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U-232 strongly influenced thorium development

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 […]

Fluorination Work under the MSRP

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 […]

Sorensen Rebuttal of IEER/PSR Thorium Paper

Several people who have recently learned about thorium have contacted me with regards to a “fact sheet” about thorium issued by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) called “Thorium Fuel: No Panacea for Nuclear Power.” The authors of this sheet were Arjun Makhijani and Michele Boyd. Last […]

UTK/ORNL Proposal to ARPA-E

As I previously mentioned, I was involved in a proposal to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) on an investigation in using liquid-halide reactors (both chloride and fluoride) along with salt-based reprocessing techniques to investigate how to address our issues surrounding spent nuclear fuel–often erroneously called “nuclear waste”. In a nutshell, we proposed to fluorinate […]

Getting out from between “MOX” and a “Hard Place”

In 2003, an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Between MOX and a Hard Place, described the difficulty of disposing of the vast amounts of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium left over from the Cold War. “Weapons-grade” material generally means plutonium that consists predominantly of the isotope plutonium-239, and uranium that consists predominantly of […]