It's a MSR reactor. 4' x 7', so again close to the "closet sized" ORNL original MSR reactor. Yes, liquid fuel can be used to separate valuable fission products,

It's a MSR reactor. 4' x 7', so again close to the "closet sized" ORNL original MSR reactor. Yes, liquid fuel can be used to separate valuable fission products, and the reactor can be used to breed new fuel or other substances. Should be able to reprocess/consume solid fuel rod waste. These designs are meltdown-proof as well. Because the fuel is fluid, you place a "plug" underneath it that is cooled to keep it solid. If the reactor starts to get out of control, the plug melts. The liquid fuel then flows into a shallow pool, which if you understand the basic concept of neutron economy/chain reactions, drops the criticality beneath a sustainable chain reaction. I believe some designs also self-regulate temperature in other ways because hotter salts expand, which reduces criticality as well, so there is a secondary mechanism of regulation, but I'm hazy on that. Anyway, all that is 1960s knowledge/facts on MSR that is well known. I applaud this because it means MSRs are getting back to the square zero, but there isn't anything on costs, materials innovations, or other design enhancements to the ORNL design. And I just see YET ANOTHER MSR reactor coming online in academia, just as China boots up their prototype scaled-up reactor. And yet, 60 years of previous academia didn't boot a single one. This is the third I believe, in addition to new projects at the national laboratories. Maybe there actually was a policy against approving any MSR reactor for the last 60 years, which is what Kirk Sorensen of one of the LFTR companies contends, but all the mainstream nuclear folks say there wasn't institutional bias against this design. I'm a huge MSR stan, I'm glad this project is starting at the "closet sized" scale which I think is key to an economical nuclear reactor.