Moltex molten salt reactor being built in New Brunswick Canada

UK-based Moltex Energy will build a demonstration SSR-W (Stable Salt Reactor – Wasteburner) at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant site in Canada under an agreement signed with the New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation and NB Power.

The agreement provides CAD5.0 million (USD3.8 million) of financial support to Moltex for its immediate development activities and Moltex will open its North American headquarters in Saint John and build its development team there. It also calls for Moltex to deploy its first SSR-W at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant site before 2030.

Stable Salt Reactors build on the fundamental safety and simplicity breakthrough of molten salt fuel in essentially standard nuclear fuel tubes. Stable Salt Reactors are modular in construction. Their rectangular cores can be extended module by module to create reactors from 150MW to 1200MW power.

Many versions of Stable Salt Reactors are possible. The first being developed now is a “waste burner”. This uses fuel produced by a new, low cost and very simple process from spent conventional reactor fuel. Reduction in the radioactive life of the majority of that spent fuel from hundreds of thousands of years to just a few hundred years will effectively clean up a large part of the hazardous residue of the first nuclear era. Second generation Stable Salt Reactors will be able to breed new nuclear fuel from depleted uranium and thorium.

* The fuel salt is held in vented tubes. Venting is safe because in our reactors the dangerous fission products form stable compounds, not gases.
* The tubes are bundled into fuel assemblies similar to those in a conventional PWR. These are held in the support structure which forms the reactor modules.
* The tank is filled with a safe molten salt coolant, which is not pressurized like gas or water coolants in today’s power reactors and not violently reactive with air and water like sodium in today’s Fast Breeder reactors. A second similar coolant salt system takes heat from the primary coolant salt to steam generators kept well away from the reactor.
* Refueling is simple: Fuel assemblies are simply moved sideways out of the core and replaced with fresh fuel assemblies. This results in a near on-line refueling process.
* The entire construction is simple, with no high-pressure systems, few moving parts, and no Pressure Vessel needing specialist foundries.

Moltex technology has unique advantages over both current reactor technologies and other advanced reactor concepts. These include
* Grid scale energy storage so the SSR can produce electricity at triple its reactor power for the 8 hours a day of peak demand while running the reactor itself continuously at full capacity
* Low cost conversion of spent fuel from today’s reactors into fresh fuel for the SSR, saving billions in costs of waste disposal
* Low cost electricity, estimated at <3.5p (<5c) per kWhr when operated as baseload, and 4p (6c) when operated as a peak demand plant * Capital cost per kW similar to a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plant but with far lower running costs

The government of New Brunswick announced on 26 June its commitment of CAD10 million (USD7.5 million) to help the New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation develop a nuclear research cluster in the province, which is home to the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant. The move aims to position New Brunswick as a leader in the field of research and development of SMR technology.

Advanced Reactor Concepts sodium-cooled fast reactor

Last week, Advanced Reactor Concepts (ARC) was announced as the first partner in the nuclear research cluster. ARC is developing the ARC-100, a 100 MWe integrated sodium-cooled fast reactor with a metallic uranium alloy core.

ARC is developing an exportable, factory-produced, 100 MWe nuclear reactor with fixed fuel costs for 20+ years.

The ARC-100 design creates a “walk away” passive safety system that insures the reactor will never melt down even in a disaster that causes a complete loss of power to the plant site. In addition, it can be fueled with the nuclear waste produced by traditional reactors, and its 20-year refueling cycle offers new levels of proliferation resistance. It provides a new model for nuclear power that is based on factory fabrication of modular components that can be shipped for rapid site assembly, thereby promoting the prompt start of a revenue stream.

The reactor’s basic technology was proven through the successful 30-year operation of the EBR-II prototype. ARC has made significant proprietary advances to the original EBR-II design in order to create the ARC-100.

The prototype for the ARC-100 reactor is a reactor known as the EBR-II. The EBR-II was operated by the US government’s Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho for 30 years as a very successful test and demonstration sodium-cooled fast-reactor power plant.

The ARC-100 reactor system is very economically competitive. It is designed to produce electricity at a target cost of approximately $0.05 per kilowatt-hour. Long-life fuel packages freeze the ARC-100 reactor’s fuel costs for 20 years or longer and thus facilitate energy security for its clients.

