China Thorium Molten Salt Experimental Reactor is Licensed for Operation

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On June 7 , 2023, China’s 2MWt thorium-fueled molten salt experimental reactor operation application and related technical documents were completely reviewed. It was considered that the application met the relevant safety requirements, and it was decided to issue the 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor an operating licence,

In 2022, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) had been given approval by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to commission an experimental thorium-powered molten-salt reactor. This is the first molten salt nuclear reactor since the US shutdown a test reactor in 1969.

The TMSR-LF1 will use fuel enriched to under 20% U-235, have a thorium inventory of about 50 kg and conversion ratio of about 0.1. A fertile blanket of lithium-beryllium fluoride (FLiBe) with 99.95% Li-7 will be used, and fuel as UF4.

The project is expected to start on a batch basis with some online refueling and removal of gaseous fission products, but discharging all fuel salt after 5-8 years for reprocessing and separation of fission products and minor actinides for storage. It will proceed to a continuous process of recycling salt, uranium and thorium, with online separation of fission products and minor actinides. The reactor will work up from about 20% thorium fission to about 80%.

Some videos that I have made explaining other Molten Salt projects and the potential of nuclear molten salt.

If the TMSR-LF1 proves successful, China plans to build a reactor with a capacity of 373 MWt by 2030.

In January 2011, CAS launched a CNY3 billion (USD444 million) R&D programme on liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs), known there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed to have the world’s largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology. This is also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR). The TMSR Centre at SINAP at Jiading, Shanghai, is responsible.

Construction of the 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 reactor began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. The prototype was scheduled to be completed in 2024, but work was accelerated.

Nextbigfuture Was One of the First Online to Follow and Promote Thorium

Nextbigfuture has been following and promoting the revival of Thorium and molten salt reactors for over a decade.
Nextbigfuture was covering Thorium back in 2006.

Here is a 2011 interview with Kirk Sorenson.

Molten Salt Nuclear Background

Molten salt and thorium reactors are inherently safer and can have less nuclear waste (aka unused nuclear fuel.) Nuclear fuel is unused because even numbered isotopes are harder to split or react. Fast reactors have neutrons moving at higher speeds (one hundred times faster) needed to cause uranium 238 to react into plutonium.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States operated an experimental 7.34 MW (th) MSR from 1965 to 1969, in a trial known as the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). This demonstrated the feasibility of liquid-fuelled reactors cooled by molten salts.

China has been developing waterless nuclear reactors. Construction work on the first commercial molten salt reactor should be completed by 2030. This will allow the construction of such nuclear reactors even in desert regions and in the plains of central and western China. The molten salt reactor will be powered by liquid thorium instead of uranium.

SINAP has two streams of TMSR development – solid fuel (TRISO in pebbles or prisms/blocks) with once-through fuel cycle, and liquid fuel (dissolved in fluoride coolant) with reprocessing and recycle. A third stream of fast reactors to consume actinides from LWRs is planned. The aim is to develop both the thorium fuel cycle and non-electrical applications in a 20-30 year timeframe.

*The TMSR-SF stream has only partial utilization of thorium, relying on some breeding as with U-238, and needing fissile uranium input as well. It is optimized for high-temperature based hybrid nuclear energy applications. SINAP aimed at a 2 MW pilot plant initially, though this has been superseded by a simulator (TMSR-SF0). A 100 MWt demonstration pebble bed plant (TMSR-SF2) with open fuel cycle is planned by about 2025. TRISO particles will be with both low-enriched uranium and thorium, separately.

* The TMSR-LF stream claims full closed Th-U fuel cycle with breeding of U-233 and much better sustainability with thorium but greater technical difficulty. It is optimized for utilization of thorium with electrometallurgical pyroprocessing.

*SINAP aims for a 2 MWt pilot plant (TMSR-LF1) initially, then a 10 MWt experimental reactor (TMSR-LF2) by 2025, and a 100 MWt demonstration plant (TMSR-LF3) with full electrometallurgical reprocessing by about 2035, followed by 1 a GW demonstration plant. The TMSR-LF timeline is about ten years behind the SF one.

A TMSFR-LF fast reactor optimized for burning minor actinides is to follow.

