Terrestrial Energy is a leader in commercializing next gen nuclear technology

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Terrestrial Energy is leading the way to getting regulatory approvals for its molten salt
fission reactor design and has built up an industrial board representing 10 of the largest Nuclear
Reactor companies for advice it on its path to market.

Terrestrial Energy aims to build and commission with a power utility the first its walkaway safe molten salt modular reactor design in the late 2020s.

An IMSR® power plant generates 400 megawatts of thermal energy (190 MW electric) with a thermal-spectrum, graphite-moderated, molten-fluoride-salt reactor system. It uses standard nuclear fuel – standard-assay low-enriched uranium (less than 5 percent 235U) fuel. It incorporates many aspects of Molten Salt Reactor operation researched, demonstrated and proven by test reactors at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) has entered the second phase of a vendor design review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The design was the first advanced reactor to complete the first phase of the CNSC’s regulatory pre-licensing review.

Once they have completed the pre-licensing review, they will have a “licensable” molten salt reactor design and a commercial greenlight to move to construction and licensing for the first plant.

The ten current members of the Terrestrial Energy Industrial board operate a combined 68 nuclear reactors in Canada, USA and Europe.

The Industrial Board are potential operators for Terrestrial Energy’s power plant.

They represent about 45% of the nuclear power in Canada and the USA.

Ten current Industrial Board Members are giants in the power industry

Bruce Power provides over 30% of Ontario’s electricity. Bruce Power invested more than $7 billion in its Bruce A and B facilities to restart and optimize the performance of its nuclear fleet over the last decade and has successfully carried out massive refurbishment and plant life extension projects on all of its operational units. There are eight nuclear reactors at Bruce A and B. They produce 49 TWh of energy per year. At nine cents per kilowatt-hour that would be $4.5 billion in annual revenue.

Duke Energy owns and operates six nuclear power stations in North Carolina and South Carolina, U.S.A. Duke Energy has about $23 billion per year in revenue.

Energy Northwest operates the Columbia Generating Station, located in Washington State, U.S.A. Energy Northwest (formerly Washington Public Power Supply System) is a public power joint operating agency in the northwest United States, Energy Northwest owns and operates Columbia Generating Station, a boiling-water reactor nuclear energy facility in Richland, Wash.

ENGIE is a multinational electric utility operating in generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy. It owns and operates seven reactors in Belgium and owns stakes in two nuclear plants in France.

NB Power operates the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick, Canada.

NextEra Energy owns and operates eight reactors at five U.S. sites: St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, Florida; Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station, Florida; Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa; Point Beach, Wisconsin, and; Seabrook Station, New Hampshire.

Ontario Power Generation owns and operates the Pickering (6 operational nuclear reactors) and Darlington Nuclear Power Stations (4 nuclear reactors) in Ontario, Canada.

PSEG Nuclear operates the Salem (2 reactors) and Hope Creek Nuclear (1 reactor) Generating Stations in New Jersey and is a part owner of the Peach Bottom Nuclear (2 reactors) generation station in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Southern Nuclear operates the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant in Georgia, and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant in Alabama, U.S.A. The company operates a total of six units for Alabama Power and Georgia Power at the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant near Dothan, Ala.; the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant near Baxley, Ga., and the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro, Ga. Southern Nuclear is the licensee of two new nuclear units currently under construction at Plant Vogtle, which are among the first nuclear units being constructed in the United States in more than 30 years.

For more than 40 years, Southern Nuclear has operated its three nuclear energy facilities at the highest levels of reliability, with a current average three-year fleet capacity factor of 93.7 percent, exceeding the U.S. average of 92 percent for the years 2014-2016.

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is the largest public power utility in the United States. It owns and operates nuclear power plants in Alabama and Tennessee, with seven reactors at three sites: Browns Ferry, Sequoyah, and Watts Bar

18 thoughts on “Terrestrial Energy is a leader in commercializing next gen nuclear technology”

  2. And here I thought I was the only person wondering about negative pressure reactor vessels. I’ve wondered how much vacuum volume you would need to provide the Xe and Kr with space to offgas and linger above the fuel salt.I mean neutron poision #1 is a noble gas and has no particular affinity to the salts.