83 thoughts on “Moltex molten salt reactor being built in New Brunswick Canada”

  1. Operational 2030 ? WTF ! Is that what Moltex calls fast deployment ? My idea of fast deployment is months, not decades.

  2. Anti nuclear, anti MSR people have been complaining about the Protactinium produced in MSRs that they claim is easy to use to produce weapons material. Though there is no easy way to produce weapons material. And the Protactinium is a short lived product that would be difficult to recover. Its great to hear a new MSR reactor will be built in North America. It is likely the Chinese will complete one first. This is something the Indians should be doing as they have heaps of Thorium. But they want to develop metal cooled fast breeder reactors. They should have done MSRs first. Should be much easier to develop. Though management of the salts and products would take much longer but that is not essential.

  3. So great to hear that Canada, and in particular New Brunswick will play a leading and prominent role in the development and actual deployment of MSR Modular reactor units! If only Moltex could convince OUR Government ( Alberta) to follow New Brunswicks lead in their wise nuclear development strategy.
    Alberta has distinct and unique requirments for stable high temperature/high volume process heat as well as stable and economic electricity to power commerce as well as heat our homes. The time has come I believe, for those who need it, to embrace clean and safe nuclear power generation.
    So called “Renewables”of which there really is no such thing, once energy goes through the usage cycle, it can never be renewed, it ultimately ends up as low grade atmospheric heat. Nuclear does not add CO2 in any way, during operation and has a much smaller carbon foot print during construction, quite unlike wind tubines and solar panels that utilize very large tracts of land in the order of square miles, a view from above is very telling!

  4. These are needed sooner than later. The electric transport system is going to demand a larger and larger share of the transmission capacity. The amount of electric vehicals that will flood the market in the next 5 years is going to tax the whole system and goverment have not moved to address this defficency. Let alone the reduction in gas tax revenues which will further cripple their stretched budgets. Fusion is so far off that this is the only reasonable stop gap for modern economies allowing for coal and oil to head off into the sunset.

  5. We developed nuclear reactors to produce Plutonium for A-bombs, not to produce power. Molten Salt Reactors aren’t good for making Plutonium.

  6. Why not charge a fee for disposing of radioactive waste. Currently nuclear power plants pay into a fund for a waste repository that will never be used.

  7. We have wasted so much time by not developing molten salt reactors. Imagine what we would have had after 50 years of producing these commercially!

  8. We developed nuclear reactors to produce Plutonium for A-bombs not to produce power. Molten Salt Reactors aren’t good for making Plutonium.

  9. Why not charge a fee for disposing of radioactive waste. Currently nuclear power plants pay into a fund for a waste repository that will never be used.

  10. We have wasted so much time by not developing molten salt reactors. Imagine what we would have had after 50 years of producing these commercially!

  11. Currently the plants purchase dry casks and store it on site and bill the DOE because the repository was not built. Who will collect this fee? Where will the fuel be disposed? Does it need to be disposed? Are landfills or offshore dumping good solutions for our household wastes? How would additional taxation or fees be the solution?

  12. How effective will this be at breeding thorium? I’d understood that an efficient breeding process required removal from the reactor, so the Pa-233 decays into U-233 (by beta decay, with a half-life of 27 d) instead of capturing another neutron. Do they plan to remove the fuel rods for this?

  13. Currently the plants purchase dry casks and store it on site and bill the DOE because the repository was not built. Who will collect this fee? Where will the fuel be disposed? Does it need to be disposed? Are landfills or offshore dumping good solutions for our household wastes? How would additional taxation or fees be the solution?

  14. How effective will this be at breeding thorium? I’d understood that an efficient breeding process required removal from the reactor so the Pa-233 decays into U-233 (by beta decay with a half-life of 27 d) instead of capturing another neutron. Do they plan to remove the fuel rods for this?

  15. I’m afraid Alberta is married to it’s oil sands. Trying to establish a competing and cleaner (C02 anyways) source of power probably won’t be well received.

