[PaulHoule]

I was at the first Thorium energy conference and presented a timeline for reactor development based on the timeline Oak Ridge had in the 1970s. I was still surprised that the Chinese nailed it!

These days I am more excited about Plutonium cycle reactors using chloride salts because they fix the problems of the FBR (occupational safety in fuel fabrication for one) and the fluoride salt reactors (having to dispose of used graphite cores). You do get some longer lived TRUs but you have so many excess neutrons you could burn some of the fission products. Most important the Pu cycle can be launched with the nuclear waste we already have, whereas the math doesn’t really work for launching LFTR.

[pfdietz]

It requires chlorine isotope separation or else you make Cl-36, a beta emitter with a half-life of 300,000 years.

Moltex got around this in their concept by only using chloride salts inside the fuel tubes; the surrounding sterile molten salt was a fluoride. Being sterile, the oxidation potential of the fluoride salt could be kept low enough to be compatible with stainless steel.

(Moltex ran out of money last year, I've read, and has been selling its IP as distressed assets.)