Since former NASA engineer Kirk Sorensen revived forgotten molten salt reactor (MSR) technology in the 2000s, interest in MSR technology has been growing quickly. Since 2011, four separate companies in North America have announced plans for MSRs: Flibe Energy (started by Sorenson himself), Transatomic Power (started by two recent MIT graduates), Terrestrial Energy (based in Canada, which recently partnered with Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and Martingale, Inc., which recently made public its design for its ThorCon MSR.
In addition, there is now renewed interest in MSRs in Japan, Russia, France and China, with China also announcing that MSR technology is one of its “five innovation centers that will unite the country’s leading talents for research in advanced science and technology fields, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
Why this sudden interest in a nuclear technology that dates back to the 1950s? The answer lies in both the phenomenal safety of MSRs and their potential to help solve so many of today’s energy related problems, from climate change to energy poverty to the intermittency of wind and solar power. In fact, MSRs can operate so safely, they may alleviate public fears about nuclear energy. Before looking at the potential of MSRs, though, it is useful to first take a high-level look at what they are and how they work.
Stephen Williams – ZME Science – March 15, 2017.
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I regularly read articles on Nuclear Energy and this is one I’d actually let unsupervised senior citizens read before the cocktail hour. Well done Stephen.