Molten Salt Reactors have no high pressure to contain (no water coolant), and generate no combustible or chemically explosive materials; A simple Freeze Plug melts in any emergency or for maintenance. A thorium-based molten salt reactor (also known as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, or LFTR for short) is also much more efficient with its nuclear fuel, in that it converts almost all of its thorium fuel to uranium-233 and then burns almost all of it. ), Most of the fission products are valuable for industrial use. First, and most importantly, MSR has molten fuel, no fuel pellets, no fuel rods. on U-233 here. Sci. The smallest true Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor would most likely have a spherical core about 1 meter in diameter and produce around 1 MWt of power when operating. Let me list the advantages of an electrical power plant based on LFTR compared to conventional nuclear and fossil-fuel plants: it would be possible to extract relatively pure U-233 for weapons use. What is the abbreviation for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors? Thorium Reactors," Am. Ralph Moir has published 10 papers on molten-salt reactors during Since no MSR uses water for cooling, there is no storage of water containing radioactive materials, and no concern of stored radioactive water leaking. permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, Kirk formed the company Flibe Energy back in 2011. (Using thorium in a solid fueled, water cooled reactor, such as India is doing, does not give the safety and waste-reducing benefits of a molten fueled, salt cooled reactor.). Other articles where Liquid fluoride thorium reactor is discussed: breeder reactor: Thermal breeder reactors: …thermal breeder known as the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) employs molten fluoride salt to transfer heat to the turbines. This feature is not completely More neutrons are released per neutronabsorbed in the fuel in a traditional (thermal) type of reactor MSRE was a 7.4 MW th test reactor simulating the neutronic "kernel" of a type of epithermal thorium molten salt breeder reactor called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). LFTR abbreviation stands for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. For example, several rare earth metals, used for consumer electronics, are fission products. ), Instead of thorium, a Molten Salt Reactor can use uranium-235 or plutonium waste, from LWR and other reactors. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will be operating as the Partner Facility with Flibe Energy on the project. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR – pronounced lifters) was first developed in the 1950s by Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US. Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented. A MSR’s waste is safe (radiation levels below the original uranium ore and below background radiation) within 350 years. MSRs can be safely built close to where there is electrical need (10MW to 2GW or more), avoiding transmission line power loss. The acid is already killing plankton and other ocean life: the carbonic acid dissolves their “shells”. the blanket salt and used as fuel. The fluoride salt does not boil below 1400 degrees Celsius. To get started finding What Is A Lftr And How Can A Reactor Be So Safe Molten Salt Reactors Including Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors , you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed. Kirk Sorensen is a nuclear and aerospace engineer working on the development of a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) as a source of energy and important materials. 98, 304 (2010). Thorium is very insoluble, which is why it is plentiful in sands but not in seawater, in contrast to uranium. A slightly different type of MSR can consume the uranium/plutonium waste from solid-fueled reactors as fuel. Molten Salt Reactors vs India’s Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, Economics of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. need to look beyond traditional light water reactors (LWR) that can 83% of the fission byproducts are safe in 10 years, 17% (135 kg, 300 lbs) within 350 years, with no uranium or plutonium left as waste. Ambient-pressure operation makes MSRs easier to build while costing less (no high-pressure steam containment building, no high-pressure pipes); Operating cost is less since the inherent safety of MSR means less complex systems than the LWR (every LWR requires multiple-redundant high-pressure systems); Fuel cost is lower since no manufacturing fuel pellets (LWR pellets have to contain fission products under very high pressure) or fuel rods. Thorium exists in nature in a single isotopic form – T… [1] However, the route chosen for the future of nuclear energy a bomb or earthquake) broke the reactor vessel, it would make a spill that quickly cools to solid, doesn’t interact with air or water, and would have most fission products chemically bonded to the salt, resulting in a cleanup volume of a few cubic meters, all still within the reactor building; Salt coolant can’t boil away (the boiling point of the salt is much higher than the reactor temperature), and the fuel is strongly chemically bound to the coolant, so loss of coolant accidents are physically impossible. 