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It may be interesting to note that a similar design was built and operated continuously back in 1964 for 4 years successfully. There's some material science tha
by nolroz 5y ago
It may be interesting to note that a similar design was built and operated continuously back in 1964 for 4 years successfully. There's some material science that needs to be ironed out for commercialization, but it's a viable technology for sure, IMHO.
- nicoburns 5y ago> There's some material science that needs to be ironed out for commercialization Worth noting that this is no small thing. Materials science is the limiting factor of all molten salt reactors, and has yet to be solved satisfactorily.
- p1mrx 5y agoI like how Moltex asked "wait, why are we pumping all this fuel around in the first place?" https://youtu.be/7qJpVClxzVM?t=536 https://youtu.be/7qJpVClxzVM?t=536
- ncmncm 5y agoMolten has a good point. Pumping, what, tens or hundreds of tons of highly radioactive, hot, corrosive liquid around puts a crushing demand on the perfection of your plumbing, heat exchanger, and pumps. What do you do when (not if, we know plumbing) it leaks?
- philipkglass 5y agoYou're referring to the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment. That was a promising experiment, but the MSRE had thermal power output of 8 megawatts while the "can" in the Thorcon design is supposed to output 557 MWth -- 70 times more. The MSRE also operated for a total of 11555 hours full-power-output equivalent, about 1.3 years, whereas these reactor cans are supposed to run for 4 years at full power before replacement. There are reasons to believe that the physics are fine, but there are a lot of things other than physics that can impair an energy technology's journey from laboratory to industry. Still, I wish them luck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment...
- NumberWangMan 5y agoI think the neat thing about this is that they're starting with a design that, even if something goes a bit screwy, is still safe. They're obviously doing their best to design it well, but also relying on actual tests to see how well it performs in practice, which is something that you can't really do with the nuclear regulatory environment in the USA, if I understand correctly. And part of this document[1] says "if it breaks, send it back". The design allows for replacing a faulty "can" entirely rather than trying to repair it. [1] https://thorconpower.com/docs/domsr20180119.pdf https://thorconpower.com/docs/domsr20180119.pdf