The TMSR-SF0 is one-third scale and has a 370 kW electric heat source with FLiNaK primary coolant at 650°C and FLiNaK secondary coolant.

The 10 MWt TMSR-SF1 has 17% enriched TRISO fuel in 60mm pebbles, similar to HTR-PM fuel, and coolant at 630°C and low pressure. Primary coolant is FLiBe (with 99.99% Li-7) and secondary coolant is FLiNaK. Core height is 3 m, diameter 2.85 m, in a 7.8 m high and 3 m diameter pressure vessel. Residual heat removal is passive, by cavity cooling. A 20-year operating life was envisaged but the project is discontinued.

The 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 is under construction at Wu Wei in Gansu in a $3.3 billion programme. It will use fuel enriched to under 20% U-235, have a thorium inventory of about 50 kg and conversion ratio of about 0.1. FLiBe with 99.95% Li-7 would be used, and fuel as UF4. The project would start on a batch basis with some online refueling and removal of gaseous fission products, but discharging all fuel salt after 5-8 years for reprocessing and separation of fission products and minor actinides for storage. It would proceed to a continuous process of recycling salt, uranium and thorium, with online separation of fission products and minor actinides. It would work up from about 20% thorium fission to about 80%.

Beyond these, a 373 MWt/168 MWe liquid-fuel MSR small modular reactor is planned, with supercritical CO2 cycle in a tertiary loop at 23 MPa using Brayton cycle, after a radioactive isolation secondary loop. Various applications as well as electricity generation are envisaged. It would be loaded with 15.7 tonnes of thorium and 2.1 tonnes of uranium (19.75% enriched), with one kilogram of uranium added daily, and have 330 GWd/t burn-up with 30% of energy from thorium. Online refueling would enable eight years of operation before shutdown, with the graphite moderator needing attention

10 thoughts on “China Thorium Molten Salt Experimental Reactor is Licensed for Operation”

  2. “You may, or may not, be surprised to hear that the estimated ERoEI of molten salt reactors comes in at about 1200. That is frankly enormous, and definitely worthy of further research and development.”

    while for other nuclear fission reactors numbers from ~5-75 (~including all fuel extraction and long-term storage precautions) are in discussion for ERO(E)I and for society’s progress (comparable to the era of fossil fuel dominance) numbers above (at least) 5-7 are a necessity(?)

    photovoltaic power ~9-34
    wind power ~16-31
    “The weighted average standard EROI of all oil liquids (including coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids, biofuels, etc.) is expected to decrease from 44.4 in 1950 to a plateau of 6.7 in 2050.”
    “In regard to fossil fuels, when oil was originally discovered, it took on average one barrel of oil to find, extract, and process about 100 barrels of oil. The ratio, for discovery of fossil fuels in the United States, has declined steadily over the last century from about 1000:1 in 1919 to only 5:1 in the 2010s.”
    “The standard EROI for natural gas is estimated to decrease from 141.5 in 1950 to an apparent plateau of 16.8 in 2050.”

    controversial
    “However, when comparing two energy sources a standard practice for the supply chain energy input can be adopted. For example, consider the steel, but don’t consider the energy invested in factories deeper than the first level in the supply chain. It is in part for these fully encompassed systems reasons, that in the conclusions of Murphy and Hall’s paper in 2010, an EROI of 5 by their extended methodology is considered necessary to reach the minimum threshold of sustainability, while a value of 12-13 by Hall’s methodology is considered the minimum value necessary for technological progress and a society supporting high art.”
    with also considering complementary perspectives through HDI (human development index)

    • Renewable energy does not have nearly that EROI as you must build vast storage and transmission. Both of which are environmentally devastating, in addition ,no one does it and fossil fuels are always used, despite solar PV being 60 years old.

