Free Republic

For years nuclear scientists have talked about a revival of molten salt reactors, which are powered by a liquid fuel rather than solid fuel rods, that will help spark the long-awaited “nuclear renaissance.” Recent developments indicate that this alternative nuclear power technology is finally making progress toward commercialization. A consortium of research institutes and universities working under the aegis of the European Commission, including the Technology University of Delft (TU Delft), in the Netherlands, France’s National Center for Scientific Research, and the Commission’s Joint Research Center, in Brussels, in August embarked on a four-year research program designed to demonstrate the...

The U.S. is helping China build a novel, superior nuclear reactor by  Mark Halper February 2, 2015, 2:48 PM EDT Share icons The Department of Energy is dusting off one of the old betamaxes of nuclear technology: The molten salt reactor. But with political will lacking at home, it will rise in China.In 1973, the Nixon administration made a momentous decision that altered the course of civilian nuclear power: It fired the director of the renowned Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scuppering development of a reactor widely regarded as safer and superior to the complicated, inferior behemoths that define the global...

China and US molten salt nuclear reactor cooperation china, energy, future, molten salt, nuclear, science, technology, united states A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, or CRADA, between ORNL and SINAP focuses on accelerating scientific understanding and technical development of salt-cooled reactors, specifically fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors, or FHRs. The project will draw on ORNL’s expertise in fuels, materials, instrumentation and controls, design concepts, and modeling and simulation for advanced reactors, as well as the lab’s experience in the design, construction and operation of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, the only molten salt reactor ever built. The Chinese Academy of Sciences...

Today, the United States Department of Energy announced that its Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee is partnering with Canadian nuclear company Terrestrial Energy Inc. (TEI) to assist with TEI’s new Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR). The engineering blueprint stage for this GenIV reactor should be reached in two years. The reactor should come online in less than ten.

Molten Salt Reactors enjoy 15 minutes of fame 11 June 2014   Print Email   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...

The recent nuclear meltdown in Japan again reminds the world why current nuclear technology is unacceptable for future power generation. In the past, that technology has demonstrated its danger clearly in accidents, the worst of which was the catastrophe at Chernobyl. And yet I am a major proponent of nuclear-based electricity generation. Our world absolutely requires energy sources that have none of the problems inherent in all forms of fossil fuel and that can be produced in large reliable quantities for generations to come. How can I possibly be both for and against nuclear power? Because what we know as...