A recent article at Decouple examined the CANDU reactor as a potential destination for reprocessed uranium (RepU) from LWR spent fuel. The concept is straightforward: CANDU reactors run on natural uranium, and the U-235 remaining in spent LWR fuel exceeds the natural uranium threshold, so RepU blended with depleted uranium to produce a natural uranium […]
There’s a genuinely exciting story coming out of Oak Ridge right now. Isotek Systems — the contractor operating at Building 3019 and Building 2026 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — has extracted more than 17 grams of thorium-229 (Th-229) from the uranium-233 (U-233) inventory stored there. That represents a 1,700% increase in the world’s supply […]
On March 17, 2026, the Alabama Senate adopted Senate Joint Resolution 89 by voice vote, and on March 31 it passed the full Legislature and was delivered to the Governor. SJR89 formally urges the Governor and relevant state agencies to recognize the value of spent nuclear fuel and take state actions toward its development. This […]
The Department of Energy has made several awards under their solicitation DE-FOA-0003364 and one of them was to Flibe Energy. The total funding was originally described as $10M but ended up being $19M in the final selection, divided among five awardees. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy Awards $19 Million to Advance Recycling of Used Nuclear […]
Yesterday, President Trump issued four executive orders related to nuclear energy. Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base Strengthening the Domestic Nuclear Fuel Cycle…Within 240 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Energy…shall prepare…a report that includes…recommendations for the efficient use of the uranium, plutonium, and other products recovered through recycling and reprocessing; The […]
Thermoelectric generators powered by the decay of plutonium-238 literally opened up the exploration of the solar system to the United States. Pioneer 10 and 11 were the first probes to Jupiter and Saturn. Both were powered by American RTGs. Viking 1 and 2 landed on Mars, and survived several years to tell the tale, due […]
Flibe Energy’s approach to sustainable nuclear energy is a liquid-fluoride reactor that runs on the thorium fuel cycle. Our design builds upon the technologies that were demonstrated and proven during the early days of nuclear development. To better understand the validity of our approach, we will look at the history of these early nuclear programs […]
ORNL recently published a report titled Safeguards for the Lithium Fluoride Thorium Reactor: A Preliminary Nuclear Material Control and Accounting Assessment. A summary of the report can be found below. This report was developed for Flibe Energy, Inc. The design of a LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactor) presents challenges for both the NRC’s and the […]
As was previously mentioned, the actual work on continuous fluorination was surprising small during the Molten-Salt Reactor Program (MSRP) that ran from 1957 until 1976. Fuel reconstitution was mentioned on pages 199-201 of ORNL-3936 in June 1966. Continuous fluorination was mentioned on page 202. They described an experiment using a 1-inch diameter nickel column with […]
All fission reactors turn fissile material like uranium or plutonium into an array of fission and activation products (such as plutonium or neptunium). These fission and activation products have a wide variety of physical and chemical properties. Some are noble gases, some are metals, some are volatile at the operation temperature, and others remain part […]