  4. And here I thought I was the only person wondering about negative pressure reactor vessels. I’ve wondered how much vacuum volume you would need to provide the Xe and Kr with space to offgas and linger above the fuel salt.

    I mean neutron poision #1 is a noble gas and has no particular affinity to the salts.

  5. I can actually see these consortium meetings in my head – a big hotel conference room with a projector and a podium – coffee, donuts (maybe classier? cheese danish?). Utility management sitting there, many of them former licensed operators, wondering what the hell TE is thinking.”Anyway, thanks for the donuts. Where’d you get ’em again?”Honestly, I would run the MSR under a vacuum and have a super-redundant array of independent inexpensive roughing pumps on plug-and-play 20-ton shielded skids sucking out the gas and bottling it in acetylene bottles submerged in a pool. Hopefully UF6 wont accumulate in these bottles. You can’t just seal the reactor without removing the gas because it wouldn’t be “low pressure” for long. Oxide fuel rods reach a 1000psi fission product gas pressure and a lot of that gas is bound in the ceramic.

  6. I can actually see these consortium meetings in my head – a big hotel conference room with a projector and a podium – coffee, donuts (maybe classier? cheese danish?). Utility management sitting there, many of them former licensed operators, wondering what the hell TE is thinking.

    “Anyway, thanks for the donuts. Where’d you get ’em again?”

    Honestly, I would run the MSR under a vacuum and have a super-redundant array of independent inexpensive roughing pumps on plug-and-play 20-ton shielded skids sucking out the gas and bottling it in acetylene bottles submerged in a pool. Hopefully UF6 wont accumulate in these bottles. You can’t just seal the reactor without removing the gas because it wouldn’t be “low pressure” for long. Oxide fuel rods reach a 1000psi fission product gas pressure and a lot of that gas is bound in the ceramic.

  7. I don’t wish them luck combi. if anything was going to be built, you could bet your asz I’d be on the team. I don’t understand the processes of our political world, but I can see flailing arms from a mile away in fog.

  8. There are no heavy water reactors or fast reactors in commercial use in the US so I don’t know who they would go with.I wish TE all the best it is a steep hill to climb.

  9. I don’t wish them luck combi. if anything was going to be built, you could bet your asz I’d be on the team. I don’t understand the processes of our political world, but I can see flailing arms from a mile away in fog.

  10. Exelon typifies the LWR operator mentality that you criticize. So perhaps a good idea that Exelon is not on the list.

  11. There are no heavy water reactors or fast reactors in commercial use in the US so I don’t know who they would go with.

    I wish TE all the best it is a steep hill to climb.

  13. A consortium of LWR operators is not going to be the best sounding board for these guys. Wonder why Exelon didn’t return their call.

  14. So the article is a laundry list of every North American utility except Exelon (the biggest)… upper management loves to go to boondoggle meetings. Now, if PS backed out on Holtec (it did), and PS does $M of business with Holtec and Holtec is 35 miles from the stations mentioned…. why is PS management attending a MSR support group? For the coffee and donuts? To hold hands and say a prayer at the close of the meeting?

  16. So the article is a laundry list of every North American utility except Exelon (the biggest)… upper management loves to go to boondoggle meetings. Now, if PS backed out on Holtec (it did), and PS does $M of business with Holtec and Holtec is 35 miles from the stations mentioned…. why is PS management attending a MSR support group? For the coffee and donuts? To hold hands and say a prayer at the close of the meeting?

  17. A consortium of LWR operators is not going to be the best sounding board for these guys. Wonder why Exelon didn’t return their call.

  18. So the article is a laundry list of every North American utility except Exelon (the biggest)… upper management loves to go to boondoggle meetings. Now, if PS backed out on Holtec (it did), and PS does $M of business with Holtec and Holtec is 35 miles from the stations mentioned…. why is PS management attending a MSR support group? For the coffee and donuts? To hold hands and say a prayer at the close of the meeting?

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