MIT Startup Gets $2.5M to Develop the Nuclear Reactor We've Been Waiting For

Transatomic Power co-founder and CEO Leslie Dewan

(BostInno) - A Cambridge start-up that’s seeking to turn nuclear power into something most everyone will feel good about has taken the next key step in its long-term plan, raising $2.5 million in new funding from investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Transatomic Power, founded by MIT nuclear science graduates, has now raised $4.5 million since last summer.

The start-up has designed a nuclear reactor that would aim to produce electricity using existing nuclear waste, helping rid us of one of the major issues associated with conventional nuclear plants. The Transatomic reactor design would also not be prone to melting down, according to the company.

And of course, the reactor would have the same environmental benefit of being carbon-free as existing nuclear power designs.

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Nuclear Power Turns To Salt

By Forbes (James Conca) - Today, the United States Department of Energy announced that its Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee is partnering with Canadian nuclear company Terrestrial Energy Inc. (TEI) to assist with TEI’s new Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR). The engineering blueprint stage for this GenIV reactor should be reached in two years. The reactor should come online in less than ten.

Think of it: a nuclear reactor that

• is cheaper than coal
• creates much less waste and few long-lived radioactive elements
• uses almost all of the fuel which lasts 7 years between replacement, and can be recycled easily
• is modular, from 80 MWt to 600 MWt, able to be combined and adapted to individual needs for both on and off-grid heat and power
• is small enough to allow fast and easy construction, and trucking to the site
• operates at normal pressures, removing those safety issues, and at higher temperatures making it more energetically efficient
• has the type of passive safety systems that make it walk-away safe
• does not need external water for cooling
• can load-follow rapidly to buffer the intermittency of renewables
• cannot be repurposed for military use and has strong proliferation resistance
• can last for many decades
• uses a liquid fuel

 Now that is different!

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Visualizing the Changing Landscape in Nuclear Power

Jeff Desjardins on September 16, 2014 at 3:11 pm in the Visual Capitalist

 

There’s been talk about a coming potential uranium bull market for awhile now, but here is a different look at the nuclear picture. The visualization below shows every nuclear reactor in the world by country and breaks down their timeline including construction, commercial power generation, and decommissioning. In addition, planned reactors for the future are also shown for each country.

 

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Richard Branson urges Obama to back next-generation nuclear technology

Sir Richard Branson is urging the US government to help commercialise a controversial class of nuclear reactor, according to a letter seen by the Guardian asking for a meeting with President Barack Obama and US energy secretary Steven Chu.

The White House declined the meeting to discuss integral fast reactors (IFRs), which proponents say offer a way of dealing with nuclear waste, although no working commercial reactors are in operation.

But the move brings the intriguing prospect of a race to develop nuclear technology between Branson and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose new company TerraPower is developing another type of next-generation nuclear technology known as the travelling wave reactor.

"Obviously we urgently need to come up with a clean effective way of supplying our energy since not only are the dirty ways like oil running out but we need to do so to help avoid the world heating up," Branson told the Guardian.

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