Liquid Fluoride Salt Cooled Thorium Reactor

The Key to Energy: Domestic Rare Earth Resource Development & Thorium Converter Reactor Development ~Rare Earth Metals are strategically required to sustain the high tech product development pipeline for U.S. Military and mass market electronic devices and to support efforts for cleaner production of and better utilization of electricity for passenger car transportation ~Thorium is a source of nuclear energy and a byproduct of essential domestic rare earth refining which must be managed because thorium always occurs with known deposits of heavy earth elements located in the North America and throughout the world. ~Thorium research begun at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and continued by computationalists in the National Laboratory System reveals pathways to cleaner nuclear fuel utilization and to distributed energy production that is achievable in a few years not decades ~Molten Salt Cooled Thorium Converter Reactors can be rapidly developed and deployed using available computational software and hardware modeling to produce plans and specifications for a demonstration plant. The plan is to prove that lower cost electricity and lower cost process heat can be produced more safely and more cleanly than all other present methods of energy production by adding thorium to the portfolio of energy source materials ~ Thorium cores for small standardized power units can be mass produced in a secure factory environment to increase quality and safety and to reduce construction costs while providing a large high value payroll for skilled workers ~Thorium Converter cores operating in the hard neutron spectrum are long lived, requiring change out only once a decade and increasing reactor up‐time significantly and reducing radiation exposure scenarios markedly ~Standardized Thorium Converter Cores can be encapsulated as a modular unit for safe transportation to the power production, desalinization and process heat applications, and back to the factory for recycling or secure storage, thus reducing proliferation vulnerabilities and exposure scenarios ~Fuel in Standardized Thorium Converter Cores is proliferation hardened by denaturing thorium with fertile uranium isotopes so that weapon usable diversion scenarios and associated vulnerabilities are avoided. ~Thorium cores that convert as much fertile to fissile isotopes in the fuel have been designed computationally. These cores manufacture the same amount of fissile material that they fission during operations. Fuel is produced during operations in the same amount as it is consumed. No enrichment steps are needed so that the Thorium Converter core is very long lived perhaps as long as 20 years. ~Thorium Converters are cooled by high boiling point liquid fluorides, “Molten Salts” that allow reactor operations to be conducted at ambient atmospheric pressure avoiding high pressure accident scenarios ~Thorium fuel in Converter Cores can be engineered to be self‐regulating so that as the heat of fission increases the rate of neutron multiplication decreases, avoiding melt down scenarios ~Thorium Converter Cores can be returned to the secure factory for fuel refurbishment. Fissile and Fertile isotopes can be recovered for use in new cores, and long lived radioactive isotopes can be removed to prepare the used core for 300 years of storage in secure above ground storage casks after which time the unstable isotopes will have decayed to background levels. ~Thorium provides a sustainable and renewable nuclear energy option that is cleaner and safer than present methods of energy production. Thorium needs to be added to the portfolio of cleaner fuels and energy production methods in the U. S. strategic energy arsenal. ~ Specifications Liquid Fluoride Salt Cooled Thorium Reactor ~• Small Thorium Reactor Core is Modular, built in a Factory, and shipped to sites ~• Secure Factory Production facility enables high quality mass production for safety and efficiencies ~• Secure Factory allows used fuel in Thorium Reactor Cores to be recycled after fluoride chemistry separations of fissile, fertile and long lived fission products is completed , solving important Waste Issues ~• Reactor converts Thorium to Uranium‐233 and transmutes as much fissile fuel as it fissions ~• No enrichment is needed to Produce fissile fuel, uranium‐233 and plutonium‐239 ~• Reactor core is long‐lived, operating 10‐20 years with increasing operating efficiencies ~• Fissile and Long Lived Isotopes inside Used Fuel can be recycled as source of fresh fuel or Used Core can be stored in indefinitely in Cask for optional reuse or for subsequent separations of long lived isotopes from short lived isotopes. ~• Used core contains all of the short‐lived fission products that will decay to background in 300‐500 years. Fissile and long‐lived isotopes can be securely removed before the used core is stored in cask ~• Power range of 200‐400 Megawatts Thermal delivered near to users to reduce line loss ~• Thorium Core can produce electricity; process heat for military syn‐fuels applications; and for desalinization ~• Core will furnish power at cost of coal or less when carbon gas and ash sequestration costs are factored in. ~• Small Reactor Thorium Core provides heat and generates no emissions to atmosphere, hydrosphere or lithosphere when fissile isotopes are used as new fuel and long lived isotopes are managed in cask. ~• Thorium is a renewable energy source because thorium converter reactors make all the fuel the reactor fissions during long term operations ~• Thorium reactor is sustainable because environmental burdens are not placed on future generations ~• Proliferation vulnerabilities are greatly reduced because refueling and fuel shuffling are avoided ~• Fissile Fuel material is denatured with fertile uranium‐238 providing an isotopic proliferation barrier ~• Fuel emits an energetic and penetrating gamma to detect its location from the decay of co‐produced uranium‐232 ~• Fuel is solid and is confined inside of the core’s radiation shield at all times, enhancing security of reactor during operations ~• Entire core is transported as an encapsulated unit and poses no danger to surroundings during transportation ~• Small‐sized Thorium Reactor Core measures 2.5 meters or less in height and diameter ~• Passively Safe design features avoid “off normal” episodes and melt down scenarios are avoided ~• Coolant does not boil before 1500 degrees C. ~• Fuel does not melt before 2500 degrees C. ~• System Operates at Atmospheric Pressure reducing construction costs .

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