Posted on 06/05/2017 4:43:10 AM PDT by RC one
Power-short Indonesia has been mulling building a nuclear power plant for nearly 15 years, and it is exploring a number of novel options, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and a thorium molten salt reactor.
The 1958-established National Atomic Energy Agency (Badan Tenaga Nuklir Nasional, BATAN) wants to build an experimental nuclear power reactor at Serpong, the site of its largest multipurpose research reactor, and it continues to assess its options. In early 2015, BATAN signed a contract to build and test a pebble-bed HTGR at Serpong with a consortium of Russian and Indonesian companies led by NUKEM Technologies. And, in August 2016, BATAN pushed on with its nuclear ambitions, signing a cooperation agreement with China Nuclear Engineering Corp., looking to develop small HTGRs in Kalimantan and Sulawesi by 2027. BATAN also has agreements with Russia’s Rosatom to develop a floating nuclear power plant that could electrify its smaller inhabited islands.
This March, the country stepped up its nuclear curiosity. Three state-owned Indonesian power companies—power generator PT PLN, nuclear fuel processing firm PT Industry Nuklir Indonesia (INUKI), and oil and gas giant PT Pertamina—completed a 10-month-long preliminary feasibility study for a 250-MW molten salt reactor that would use a combination of 80% thorium and 20% uranium (the uranium would be enriched to 19.75% U-235, and the fuel would be delivered to the plant as fluoride salts). The reactor design was unveiled in January 2015 by ThorCon International, a company owned by Florida-based consulting firm Martingale Inc. The prefeasibility study stems from a memorandum of understanding the company signed with the Indonesian state firms in December 2015.
INUKI said its interest in the thorium reactor is rooted in Indonesia’s abundant resources of monazite, which is recovered from the country’s substantial tin mining industry. PLN, meanwhile, has conditionally included the use of thorium molten salt reactors in its National Electricity Business Plan for the period spanning 2017 to 2026. BATAN, which hasn’t yet issued a decision on whether the reactor design fits the country’s needs, said that if all fares well during its assessment period, it will recommend the design as the basis for Indonesia’s first commercial nuclear power plant.
ThorCon is a “straightforward” scale-up of an experimental molten salt reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, which operated between 1965 and 1969 (Figure 1). ORNL conceived the concept of “liquid fuel” as an alternative to the water-cooled, zirconium-clad uranium oxide solid fuel rods used in light water reactors. In a molten salt reactor, thorium and uranium fluorides are dissolved in molten salt, which, in ThorCon’s case is a mix of fluorides of beryllium and sodium heated between 560C and 700C. The fuel flows through the reactor vessel—where it fissions and grows hotter—then through a pump and heat exchanger to cool it.
Remarkably, ORNL’s Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was inspired by a campaign to build a nuclear-powered airplane in the 1950s, because engineers saw promising results from the design that used molten fluoride salt as fuel carrier and coolant for an onboard carrier. But that project was scrapped in the 1960s, and molten salt reactor efforts have since transitioned to power generation.
Benefits touted by the MSRE technology’s proponents were that it could make fuel as it operated—mitigating worries about scarce uranium supplies—and that the circulating fuel eliminated change outs of solid fuel and control rod mechanisms. Another highlighted aspect was intrinsic safety: “Molten salts expand as they heat up,” explained ORNL. “The expansion causes some of the fuel to leave the core, shutting down the reactor, so operator response is not required to turn the reactor off.”
Like the experimental reactor, ThorCon is designed for installation 15 to 30 meters underground (Figure 2). “ThorCon has three gas tight barriers between the fuelsalt and the atmosphere,” said its developer. “The reactor operates at slight over-pressure so that in the event of a primary loop rupture, there is no dispersal energy and also no phase change. The spilled fuel merely flows to a drain tank where it is passively cooled. The most troublesome fission products, including [strontium-90] and [cesium-137], are chemically bound to the salt. They will end up in the drain tank as well.”
1. Rooted in history. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) ran a brief four years in the 1960s at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The MSRE lost funding and the entire program was shut down in 1973. In this photo, ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg marks 6,000 full-power hours of MSRE operation. Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Lemhi Pass is a high mountain pass in the Beaverhead Mountains, part of the Bitterroot Range in the Rocky Mountains and within Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Wikipedia
“Why is India pursuing this and we aren’t?”
