrid fusion-fission reactors. Dr Moir is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Nuclear Society. He holds BSc and PhD degrees in nuclear engineering from MIT.

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Chris Uhlik

Chris Uhlik is an Electrical Engineer with a broad experience in robotics, automotive assembly, radio communications, aircraft systems, data switching systems, and Internet services applications.  He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University 1979–1990 subsequently working for Toyota Motor Company in Japan, Adept Technologies (robotics), ArrayComm (digital signal processing and cellular communications), RedWave Networks (Internet data), and is currently an Engineering Director at Google.  At Google Chris managed hundreds of engineers and was responsible for a wide range of Internet applications including Gmail, BookSearch, and StreetView.  Since 2008, Chris has been studying climate change and the transformation of materials and energy systems needed to decarbonize technical civilization.  Since 2009 he has intensively studied nuclear power, especially molten salt reactor systems and the nuclear fuel cycle.  Chris has been contributing to the design of ThorCon for two years believing ThorCon to be the most scalable, resource-efficient opportunity for humanity to advance its living standards while minimizing impact on the global environment.

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Lars Jorgensen

Lars Jorgensen is one of the lead architects of the ThorCon molten salt reactor. Lars designed the off-gas system and conducted analyses of neutronics and decay heat. Active in molten salt research since 2010, Lars is a lead technical contributor to the thorium molten salt reactor public forum. He works full-time on his passion: to give the developing world access to molten salt reactor technology which will fuel the dramatic build-out of electrical energy to meet their growing needs. Most recently from Texas Instruments, Jorgensen was Chief Technical Officer for the Digital Radio Product group. Prior to that he was Vice President of Engineering at Graychip, Inc., a semiconductor company specializing in dedicated signal processing. Previously he was a Principal Engineer at ESL/TRW. Throughout his extensive research and development career he has led engineers in pushing the technical envelope. His education includes a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and he holds various patents.

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Robert Hargraves

Robert Hargraves participates in the ThorCon design and project. He is an author of several articles and presentations about the importance of safe, clean, affordable electric power to the future of humanity. His book, THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal, highlights the importance of an energy source that will undersell plentiful coal, which is being burned in ever larger quantities as the developing world seeks prosperity. Dr Hargraves taught energy policy courses at OSHER@Dartmouth as he learned about molten salt reactors. Previously he managed information technology as vice-president of Boston Scientific and senior consultant at Arthur D Little. Hargraves taught mathematics and computer science at Dartmouth College where he founded a software company. He earned an AB in mathematics and physics from Dartmouth College and a PhD in physics from Brown University.

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David Devanney

Mr. Devanney has a history of starting up new companies involved in a variety of areas including education, power generation, real estate development and marine transportation. His most successful venture was the founding and management of Tankship Transport which was a ship owning and operating company which managed one million deadweight tons of its own large oil tankers and another million tons of tankers for outside owners. At ThorCon, Mr. Devanney’s focus is raising financing for the technology and finding a host country for the prototype power plant. Mr. Devanney received a BA in philosophy from Loyola University and a MA in education from New York University.

[jjotto]

Yeah, but who’s the great Muslim scientist/engineer they copied from?

[Moonman62]

I’ve seen people from MIT and national laboratories involved in other scams. They may be legitimate, but most likely they are looking for quick bucks without ever producing anything useful. Not everybody with a PhD is at the top of their field or honest. And most people have their price. Con artists know that. They also know that people with degrees help sell their scam.

[rlmorel]

That is a positive outlook...it would be nice to see.

[rlmorel]

Which makes it even more infuriating.

[Ozark Tom]

ITER comes to mind. “Fusion is the future of energy — and always will be.”

[Ozark Tom]

Possible fusion competitors for the MSR are “Helion Energy” and “Tri Alpha Energy”; but, the MSR should be a straight engineering challenge with only an end run needed around the NRC.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/poddar1/

[Patriot777]

hysterium.
The demoncraps are putting off so much of that because of PM Netanyahu’s upcoming speech, it could actually be billed as a viable source of power (if someone can harness huge brain-farts?)

[Maine Mariner]

Exactly!!

[ckilmer]

I’ve seen people from MIT and national laboratories involved in other scams. They may be legitimate, but most likely they are looking for quick bucks without ever producing anything useful. Not everybody with a PhD is at the top of their field or honest. And most people have their price. Con artists know that. They also know that people with degrees help sell their scam.
...............
Look at those biographies. One of the guys helped Edward Teller write his last paper on thorium reactors. Another guy was a ship builder. Another guy has spent many years at the federal nuclear labs. There’s a lot of diversity here. That’s hard to fake.

Another guy is a big manager at Google.

Two important things to know about google is that they require their people to work on stuff outside of Google for 20% of their time. The other thing is that Google recently gave up on solar. They decided that solar was not the way to go as far as energy is concerned. You can bet this project is being pitched to google right now.

[ckilmer]

Yeah, but who’s the great Muslim scientist/engineer they copied from?
..............
The Muslims don’t do no stinkin science. They don’t need to. They got oel. What else is new. But yew new that.

[ckilmer]

That is a positive outlook...it would be nice to see.
...............
These guys are only one of about 10 teams working on this in the USA Canada China Japan and Europe.

This thing is going to happen. The only question are when and who gets the prize for first and then who gets the business.

[ckilmer]

Possible fusion competitors for the MSR are “Helion Energy” and “Tri Alpha Energy”; but, the MSR should be a straight engineering challenge with only an end run needed around the NRC.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/poddar1/
..............
Polywell is another fusion company. I think lockheed martins skunkworks also recently threw their hat in the fusion ring.

The thing about fusion is that even though it promises unlimited energy —that doesn’t necessarily mean the process will be cheap. Whereas — as you say “the MSR should be a straight engineering challenge with only an end run needed around the NRC.” And the cost involved are already fairly well understood to be very inexpensive.

Right now, I think that Flibe is designing reactors with an eye to siting them on DOD bases where EPA rules don’t apply. Might be the same with Transatomic. The DOD wants to get off the grid so they’ll be buying portable nuclear reactors over the next couple of decades for their bases.

The problem with the NRC is that all their regulations are designed for light water reactors. The MSR’s are something entirely different.

However, the Nuclear Regulator Commission is being given years and years of advance notice that the MSR’s are coming. So I’m not so sure that when push comes to shove the NRC won’t get out of the way.

[ckilmer]

ITER comes to mind. “Fusion is the future of energy — and always will be.”
.................
The MSR’s are coming. They’re working off proven technology. So the deadlines are not being pushed further out into the future. Rather they are being telescoped forward.

[Moonman62]

Look at those biographies. One of the guys helped Edward Teller write his last paper on thorium reactors. Another guy was a ship builder. Another guy has spent many years at the federal nuclear labs. There’s a lot of diversity here. That’s hard to fake.

...

Unless they have a commercially viable product, none of that matters.

By comparison, when Spacex got their start it was a matter of doing, rather than parading credentials, and still is.

[Sequoyah101]

There is only forward or backward. There is no way to stay the same. Without an unlikely reversal of the insanity that is the US we are headed for the waste bin of history.

“designing ThorCon in the US while targeting its first installations in forward-looking countries that support technology-neutral nuclear regulations and see the benefits of the license-by-test process.”

Forward-thinking is a concept that has died and been buried in this country for a long time.

Thorium is the bridge to the future as hydrocarbons become more expensive and too valuable for anything but high energy density transportation and petrochemicals. Thorium reactors will not be built in this country because most people in this country are terminally stupid and that can’t be fixed. China, India and Russia will be leaving the US in their dust on this one.