      • above numbers seem being only the generator part (no grid or storage devices)
        solar pv rooftop installation EROI ~4-7 (panel 30yrs, producing ~95% clean energy, 1st generation production level (module eff. ~15% to 21%, thinner cell material reduction) and 1st installation integration)

        just a different view on that:
        solar photovoltaics has been started getting competitive with fossil fuels since maybe 5-10yrs now (on global average), cost for concentrated solar (heliostats or parabolic through with molten salt heat backup) lowered to ~$0.10-0.15.
        low cost records
        “The DEWA project in Dubai, under construction in 2019, held the world record for lowest CSP price in 2017 at US$73 per MWh for its 700 MW combined trough and tower project: 600 MW of trough, 100 MW of tower with 15 hours of thermal energy storage daily. Base-load CSP tariff in the extremely dry Atacama region of Chile reached below $50/MWh in 2017 auctions.”
        Ivanpah, Mojave Desert, 377MW 3 heliostats, largest CSP globally, ppa >$c13.5
        ~63% solar, ~0.388 TWh natural gas backup (0.37 ~2015, 0.34 ~2018), capacity factor ~0.25
        “As of 2020, the least expensive utility-scale concentrated solar power stations in the United States and worldwide are five times more expensive than utility-scale photovoltaic power stations, with a projected minimum price of 7 cents per kilowatt-hour for the most advanced CSP stations against record lows of 1.32 cents per kWh for utility-scale PV.”
        Chinese projects hope getting towards ~$50/MWh
        “CSP in combination with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is expected by some to remain cheaper than PV with lithium batteries for storage durations above 4 hours per day, while NREL expects that by 2030 PV with 10-hour storage lithium batteries will cost the same as PV with 4-hour storage used to cost in 2020.”
        water demand
        “A 2013 study comparing various sources of electricity found that the median water consumption during operations of concentrating solar power plants with wet cooling was 3.1 cubic metres per megawatt-hour (810 US gal/MWh) for power tower plants and 3.4 m3/MWh (890 US gal/MWh) for trough plants. This was higher than the operational water consumption (with cooling towers) for nuclear at 2.7 m3/MWh (720 US gal/MWh), coal at 2.0 m3/MWh (530 US gal/MWh), or natural gas at 0.79 m3/MWh (210 US gal/MWh).”
        dry (hybrid) installations are possible, coal plants improved to recirculating systems

        installed worldwide ~2021
        CSP ~6.8GWp (capacity factor ~0.15-0.25)
        (carbon neutral fuels production @~1500°C, parabolic through A “working fluid (e.g. molten salt [Various eutectic mixtures of different salts are used (e.g., sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate).]) is heated to 150–350 °C (302–662 °F)” )
        solar PV ~940GWp (cap. factor ~0.1-0.20 without buffering)

        it’s more like comparing solar and wind (&water/biomass/geothermal) combinations with nuclear_cap0.75-0.9x on ~2040-2050 expectations (30yrs installations on 2022_250GWp_solarPV >~7.5TW_cap0.15-0.20? Southwestern US, BLM 2012 made land available for ~10-20TW solar capacity. )

        ‘en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_public_support_for_energy_sources_(Ipsos_2011).png’

  3. The ultimate objective is to provide electricity, as opposed to being a “sand box” activity for scientists engaged in never-ending research activities decoupled from practical reality.

    There are fundamental technical and operational problems dealing with liquid hot salts, which gets even more complicated when nuclear fuel is in the mix.

    The historical record shows billions of dollars have been spent on these types of reactors, all of which have been commercial failures.

    Generally, all these reactors require expensive facilities (as in tens of billions of dollars) for reprocessing of the fuel to extract plutonium for re-use. End up with a radioactive mess that has to be put somewhere.

    The economics of these things are painfully non-competitive. They are more trouble than they are worth. That being said, if China and Russia want to pursue the technologies, that is their prerogative. The U.S. would do well to pursue nuclear technologies with a better probability of being successful and cost effective.

  4. What is the purpose of the FLi7Be blanket? . Li7 can be burned in a fusion reactor. Is it for some research ?

    • The means of refining Li to get pure Li7 are extremely toxic, only China,with their disregard for any environmental consequences, can refine it at such a low price, as it uses Mercury.
      FliBe allows the neutrons to be slowed down, it is a salt, a Flouride, in normal reactors water, much purer than humans are used to, is both the coolant and the moderator.
      China got the idea from the popular Youtube videos of Kirk Sorenson,and it shows that it wasn’t some great conspiracy to delay this sustainable energy source. One of their top people a PhD with party connections, and had a very large budget, has only got them to this point 2MW(thermal) test reactor.
      I think they worked 24/7 to get to this point. The idea is to have online removal of fission products so you have almost no radioactive waste.

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