Posted on 06/29/2014 7:17:33 AM PDT by ckilmer
A next-generation fast breeder reactor design is gaining popularity in research circles.
On 6 June, UK researchers Jasper Tomlinson and Trevor Griffiths won £75,000 in Technology Strategy Board funding (including £20,000 of contributions-in-kind) to carry out an eight-month feasibility study.
The project, which will be managed by mechanical engineer Rory O'Sullivan, aims to develop a ranking of alternatives and configurations of a liquid-fuelled molten-salt reactor, including costs, regulatory, public acceptance and site issues for building and licensing a pilot-scale demonstration reactor in the UK. It would aim to prepare the ground for a full engineering design for the chosen option, to present to potential investors.
"There isn't an MSR currently operating anywhere. If people could look at one, their conception of nuclear power would entirely alter. They are nothing like the present PWR setup. They are so extraordinarily different. That is what we are trying to do," says Jasper Tomlinson, whose small business Energy Process Developments will be carrying out the work starting in September at the earliest, subject to signing a contract.
The Alvin Weinberg Foundation is a London-based charity advocating for Gen IV reactors and thorium fuel, lists seven current international MSR projects: Ian Scott's Moltex project in the UK, Elsa Merle-Lecotte's EVOL project in France, the US Transatomic Power project, David LeBlanc's Terrestrial Energy project in Canada, Kirk Sorensen's Flibe Energy project in the USA, Motoyasu Kinoshita's Fuji Reactor project in Japan, and Hongjie Xu's MSR Project in China.
On 19 May Atkins nuclear technical director, Paul Littler, and consultant Barry Snelson gave a lecture in Warrington entitled, 'Fission's future: Molten Salt Reactors - can they be the answer?'
In the talk, Littler said that there are some 18 different varieties of MSR. All use fuel in molten form; the salt consists of a chemical solution mixture of actinides, thorium, plutonium and uranium as halides. Temperatures are up to 800°C, so significantly hotter than LWRs, but because salts' boiling points are almost double that (1400°C) a pressurised primary system is not required.
According to the Weinberg foundation, MSRs have several benefits over current LWRs: molten fuel allows 30 times greater burnup than solid fuel, eliminates the risk of LOCAs since the coolant is also the fuel, and the molten salt fuel is not chemically reactive, so the fuel simply solidifies if it leaks out.
Littler of Atkins said that the reactor also allows the breeding of uranium from fertile thorium, which is three times more abundant than uranium in the earth, and in terms of fuel-grade deposits is perhaps 100 times more abundant.
Littler said that MSRs could fill the gap between the end of the current generation of nuclear reactors and the development of commercial fusion power, and start up about 2050.
We should not take a pass on this technology lots of good work was done here in the 60’s, lets see if we can build another one and try to work out the bugs.
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agree. We’ve basically in the middle of Gas station wars since 1973. Kill the price of electricity and problems from the middle east and russia will basically go away because they won’t have so much walking around money. (Or in the case of the middle east, they won’t have extra money for madrases which form the mouth of the funnel for jihadists.)
Actually, the company I work for (CSW at the time) built a molten salt reactor in the mid-’60s. It was called SEFOR, and was just outside Winslow, AR.
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Cool beans. Too bad they can’t get the old MSR’s back into operation again.
I was sold too, until I Googled the downsides, and they are not trivial.
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the problems are all addressable. Two test MSR were developed in the late 1960’s. The chinese currently have the biggest research program going.
Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China’s former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and by late 2013 China had officially partnered with Oak Ridge to aid China in its own development.[37][38] The World Nuclear Association notes that the China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 announced its R&D program, “claiming to have the world’s largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology.”[18] According to Martin, “China has made clear its intention to go it alone,” adding that China already has a monopoly over most of the world’s rare earth minerals.[16]:157[20]
In March 2014, with their reliance on coal-fired power having become a major cause of their current “smog crisis,” they reduced their original goal of creating a working reactor from 25 years down to 10. “In the past, the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog,” said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project. “This is definitely a race,” he added.[39]
In early 2012, it was reported that China, using components produced by the West and Russia, planned to build two prototype thorium molten salt reactors by 2015, and had budgeted the project at $400 million and requiring 400 workers.”[16]:157 China also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.[40]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
I drove last the FFTF for years and just shook my head everyday. Another of the peanut farmer’s failed policy decisions was to terminate that program which produced not only power but medical isotopes. Let’s not forget he cancelled among other things the neutron bomb program and other military weapons programs while he loaned the USSR a Cray super computer to “modernize their automobile” industry which they immediately put to use in their weapons programs
Sorry I got a bit off topic.