Because it threatens the oil economy. Thorium can be extracted from coal. The heat generated by the reaction process can be used to transform the coal into fuel oil. You get electricity and fuel as a byproduct.
Total win win.
There is much more to "proof of viability" than a mere 6000 hours of operation. Beryllium is hugely toxic on a chemical basis, and the fluodide salts are highly corrosive.
"Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?"
Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.
The above said, the US "should" have continuing research going on such plants....but until the public's attitude about fission power changes, there is no chance of funding bills passing Congress, and no company will invest in it without such assurances.
What is sad about it??? Exports are exports, and engender American jobs. You would prefer that a company in France do it??
I thought Hillery sold that area to the Russians ...
Corruption is the way of the gov-co.
Anything for the equivalent of a few pieces of silver I guess.
Yes. That is indeed George Lucas :-)
Now you know that money wasn't pissed away, well not as far as the demonrats are concerned, the majority went directly into the accounts of the DNC and obamanation. Plus after sticking we taxpayers with the defaulted loan we also got to pay for the hazmat cleanup at the site.
It’s sad that they aren’t building molten salt reactors here in America. IMO.
Bingo.
Well, that would be "better", I agree...but I can't use the word "bad" for something that provides jobs for US citizens, and especially the highly technical sorts needed for this technology.
Curious tidbit...one my my professors in my grad school minor in nuclear science had worked on NERVA (nuclear rocket propulsion system). Heh....and then there was Heinlein's "Rocket Ship Galileo", a thorium-fueled nuclear rocket.
Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?" Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.
I was actually reading about India's large thorium deposits when I typed that. I meant to say Indonesia, not India. I read China is pursuing thorium reactors because they have large stockpiles of Thorium from refining rare earth metals for the battery market. I'm pretty sure we're sitting on a LOT of thorium ourselves however.
I think the day is coming soon when more Americans will be asking their government, why the hell aren't we building thorium reactors?
Self am chemist with academic nuke background. Also worked in the chemical industry for twenty-plus years for a producer of chlorine and chlorinated organic products, which come "close" to being systems as corrosive as fluorides, though not toxic per beryllium, so I understand that it can be done, and am glad to hear that Thorcom has a suitable appreciation for the difficulties.....many companies would not.
"I think the day is coming soon when more Americans will be asking their government, why the hell aren't we building thorium reactors?
Why?? Because the Soviet-funded anti-nuke propaganda machine has outlived its masters, and its zombie self lives on in the environmental movement, poisoning the water (and land and air) against fission power production.
Probably because of their continued failure to produce usable power, the fusion power boys have largely stayed out of the cross-hairs of the zombies. This activity is not harmless, as they suck down a lot of funding that could go to more practical things like thorium reactors.
Wasn’t Chernobyl a salt reactor?
I just think that once it takes off in Indonesia, India, China and elsewhere people are going to become increasingly interested in it here in America. I don't profess to be a nuclear physicist but I can read just fine and from what I have read, Thorium MSRs seems like an idea whose time is about to come.
No. It was a carbon-moderated light-water reactor or "light water graphite reactor" (LWGR), a very old reactor type with extremely dangerous characteristics. I think the Brits may have built some of these as power reactors VERY early on in the atomic age, but do not think the US ever did so.
If the temperature of the graphite gets too high, the water can react with the carbon and make carbon monoxide and hydrogen (called the "water gas reaction", and widely used in the late 1800's to produce "illuminating gas" from coal). That reaction can cause a large pressure surge inside the reactor, and if the vessel cracks and air gets inside......BOOM-ski!
I very sincerely hope you are right. I've got no real reservations about the technology. I just think the "human factors" of the "green meme" are going to be difficult to overcome.
A Thorium breeder doesn’t require isotope separation for U233. Perhaps the utilization of neutrons is less efficient than for making Pu?
Steam/gas bubbles—positive void coefficient?
Not sure how a LWGR reacts on a void coefficient basis, since the CO/H2 gas phase is a whole different chemical basis, not just a phase change of water. You're actually chemically eating away the graphite moderator itself as well. Bad things happenin' all around.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.