EU COMMISSION STUDY TO REVIEW ‘MELTDOWN-PROOF NUCLEAR REACTORS’

Researchers Believe They Could Construct a Prototype Molten Salt Reactor in 10 Years

In the current environment of low-priced oil and gas, you mightn’t think it is an ideal time to look at developing next generation nuclear power plants, particularly post-Fukushima 2011. However, this is exactly what the European Commission has set in motion in August. They have assembled a number of research institutes and universities, including the Technology University of Delft (TU Delft), in the Netherlands, France’s National Center for Scientific Research, and the Commission’s Joint Research Center, in Belgium. The four-year year study is designed to illustrate the inherent safety of molten salt reactors, which were first built in the 1960’s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US. The study is known as “Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor,”

or Samofar, and should it bear fruit could lead to the construction of a prototype reactor within the next 10 years.

Molten salt reactors use a radioactive solution that combines liquid salt with nuclear fuel. It can work with uranium, or the more abundant and safer thorium. They can also use nuclear waste, not unlike a reactor Hitachi is building with MIT and other partners in the US. Molten salt reactors are considered safer than traditional reactors as they are self-governing; in the case of a major problem the reactor core will drain into a protected underground storage container. Currently, the most advanced study into liquid fuel, thorium-based reactors is based at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics in China.