China
At the 2011 annual conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences it was announced that “China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology.”[36] In addition, Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China’s former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and by late 2013 China had officially partnered with Oak Ridge to aid China in its own development.[37][38] The World Nuclear Association notes that the China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 announced its R&D program, “claiming to have the world’s largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology.”[18] According to Martin, “China has made clear its intention to go it alone,” adding that China already has a monopoly over most of the world’s rare earth minerals.[16]:157[20]
In March 2014, with their reliance on coal-fired power having become a major cause of their current “smog crisis,” they reduced their original goal of creating a working reactor from 25 years down to 10. “In the past, the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog,” said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project. “This is definitely a race,” he added.[39]
In early 2012, it was reported that China, using components produced by the West and Russia, planned to build two prototype thorium molten salt reactors by 2015, and had budgeted the project at $400 million and requiring 400 workers.”[16]:157 China also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.[40]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
The other great benefit of the molten salt designs is that they can also use spent fuel from nuclear reactors. These reactors only burn about 5% of the nuclear fuel. So rather than store these nuclear fuels in yucca mountain, lftr reactors will burn them. These nuclear wastes represent 100’s of years of free energy.
Two companies are working on this angle. The first is Transatomic power mentioned in the article above which uses molten salt designs. the second is bill gates Terrapower which uses a different technology to burn nuclear wastes.
From Wikipedia:
Summarizing, Martin writes, “Thorium could provide a clean and effectively limitless source of power while allaying all public concern—weapons proliferation, radioactive pollution, toxic waste, and fuel that is both costly and complicated to process.[16]:13
From an economics viewpoint, U.K. business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes that “Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium,” suggesting a “new Manhattan Project,” and adding, “If it works, Manhattan II could restore American optimism and strategic leadership at a stroke …”[25] Moir and Teller estimated in 2004 that the cost for their recommended prototype would be “well under $1 billion with operation costs likely on the order of $100 million per year,” and as a result a “large-scale nuclear power plan” usable by many countries could be set up within a decade.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
Absolutely correct.
Is that because one is SEA SALT?
(Yuk-yuk)
Thanks for the info & links.
Interesting thread but like most things in this nation, we talk a lot and do nothing. The solution is so clearly obvious that there has to be some nefarious reason for not implementing it.
I have been an ardent supporter, follower, studier of LiFTR for several years. It was gaining some momentum before the disaster in Japan and then it went back to sleep.
A billion is chicken feed in the scheme of things here for the size of the prize. $100 Billion is chicken feed for the size of the prize.
This nation has settled into a deep valley of death.
Disagree on this. Prototypes in any case will be developed in under 10 years. The Chinese have moved up their prototype due date to under 10 years. I’ve heard Gates’s team push forward their prototype date to before 2020. (admittedly their tech isn’t lftr but their tech is more unproved than lftr) imho sometime in the next year or three some ambitious individual or team will announce their plan to prototype in 18 months or so. imho there will wind up being a very public race to get the first reactor in operation.
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We shall, respectfully I hope, continue to disagree on this question of duration of time for a prototype to be built and certainly tested and proven and ready for commercialization. Only in time of war with a national resolve has something like this been done is time frames you suggest. It is being blocked, the climb to success is long, painful, expensive and full of capricious nonsensical risk and barriers.
why do you think Charles? here is a hint. the “free market” may not allow timely progression for energy cost reduction.
Grandpa worked on the Manhattan Project, Dad worked at FFTF and others, and in 1971 I was a Nuke Weapons Specialist in the USAF.
Not off topic for me.
I have no way of knowing, but 3rd Generation “nuclear” had to be rare in 71.
That was the theme of my 1980 Master’s paper “Energy for 2005”.
That was the theme of my 1980 Master’s paper “Energy for 2005”.
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What’s a killer is that the Chinese plan to have a prototype going next year.
Brings new meaning to the impact of “The China Syndrome”....
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