Thorcon

Thorcon is a project for a modular molten salt nuclear reactor. It is proposed by Martingale of Florida in the United States of America; a prototype is planned for 2020. In December 2015, Thorcon signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Indonesia Thorium Consortium to develop its molten salt reactor technology in Indonesia.

Technical

File:Thorcon nuclear island.jpg

Nuclear island, fully underground

ThorCon takes the original ORNL Molten Salt Reactor design and scales it up without relying on new research.

The proposed reactor design uses a mixture of sodium fluoride and beryllium fluoride as carrier, with uranium and/or thorium fluoride salt as the fuel charge dissolved in the carrier salt.

Thorcon uses modular sealed nuclear-grade stainless steel containment units called "cans". There are two for each reactor so that one unit can be operative while the previous, spent module can cool down for 4 years, after which it is removed and replaced with a new one.

File:Thorcon can and primary.png

The primary loop and containment

File:Thorcon membrane wall cooling schematic.png

The membrane wall cooling system

File:Thorcon silo and silo hall.png

Schematic cross section of the silo and silo hall

Safety

Thorcon is a walk-away safe plant design. This implies that no operator action, electricity supply, support system or coolant injection is needed in the event of an accident. The Thorcon system relies heavily on inherent safety and passive safety.

File:Thorcon block assembly progression.gif

Image sequence of the block assembly progression

ThorCon is a simpler and smaller structure than today's large ships that are rapidly manufactured in large numbers by many shipyards in the world today.

See also

• Thorium fuel cycle
• Liquid fluoride thorium reactor
• Thorium Energy Alliance

References

As of this edit, this article uses content from "Official Site", which is licensed in a way that permits reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, but not under the GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed.

Further reading

• Presentation notes from Devanney at Virginia Commonwealth University

External links

• Official Company Website