  16. Marks comment is accurate but it wasn’t the ONLY reason we wanted reactors. The decision to go with Breeder reactors fueled by Uranium (which produced weapons grade plutonium used in weapons by converting fertile U-238 to Pu-239) instead of a more plentiful and cheaper source of fuel like Thorium was a calculated one. You could produce power and provide the byproduct (plutonium) to the gov’t for military and other purposes. Source: Father in law who worked on the Manhattan project and at various DOE sites Hanford / Los Almos / Livermore / Argonne most of his life.

  17. Australia had a government comission looking at the possibility of being paid to be the repository for the world’s spent nuclear fuel. The government sponsored committee decided against it, but Ben Heard (one of the forces behind the commission) hasn’t completely given up. He posted a paper about the idea on his Bright New World blog on January 18, 2017: How Australia and Asia can benefit from reinventing used nuclear fuel management ( https://decarbonisesa.com/2017/01/18/new-paper-how-australia-and-asia-can-benefit-from-reinventing-used-nuclear-fuel-management/ ) There’d be a lot of details to work out for secure handling of spent fuel, but the actual tonnage is low by comparison with most other materials that we ship in bulk around the world.

  18. Moltex in New Brunswick is great news; I just wish it were in my home province, Alberta. Unfortunately we don’t have any nuclear reactors – yet. There are governments with foresight, and I’m pleased that Canada is home to some of them.

  19. I’m afraid Alberta is married to it’s oil sands. Trying to establish a competing and cleaner (C02 anyways) source of power probably won’t be well received.

  20. Marks comment is accurate but it wasn’t the ONLY reason we wanted reactors. The decision to go with Breeder reactors fueled by Uranium (which produced weapons grade plutonium used in weapons by converting fertile U-238 to Pu-239) instead of a more plentiful and cheaper source of fuel like Thorium was a calculated one. You could produce power and provide the byproduct (plutonium) to the gov’t for military and other purposes. Source: Father in law who worked on the Manhattan project and at various DOE sites Hanford / Los Almos / Livermore / Argonne most of his life.

  21. Australia had a government comission looking at the possibility of being paid to be the repository for the world’s spent nuclear fuel. The government sponsored committee decided against it but Ben Heard (one of the forces behind the commission) hasn’t completely given up. He posted a paper about the idea on his Bright New World blog on January 18 2017: How Australia and Asia can benefit from reinventing used nuclear fuel management ( https://decarbonisesa.com/2017/01/18/new-paper-how-australia-and-asia-can-benefit-from-reinventing-used-nuclear-fuel-management/ )There’d be a lot of details to work out for secure handling of spent fuel but the actual tonnage is low by comparison with most other materials that we ship in bulk around the world.

  22. Moltex in New Brunswick is great news; I just wish it were in my home province Alberta. Unfortunately we don’t have any nuclear reactors – yet. There are governments with foresight and I’m pleased that Canada is home to some of them.

  23. You can’t use “cheaper source of fuel like thorium” without having driver material like 235U or 239Pu on hand. In this case we know that the chicken came before the egg – so it wasn’t a “calculated” decision. With no existing Pu stock, the only option is uranium enrichment or natural uranium with heavy water or graphite. They went with graphite moderated Colombia river light water cooled and dumped the heat in said river. I understand Mark’s point, I just don’t think we can be sure that primordial man’s first thought when he saw fire for the first time was “how can I kill my neighbor with fire?” It may have occurred to him later that evening that he could kill his neighbor with fire.

  24. ‘Molten Salt Reactors aren’t good for making Plutonium.’ Neither are light water reactors. ( British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors and Canadian heavy water reactors could, in theory, be used, but in practice, it would totally destroy their economics, and it never happened.)

  25. This is not a breeder. It is designed to burn plutonium from light water or heavy water reactors, or maybe from surplus warheads. The designer, Ian Scott, reckons future versions may be able to breed from thorium, by replacing the current barren ( i.e. not containing fertile thorium or U238 ) coolant salt, which is mostly zirconium fluoride, with thorium fluoride. That would be harder to get licenced, so they’re starting with the current, least ambitious version. For now, there’s plenty of fairly cheap uranium and spent fuel; it’s the cost of building reactors, and the slowness of getting them licenced, which are holding the industry back. ( That, and rampant radiophobia.)

