Huff approved to head Office of Nuclear Energy Katy Huff has been confirmed by the Senate to lead the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. I’d love to be happy about this confirmation, but I’m not, because Katy has taken a pretty hard-line opinion against thorium energy. What’s even more baffling about that to me is […]
For many, many years now, we have endeavoured on this blog to help the public understand the value of uranium-233 and the unique advantage that the United States possesses with their U-233 inventory. But for just as long, we have lamented that the Department of Energy is bent on the destruction of this valuable material. […]
Senator Roger Marshall, M.D., of Kansas, a Republican, serves on the Energy and Natural Resources; Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committees. Will U.S. or China hold keys to the 2nd nuclear era? With Weinberg’s departure from the lab, the seed of the thorium fuel cycle, Uranium-233 […]
Fifty years ago, the era of operating molten-salt reactors came to a prolonged conclusion with the shut down of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment. In a personal interview in 2012, Paul Haubenreich had told me the story of the Christmas shutdown of the MSRE. He had described how Milton Shaw, the head of the Atomic Energy […]
October 8, 2018, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the operation of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) using uranium-233 as a fuel. U-233 does not occur naturally; it is formed when thorium absorbs a neutron then undergoes a double beta decay to form U-233. U-233 is a superior nuclear fuel, producing enough neutrons through its fission […]
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 […]
‘Petten’ has started world’s first MSR-specific thorium fuel irradiation experiments in 45 years World’s First Thorium Molten Salt Experiment in over 45 Years
Imagine a bathtub full of water, all the way to the edge of the tub. You may have the water temperature just the way you want it, but the water is cooling. Eventually you want to add hot water to the tub, but you can’t do so without it spilling over the edge. So you […]
Over the last few months I’ve had several interviews with Dave Mosher, and he has produced an impressive piece of history and technological reviews about the LFTR that I think is well worth reading: Business Insider: A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here’s why we aren’t using it “The […]