For most of the past year, I have been working steadily on inputs to this report, now published by the Electric Power Research Institute. EPRI: Program on Technology Innovation: Technology Assessment of a Molten Salt Reactor Design — The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) It contains the most comprehensive description of the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor […]
Radiopharmaceuticals, also called medical isotopes, are specialized forms of medicine that help to diagnose and treat many challenging medical conditions including cancer. Their central advantage over other pharmaceuticals is that they emit radiation in the form of a photon of light that can be used to diagnose or identify specific conditions, or a charged particle […]
Several days after the successful start of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment, the local paper, the “Oak Ridger”, published this editorial: THE OAK RIDGER FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 1965, page 4 Editorial: Significant Step To ‘Burning The Rocks’ Many important stews lead up to the “going critical” of a new reactor. For instance, in the case of […]
For many nuclear engineers, the moment a new reactor first achieves criticality is considered the “birth” of their creation, the moment it “comes alive”. Criticality is special, because it means that the reactor is generating new neutrons at precisely the rate at which they are consumed in fission. Unlike a rocket launch, or a ship […]
Dr. Rusty Towell, professor of physics at Abilene Christian University, presents the benefits of LFTR technology at TEDxACU:
At the invitation of Dr. Jan-Leen Kloosterman of the Delft University of Technology (Technische Universiteit Delft, TU Delft) I attended a symposium on thorium in molten-salt reactors held on April 17, 2015. Other participants included David LeBlanc of Terrestrial Energy and Leslie Dewan of Transatomic Power. My objective was to make the case that the […]
Thorium has tremendous promise as a future source of nuclear energy. It is the only material whose fissile product (uranium-233) produces sufficient neutrons in thermal fission to sustain its own consumption. The important implication is that a properly-designed thorium-fueled reactor, once started with fissile material, can continue to produce energy without additional fissile material. Inherent […]
For many years now I have been interested in the work being done at UC-Berkeley in the modeling of molten-salt reactors using a simulant fluid. Prandtl number matching between salt and simulant fluid: (1) Dynamic viscosity is often a strong function of temperature while specific heat and thermal conductivity are generally weak functions of […]
(guest post by Jon Morrow) From time to time there appear in the public domain stories and advertisements about revolutionary consumer products and their technical underpinnings. These communications make outlandish, but very exciting, claims. Many of these involve promises of huge dollar savings to the consumer. These opportunistic authors use the interesting technique of attaching […]
I recently attended the 8th International Symposium for Targeted Alpha Therapy (TATS 2013) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The conference presenters confirmed that alpha-emitting radioisotopes derived from the thorium fuel cycle are very promising agents in the fight against cancer, HIV, and other diseases. Scores of researchers from around the world assembled to present […]