90, 374 (1985). (As a bonus, the rare earth materials we currently mine are almost always found with thorium, which is currently considered a “nuclear waste” though it has one of the lowest levels of radiation of any radioactive material, radiation stopped by a thin layer of plastic or paper; when we use MSR we mine a little less rare earth materials and leave a little less thorium “waste”. A slightly different type of MSR can consume the uranium/plutonium waste from solid-fueled reactors as fuel. Molten salt reactors (MSRs) represent a class of reactors that use liquid salt, usually fluoride- or chloride-based, as either a coolant with a solid fuel (such as fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactors) or as a combined coolant and fuel with fuel dissolved in a carrier salt. attractive alternative to existing reactors. If power to the MSR The main with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. to do just that. blowing up). Design and construction of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) began in 1961. Liquid FLiBe salt The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (acronym LFTR; often pronounced lifter) is a type of molten salt reactor. attempting to handle the bred uranium. of LFTRs regarding the reduction of transuranic waste and the large withdrawn from the reactor for weapons use will be contaminated with radioactive and would pose a severe radiation hazard to any personel PDF Kirk Sorensen – Thorium Energy Alliance. In most MSR designs, there is a freeze plug safety The core consists of unclad graphite moderator arranged to allow the … Reactors would commonly be located several meters underground. let to renewed interest in nuclear power generation. would power down without the need for any human intervention. to civilian power. allowing the salt to flow out of the reactor. LFTRs could even be deployed for military field use or disaster relief. tetra-fluoride at an appropriate concentration in a carrier salt. [1] R. Hargraves and R. Moir, "Liquid Fluoride The salt can also be continuously With sufficient R&D funding (around US $1 billion), five years to commercialization is entirely realistic (including construction of factories, less than US $5 Billion), and another five years for a national roll-out is feasible. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will work both as Base Load and Load Following power plants. What’s Better than Storing Nuclear Waste? If the plug were removed, Image “How Does a Fluoride Reactor Use Thorium” is from PDF Kirk Sorensen – Thorium Energy Alliance. Much of their work culminated with the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). Thorium, its advocates claim, is beneficial not only because it’s far more abundant and widely distributed in the Earth’s crust than uranium; in addition, liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) could theoretically be much smaller, much cheaper and much safer than conventional nuclear reactors. the reactor salt would flow down into holding tanks. Would Molten Salt Reactors Really Prevent Fukushima Disaster? A LFTR containment building would protect the reactor from outside impacts, and have extra radiation shielding, but would be much smaller and less expensive than a LWR containment building. Thorium is weakly radioactive, has a high melting point, and is available with more abundance than uranium as an element. But the approach that impressed the Manchester Report panel so much was a currently obscure technology called the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). reactivity for the reactor shown in figure 1 would actually move from There are several types of nuclear reactor possible, that can fission All that uranium, plutonium, and other transuranic elements. Carbon dioxide in the air enters the oceans, making acid. several very attractive safety features. Security 9, 1 (2001). [2] It is worth noting that the coefficient of (Unfortunately, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says they will start writing licensing and regulations in 30 years. Contact Me. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is about three times more abundant than uranium. reactor, it can be used to create fuel for nuclear weapons in addition main reactor would get absorbed by thorium atoms in the blanket, which thorium tetra-fluoride in a carrier salt. as to arrive at a decision for the best possible reasons. The type of reactor that can handle the thorium-urnaium fuel cycle would be a class of molten salt reactors called liquid fluoride thorium reactors (Fig. A Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is a type of Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) that can use inexpensive Thorium for fuel (thorium becomes uranium inside the reactor). All The high heat of a LFTR (over twice what a LWR can generate) can split CO2 and split water, so making gasoline will be affordable. After a few years, radioactive decay brings them below background radiation, ready for use. The benefits of MSRs are plentiful, hence their resilience as an interesting topic throughoutreactor history. heat the salt, which is then circulated out of the main reactor and into “A signature safety feature of the LFTR design is that the coolant — liquid fluoride salt — is not under pressure. [3]. Such reactors do not require fuel rods, and interest in developing the technology has grown in the early 21st century. (God didn’t make “useful uranium” and “defective uranium”; it’s the reactor design of LWR that only uses ~2% of the fuel, and that is after enrichment.). In a MSR, the nuclear fuel, the so called fissile Most MSR designs, including LFTR, use over 99% of the fuel. Surrounding the main reactor chamber would be a blanket chamber of It is fueled by the uranium-233 isotope that is taken from the element thorium. