Keystone related?
Can you explain why there is no reference to “thorium” in the article? The fuel is said to contain uranium. However, the words “molten salt” are used, which is customarily used in a thorium reactor. Is this a different process?
No it was not powered by Th. It was a Uranium fueled reactor designed to prove the concept of liquid fuels. It worked beautifully and ORNL director Albert Weinberg did it because he believed that thorium could be used instead of uranium, with Th being better at breeding replacement fuel than uranium. Unfortunately the solid uranium fuel “lobby” wanted nothing to do with it as all their investments were geared to the idea of the early fast reactors that could breed plutonium for WMD and produce energy the MSR was killed off. For political, not technological reasons.
I don’t believe any MSR, be it uranium-fueled or the thorium-fueled LFTR variety that FliBe is working on (and the Chinese) will actually be developed beyond the first small R&D reactors in the United States. It’s a totally and absolutely hostile environment from a regulatory point of view. It doesn’t mean there won’t be major component manufacturing there, but FOK won’t be here, it’ll be elsewhere.
Other commenters had the same perspective.
What a pity. We are giving our energy future to the Chinese. We've already given them the Oak Ridges-developed technology as a starting point.
hahahahah. Uhm ... To the author - the core of a "molten" salt reactor is already melted down. If its not melted down, its not working.
Something not mentioned in the article is that a LFTR can take what we now consider to be nuclear waste and use it as fuel - beat guns into plowshares as it were.
Oh yeah, this should work out well. The Soviets used molten salt technology in their submarine reactors decades ago. Massive problems and dead sailors on a regular basis according to intel at the time...
Meanwhile, the Chinese expect to build some 200 or so pebble bed reactors. They don’t generate as much energy, but are very safe, and are built on top of their eventual waste disposal site.
Basically, the nuclear material is mixed with, then baked into ceramic balls. Each ball is put into what looks like a giant egg carton, so the balls are located at just the right interval.
They produce a given amount of heat for a given length of time, which then heats inert carbon dioxide gas to run turbines. The carbon dioxide gas in non-corrosive, and does not itself become radioactive.
When the balls are exhausted, the floor beneath them opens, and they are dropped into a deep rock shaft, their permanent resting place. Then concrete is poured on top of them, and the building above them is dismantled.
So the question becomes, why use a thorium molten salt reactor instead of a pebble bed reactor?
Hey! Canadians are Americans (so are Mexicans)
The reactor should come online in less than ten.
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Considering all the wonderful claims, one has to wonder why it’s going to take ten years?