  26. I think they’ve stopped paying the disposal fee at the moment, after a couple of operators won a case against the government for taking the money but not providing a waste repository. The gummint still has most of the fund, minus what it blew on Yucca mountain.

  27. You can’t use cheaper source of fuel like thorium”” without having driver material like 235U or 239Pu on hand. In this case we know that the chicken came before the egg – so it wasn’t a “”””calculated”””” decision. With no existing Pu stock”” the only option is uranium enrichment or natural uranium with heavy water or graphite. They went with graphite moderated Colombia river light water cooled and dumped the heat in said river. I understand Mark’s point”” I just don’t think we can be sure that primordial man’s first thought when he saw fire for the first time was “”””how can I kill my neighbor with fire?”””” It may have occurred to him later that evening that he could kill his neighbor with fire.”””

  28. ‘Molten Salt Reactors aren’t good for making Plutonium.’ Neither are light water reactors. ( British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors and Canadian heavy water reactors could in theory be used but in practice it would totally destroy their economics and it never happened.)

  29. This is not a breeder. It is designed to burn plutonium from light water or heavy water reactors or maybe from surplus warheads. The designer Ian Scott reckons future versions may be able to breed from thorium by replacing the current barren ( i.e. not containing fertile thorium or U238 ) coolant salt which is mostly zirconium fluoride with thorium fluoride. That would be harder to get licenced so they’re starting with the current least ambitious version. For now there’s plenty of fairly cheap uranium and spent fuel; it’s the cost of building reactors and the slowness of getting them licenced which are holding the industry back. ( That and rampant radiophobia.)

  30. I think they’ve stopped paying the disposal fee at the moment after a couple of operators won a case against the government for taking the money but not providing a waste repository. The gummint still has most of the fund minus what it blew on Yucca mountain.

  31. Alberta’s electricity comes from coal, natural gas, and hydro, with some ornamental wind turbines. Terrestrial Energy considers the oil sands as a possible customer for nuclear industrial heat for the extraction processes. Right now, the extraction requires fossil fuel heat; using nuclear heat would cut down the carbon intensity, and effectively package the nuclear energy into the extracted oil. The EROEI still wouldn’t be great, but we’d be able to sell the hydrocarbons that would have been burned. I don’t think any of the Alberta oil refineries can handle the upgraded bitumen, so I believe it’s 100% exported by pipeline and rail.

  32. Alberta’s electricity comes from coal natural gas and hydro with some ornamental wind turbines. Terrestrial Energy considers the oil sands as a possible customer for nuclear industrial heat for the extraction processes. Right now the extraction requires fossil fuel heat; using nuclear heat would cut down the carbon intensity and effectively package the nuclear energy into the extracted oil. The EROEI still wouldn’t be great but we’d be able to sell the hydrocarbons that would have been burned.I don’t think any of the Alberta oil refineries can handle the upgraded bitumen so I believe it’s 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} exported by pipeline and rail.

  33. Get a clue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1 “Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world’s first nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The reactor’s development was part of the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II.” You welcome.

  34. No, it isn’t, because we didn’t develop internal combustion engine to fight wars, but we actually developed nuclear power to fight wars.

  35. Get a clue:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world’s first nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942 the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1 during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The reactor’s development was part of the Manhattan Project” the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II.””You welcome.”””

  36. No it isn’t because we didn’t develop internal combustion engine to fight wars but we actually developed nuclear power to fight wars.

  37. Nevada’s governor decide that the nuke waste train could not run thru Nevada. And that was one of the issue, NTMBY (Not thru my backyard). There is no way to build 100K years lifespan nuclear waste storage facilities on nuclear power plant grounds. Most of the plants are not on grounds that are guarantee to be geologically stable long enough for all of the nuclear waste to decay.

  38. Nevada’s governor decide that the nuke waste train could not run thru Nevada. And that was one of the issue NTMBY (Not thru my backyard). There is no way to build 100K years lifespan nuclear waste storage facilities on nuclear power plant grounds. Most of the plants are not on grounds that are guarantee to be geologically stable long enough for all of the nuclear waste to decay.

  39. Actually they can. Any type of reactor, if designed for that purpose, can make weapons grade material. The MSR designs currently explored by all the start ups in existence today can’t. The problem with broad-brushing a whole reactor type with a single claim is that opponents can find a single counter-example to derail the entire claim.