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Brown University. It utilized a lithium7-beryllium fluoride solvent into which was dissolved zirconium and uranium tetrafluorides. No water source required. consumption, in particular rising concerns about global warming, have Kirk Sorensen has been a leader in promoting thorium energy, molten salt nuclear reactors and the liquid fluoride thorium reactor. design and the inherent advantages and problems with such a design. however, has its own intrinsic problems regarding weapons proliferation, LFTR stands for liquid fluoride thorium reactor. After that, radiation is below background radiation levels. (In a MSR designed to use a different salt than LFTR would use, the zirconium cladding of a fuel rod could even be used to make the salt coolant.). The molten fuel then drains to passive cooling tanks where fission is impossible; Even if something (e.g. A LFTR implements the MSR concept as a breeder Nuclear energy, We know Molten Salt Reactors work since we built and operated one — decades ago! What does LFTR stand for? (We’ve been mainly using the Light Water Reactor, LWR, with solid fuel in pellets cooled by high-pressure water.). The LFTR is a breeder design and like any breeder In June of that year, the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) achieved criticality for the first time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. This U-233 is then chemically separated from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) took the lead in researching MSRs through the 1960s. (Scroll to see all) Molten Fuel; Salt Cooled; Inherent Safety; Easy Construction & Siting; Lower Cost; Industrial Heat. Thorium Converts to Uranium Inside the Reactor, LFTRs Do Not Need High Pressure Containment, No Water Needed for LFTRs, and no Loss of Coolant Accidents, Useful LFTR Fission By-Products, for Industry and Medicine, Manufacturing LFTRs Easier than Other Reactors, Solving Technical Challenges in Building LFTRs. [1] Excess neutrons from the Thorium has properties like uranium which allows it to fuel a nuclear chain reaction. Eng. Thorium is a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. availability thorium resources in the Earth's crust not fully discussed MSRs make no long-term nuclear waste (over 99% of the fuel is fissioned, not left as waste), unlike LWR (only 2-3% of the fuel is fissioned). (Compare that 1000kg with 135kg for 350 years, to 250,000kg uranium to make 35,000kg enriched uranium for a solid-fueled reactor like LWR, for that same gigawatt-year electricity, all needing storage for 100,000+ years. No “PUREX reprocessing” needed, simply extract the uranium and plutonium (including fission products) from the fuel rod, and put it in a MSR. designs generally do not have a graphite moderator. The heat must be carried away by a coolant (water) and the April 4, 2019 | The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) announced today that Flibe Energy, Inc will be provided a GAIN Nuclear Energy Voucher to accelerate the innovation and application of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) Preliminary Safeguards Assessment. [2] D. LeBlanc, "Molten Salt Reactors: A New Currently the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is having a resurgence of interest worldwide. Molten Salt Reactors can be designed to output wide ranges of heat, for different industrial processes. LWR uses ~2% of the fuel, because fission products trapped in the fuel pellets block fission, and the pellets get damaged by radiation and pressure. The advantage here is that U-232 is highly With This paper will focus on the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) design, an implementation of one such Gen IV idea, the MSRs are less expensive and more environmentally friendly than other sources of base-load power or grid power storage, needed to supplement wind and/or solar power. LFTRs are quite unlike today's operating commercial power reactors. reactor, breeding the fertile Th-232 into fissile U-233. ... What if we could turn back the clock to 1965 and have an energy do-over? The total cost of developing MSR technology and building assembly line production (like assembly line production of aircraft or ships, with better safety standards than is achievable with on-site construction, at much lower cost) will be much less than the $10-$12 Billion for a single new solid-fueled water-cooled reactor or single nuclear waste disposal plant.
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