Posted on 06/05/2017 4:43:10 AM PDT by RC one
Power-short Indonesia has been mulling building a nuclear power plant for nearly 15 years, and it is exploring a number of novel options, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and a thorium molten salt reactor.
The 1958-established National Atomic Energy Agency (Badan Tenaga Nuklir Nasional, BATAN) wants to build an experimental nuclear power reactor at Serpong, the site of its largest multipurpose research reactor, and it continues to assess its options. In early 2015, BATAN signed a contract to build and test a pebble-bed HTGR at Serpong with a consortium of Russian and Indonesian companies led by NUKEM Technologies. And, in August 2016, BATAN pushed on with its nuclear ambitions, signing a cooperation agreement with China Nuclear Engineering Corp., looking to develop small HTGRs in Kalimantan and Sulawesi by 2027. BATAN also has agreements with Russia’s Rosatom to develop a floating nuclear power plant that could electrify its smaller inhabited islands.
This March, the country stepped up its nuclear curiosity. Three state-owned Indonesian power companies—power generator PT PLN, nuclear fuel processing firm PT Industry Nuklir Indonesia (INUKI), and oil and gas giant PT Pertamina—completed a 10-month-long preliminary feasibility study for a 250-MW molten salt reactor that would use a combination of 80% thorium and 20% uranium (the uranium would be enriched to 19.75% U-235, and the fuel would be delivered to the plant as fluoride salts). The reactor design was unveiled in January 2015 by ThorCon International, a company owned by Florida-based consulting firm Martingale Inc. The prefeasibility study stems from a memorandum of understanding the company signed with the Indonesian state firms in December 2015.
INUKI said its interest in the thorium reactor is rooted in Indonesia’s abundant resources of monazite, which is recovered from the country’s substantial tin mining industry. PLN, meanwhile, has conditionally included the use of thorium molten salt reactors in its National Electricity Business Plan for the period spanning 2017 to 2026. BATAN, which hasn’t yet issued a decision on whether the reactor design fits the country’s needs, said that if all fares well during its assessment period, it will recommend the design as the basis for Indonesia’s first commercial nuclear power plant.
ThorCon is a “straightforward” scale-up of an experimental molten salt reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, which operated between 1965 and 1969 (Figure 1). ORNL conceived the concept of “liquid fuel” as an alternative to the water-cooled, zirconium-clad uranium oxide solid fuel rods used in light water reactors. In a molten salt reactor, thorium and uranium fluorides are dissolved in molten salt, which, in ThorCon’s case is a mix of fluorides of beryllium and sodium heated between 560C and 700C. The fuel flows through the reactor vessel—where it fissions and grows hotter—then through a pump and heat exchanger to cool it.
Remarkably, ORNL’s Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was inspired by a campaign to build a nuclear-powered airplane in the 1950s, because engineers saw promising results from the design that used molten fluoride salt as fuel carrier and coolant for an onboard carrier. But that project was scrapped in the 1960s, and molten salt reactor efforts have since transitioned to power generation.
Benefits touted by the MSRE technology’s proponents were that it could make fuel as it operated—mitigating worries about scarce uranium supplies—and that the circulating fuel eliminated change outs of solid fuel and control rod mechanisms. Another highlighted aspect was intrinsic safety: “Molten salts expand as they heat up,” explained ORNL. “The expansion causes some of the fuel to leave the core, shutting down the reactor, so operator response is not required to turn the reactor off.”
Like the experimental reactor, ThorCon is designed for installation 15 to 30 meters underground (Figure 2). “ThorCon has three gas tight barriers between the fuelsalt and the atmosphere,” said its developer. “The reactor operates at slight over-pressure so that in the event of a primary loop rupture, there is no dispersal energy and also no phase change. The spilled fuel merely flows to a drain tank where it is passively cooled. The most troublesome fission products, including [strontium-90] and [cesium-137], are chemically bound to the salt. They will end up in the drain tank as well.”
1. Rooted in history. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) ran a brief four years in the 1960s at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The MSRE lost funding and the entire program was shut down in 1973. In this photo, ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg marks 6,000 full-power hours of MSRE operation. Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
See what entities are buying off who in DC and a good chance that the answer will appear.
The willfully and criminally blind in charge never run out of ways to disgust me.
“Lemhi pass along the Idaho-Montana border is “one of the world’s largest known high-quality thorium deposits”. “
You mean it’s not been designated a national monument yet?
Because we are a nation run by idiots and self serving politicians and other assorted green idiots who have no real knowledge of energy or how to use it properly and energy/oil companies that have enough money to buy off the right people...
maybe. I think if we can piss away $500 million dollars to Solyndra, we can invest a little bit in thorium liquid salt reactors though.
or a global monument.
Not enough graft and corruption apparently.
Nuclear Waste: Fission Products & Transuranics from Thorium & Uranium - "Th" Documentary
Go to about 13:10 and wait for it. You can't miss it. Miss him, actually.
what’s really sad is that the company that’s developing the MSR for Indonesia is based out of Florida apparently. :{
Even sadder now that you mention it.
What would be even sadder is if that outfit was getting a subsidy check from gov-co to develop nuclear power overseas.
This country used to be the innovator and leader for the betterment of the rest of the world.
Is that George?
[ Solar doesn’t even come close to what a thorium liquid salt reactor can do. We have built one before. We have already researched, developed and proven this technology. We have 6,000 hours of continuous full power use that proves it is viable. We have abundant thorium reserves. Lemhi pass along the Idaho-Montana border is “one of the world’s largest known high-quality thorium deposits”. Why is India pursuing this and we aren’t? ]
Because the Government’s Nuclear Reg commission’s close to Ties with GE. GE gotta maintain their monopoly on reprocessing fuel rods while they move jobs to china and pay ZERO in any taxes...
[ I guess someone listened to Kirk Sorensen. ]
Big Government / Big corporate Welfare collusion has deafened us to new ( in this case almost 50 year old ) technologies
[ It looks like a strong team. I wish them well but I also wish they were building MSRs in America instead of Indonesia. ]
To Quote Trump : “Boy are we Dumb” ( referring to bending over to china and other countries as our industry and innovation goes to hell )
[ “Lemhi pass along the Idaho-Montana border is “one of the world’s largest known high-quality thorium deposits”. “
You mean it’s not been designated a national monument yet? ]
If Obama had know about it, it would have already been one, the idiot federalized a whole crap ton of useful land.
Better to steal thousands of acres of land from ranchers and sell it to Chinese companies to build government subsidized solar farms that are an actual blight on the land, than it would be to build an actual energy solution on a few acres of land....
Well according to our corrupt government...
Except one.
It is much less efficient when it comes to making weapons grade material.....
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