  40. Actually they can. Any type of reactor if designed for that purpose can make weapons grade material. The MSR designs currently explored by all the start ups in existence today can’t. The problem with broad-brushing a whole reactor type with a single claim is that opponents can find a single counter-example to derail the entire claim.

  41. These are needed sooner than later. The electric transport system is going to demand a larger and larger share of the transmission capacity. The amount of electric vehicals that will flood the market in the next 5 years is going to tax the whole system and goverment have not moved to address this defficency. Let alone the reduction in gas tax revenues which will further cripple their stretched budgets. Fusion is so far off that this is the only reasonable stop gap for modern economies allowing for coal and oil to head off into the sunset.

  42. These are needed sooner than later. The electric transport system is going to demand a larger and larger share of the transmission capacity. The amount of electric vehicals that will flood the market in the next 5 years is going to tax the whole system and goverment have not moved to address this defficency. Let alone the reduction in gas tax revenues which will further cripple their stretched budgets. Fusion is so far off that this is the only reasonable stop gap for modern economies allowing for coal and oil to head off into the sunset.

  43. Is this new project, or existing able to withstand the effects of rising tides and global warming anticipated in the next 30 years? Why does Saint John not harness the rivers power for turbines to harness power?

  44. The MOLTEX design is radical in that it works at very low pressure. This means that the metal components can be subjected to much higher temperature because they are not stressed. The higher temperature output gives greater efficiency to subsequent energy generators. The large mass of molten salt coolant allows large scale energy storage, such as is being developed in high power solar energy systems. It is suggested that current nuke dependence on water bodies for steam condensation may be avoidable by using air cooled turbine technology. You should look at http://www.moltexenergy.com/learnmore/An_Introduction_Moltex_Energy_Technology_Portfolio.pdf . There must be questions left un-put hence un-answered. Now would be a good time to investigate, discuss and question.

  45. The MOLTEX design is radical in that it works at very low pressure. This means that the metal components can be subjected to much higher temperature because they are not stressed.The higher temperature output gives greater efficiency to subsequent energy generators. The large mass of molten salt coolant allows large scale energy storage such as is being developed in high power solar energy systems. It is suggested that current nuke dependence on water bodies for steam condensation may be avoidable by using air cooled turbine technology. You should look at http://www.moltexenergy.com/learnmore/An_Introduction_Moltex_Energy_Technology_Portfolio.pdf . There must be questions left un-put hence un-answered. Now would be a good time to investigate discuss and question.

  46. The MOLTEX design is radical in that it works at very low pressure. This means that the metal components can be subjected to much higher temperature because they are not stressed.
    The higher temperature output gives greater efficiency to subsequent energy generators.
    The large mass of molten salt coolant allows large scale energy storage, such as is being developed in high power solar energy systems.
    It is suggested that current nuke dependence on water bodies for steam condensation may be avoidable by using air cooled turbine technology. You should look at
    http://www.moltexenergy.com/learnmore/An_Introduction_Moltex_Energy_Technology_Portfolio.pdf .
    There must be questions left un-put hence un-answered.
    Now would be a good time to investigate, discuss and question.

  47. Actually they can. Any type of reactor, if designed for that purpose, can make weapons grade material. The MSR designs currently explored by all the start ups in existence today can’t.

    The problem with broad-brushing a whole reactor type with a single claim is that opponents can find a single counter-example to derail the entire claim.

  48. Nevada’s governor decide that the nuke waste train could not run thru Nevada. And that was one of the issue, NTMBY (Not thru my backyard). There is no way to build 100K years lifespan nuclear waste storage facilities on nuclear power plant grounds. Most of the plants are not on grounds that are guarantee to be geologically stable long enough for all of the nuclear waste to decay.

  49. Get a clue:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

    “Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world’s first nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The reactor’s development was part of the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II.”

    You welcome.

  50. No, it isn’t, because we didn’t develop internal combustion engine to fight wars, but we actually developed nuclear power to fight wars.

