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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Energy Secretary to Visit Ga Nuclear Reactor Site

U.S. Secretary of Energy Secretary Steven Chu will visit the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Wednesday to highlight steps the Obama Administration is taking to restart America’s nuclear energy industry. In Waynesboro, Secretary Chu will join Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning, Georgia Power CEO W. Paul Bowers, and local leaders for a tour of Vogtle units 3 and 4 -- the site of the first two new nuclear power units to be built in the United States in more than 30 years.

The Secretary will also deliver remarks on the Obama Administration’s support for restarting America’s nuclear energy industry as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that promotes innovation and creates American jobs.

Secretary Chu will also tour the Nuclear Modeling and Simulation Energy Innovation Hub at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The hub was created in 2010 to use advanced capabilities of the world`s most powerful computers to significantly improve nuclear reactor design and engineering

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