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A Nuclear Startup Will Fold After Failing To Deliver Reactors That Run on Spent Fuel (technologyreview.com)
Transatomic Power, an MIT spinout that drew wide attention and millions in funding, is shutting down almost two years after the firm backtracked on bold claims for its design of a molten-salt reactor. From a report: The company, founded in 2011, plans to announce later today that it's winding down. Transatomic had claimed its technology could generate electricity 75 times more efficiently than conventional light-water reactors, and run on their spent nuclear fuel. But in a white paper published in late 2016, it backed off the latter claim entirely and revised the 75 times figure to "more than twice," a development first reported by MIT Technology Review. Those downgrades forced the company to redesign its system. That delayed plans to develop a demonstration reactor, pushing the company behind rival upstarts like TerraPower and Terrestrial Energy, says Leslie Dewan, the company's cofounder and chief executive. The longer timeline and reduced performance advantage made it harder to raise the necessary additional funding, which was around $15 million. "We weren't able to scale up the company rapidly enough to build a reactor in a reasonable time frame," Dewan says.
There are around 50 nuclear startups designing 4th generation reactors. Some were always going to fail. In fact most will probably fail. Some will succeed though.
NuScale is the closest to market. Their design has already passed NRC phase 1 review, and it has been certified as meltdown proof. They will be constructing their first 12 reactors in Idaho for Utah municipalities. Hopefully in a decade they will be mass producing them like airplanes.
Why are nuclear fanboys still pushing debunked Thorium breeder technology that has been relegated to a scientific curiosity? The new messiah is SMR's.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
There are around 50 nuclear startups designing 4th generation reactors. Some were always going to fail. In fact most will probably fail.
No there are lots of them CLAIMING to be developing new reactor designs. Some of them might actually be working on the problem even. Curiously we've seen zero of these actually make it to market.
Some will succeed though.
There is no guarantee of that.
NuScale is the closest to market.
Maybe. Best info I can find says they hope to have an operational reactor in 2024 and that was their projection in 2013. That means optimistically they might have something to show 6+ years from now. Not exactly cause for excitement.
Their design has already passed NRC phase 1 review, and it has been certified as meltdown proof.
NRC phase 1 review is a "Preliminary Safety Evaluation Report (SER) and Requests for Additional Information". It does not mean it has been certified as anything.
They will be constructing their first 12 reactors in Idaho for Utah municipalities.
If that were true you would think they would post it somewhere on their website. Perhaps you are talking about this project?
Hopefully in a decade they will be mass producing them like airplanes.
While I wish them well I think this is a good approximation of impossible.
molten salt reactors are a interesting idea but are untested
Molten salt reactors are proven technology. They ran one at Oak Ridge for thousands of hours back in the 1960s. There's a ton of info about this online, such as this lecture from a few years ago about LFTR. The Chinese currently have the most active (and best funded) program in this area. With any luck we might see a commercial product from them in the next few years, which could be a real game changer.
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All that was done with the Integral Fast Reactor in the 90's. It ran well for a couple years before being defunded by Gore and his allies.
This company failed for business reasons, not theoretical ones.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If by proven you means experimented with but no actual safety, reliability, cost or power generating capability analysis done.
Running a little experimental reactor for a couple years tells you nothing about the commercial viability let alone safety. One of the biggest problems with "molten salt" or liquid sodium reactors is that if the reaction vessel holding this mix of highly radioactive sodium and uranium mixture is every directly exposed to water or oxygen it will explode, burn and fill the atmosphere with a highly radioactive cloud of burning sodium which will then rain down on the surrounding countryside.
Reactor designs like molten salt reactors always fall apart as viable designs when they start talking about surviving things like earthquakes or other natural disasters. This is because to engineer around those disasters you have to do stuff like the current Georgia reactor under construction and spend $20 Billion building a pressure vessel that can survey tidal waves and earthquakes that wipe out the rest of the plant. And when that eventual power is priced at $0.25 kw/hr it's completely uneconomical.
The government doesn't research these "innovative" reactors because every time in the past they've tried the site ended up a superfund site. Every Single Time.