  51. Alberta’s electricity comes from coal, natural gas, and hydro, with some ornamental wind turbines. Terrestrial Energy considers the oil sands as a possible customer for nuclear industrial heat for the extraction processes. Right now, the extraction requires fossil fuel heat; using nuclear heat would cut down the carbon intensity, and effectively package the nuclear energy into the extracted oil. The EROEI still wouldn’t be great, but we’d be able to sell the hydrocarbons that would have been burned.

    I don’t think any of the Alberta oil refineries can handle the upgraded bitumen, so I believe it’s 100% exported by pipeline and rail.

  52. You can’t use “cheaper source of fuel like thorium” without having driver material like 235U or 239Pu on hand. In this case we know that the chicken came before the egg – so it wasn’t a “calculated” decision. With no existing Pu stock, the only option is uranium enrichment or natural uranium with heavy water or graphite. They went with graphite moderated Colombia river light water cooled and dumped the heat in said river. I understand Mark’s point, I just don’t think we can be sure that primordial man’s first thought when he saw fire for the first time was “how can I kill my neighbor with fire?” It may have occurred to him later that evening that he could kill his neighbor with fire.

  53. ‘Molten Salt Reactors aren’t good for making Plutonium.’ Neither are light water reactors. ( British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors and Canadian heavy water reactors could, in theory, be used, but in practice, it would totally destroy their economics, and it never happened.)

  54. This is not a breeder. It is designed to burn plutonium from light water or heavy water reactors, or maybe from surplus warheads. The designer, Ian Scott, reckons future versions may be able to breed from thorium, by replacing the current barren ( i.e. not containing fertile thorium or U238 ) coolant salt, which is mostly zirconium fluoride, with thorium fluoride. That would be harder to get licenced, so they’re starting with the current, least ambitious version. For now, there’s plenty of fairly cheap uranium and spent fuel; it’s the cost of building reactors, and the slowness of getting them licenced, which are holding the industry back. ( That, and rampant radiophobia.)

  55. I think they’ve stopped paying the disposal fee at the moment, after a couple of operators won a case against the government for taking the money but not providing a waste repository. The gummint still has most of the fund, minus what it blew on Yucca mountain.

  56. Marks comment is accurate but it wasn’t the ONLY reason we wanted reactors. The decision to go with Breeder reactors fueled by Uranium (which produced weapons grade plutonium used in weapons by converting fertile U-238 to Pu-239) instead of a more plentiful and cheaper source of fuel like Thorium was a calculated one. You could produce power and provide the byproduct (plutonium) to the gov’t for military and other purposes. Source: Father in law who worked on the Manhattan project and at various DOE sites Hanford / Los Almos / Livermore / Argonne most of his life.

  57. Australia had a government comission looking at the possibility of being paid to be the repository for the world’s spent nuclear fuel. The government sponsored committee decided against it, but Ben Heard (one of the forces behind the commission) hasn’t completely given up. He posted a paper about the idea on his Bright New World blog on January 18, 2017: How Australia and Asia can benefit from reinventing used nuclear fuel management ( https://decarbonisesa.com/2017/01/18/new-paper-how-australia-and-asia-can-benefit-from-reinventing-used-nuclear-fuel-management/ )

    There’d be a lot of details to work out for secure handling of spent fuel, but the actual tonnage is low by comparison with most other materials that we ship in bulk around the world.

  58. Moltex in New Brunswick is great news; I just wish it were in my home province, Alberta. Unfortunately we don’t have any nuclear reactors – yet. There are governments with foresight, and I’m pleased that Canada is home to some of them.

  59. Currently the plants purchase dry casks and store it on site and bill the DOE because the repository was not built. Who will collect this fee? Where will the fuel be disposed? Does it need to be disposed? Are landfills or offshore dumping good solutions for our household wastes? How would additional taxation or fees be the solution?

  60. How effective will this be at breeding thorium? I’d understood that an efficient breeding process required removal from the reactor, so the Pa-233 decays into U-233 (by beta decay, with a half-life of 27 d) instead of capturing another neutron. Do they plan to remove the fuel rods for this?

  61. Why not charge a fee for disposing of radioactive waste. Currently nuclear power plants pay into a fund for a waste repository that will never be used.

  62. We have wasted so much time by not developing molten salt reactors. Imagine what we would have had after 50 years of producing these commercially!

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