Carbon dioxide in the air enters the oceans, making acid. Reactors would commonly be located several meters underground. 800kg of nuclear waste would work in the same reactor instead of 800kg thorium, with about the same fission byproducts, and the same electrical output. The MIT study “The Future of Nuclear Power” puts capital costs for coal plants at $2,30 per watt and nuclear power at $4,00 per watt. Gram per gram, thorium is much more efficient than uranium, as around 99% of it is used in the reaction. A liquid-fluoride reactor (a specific example of a molten salt reactor) is a nuclear reactor wherein the nuclear materials are fluoride salts dissolved in a solution of other fluoride salts. Thorium is usually thrown away during the process of mining rare-earth metals. Easy siting, no large water source needed, no large safety zone required (because there is no water and no high pressure). Thorium can be employed in a variety of reactor types, some of which currently use uranium—including heavy water reactors like Canada’s CANDU. In 2004, the proposed cost for a new prototype system in the United States were listed as being “less than $1 billion” with operational costs of about $100 million per year. (Storing CO2 in a solid would work; storing compressed CO2 underground has a huge risk of leaks that would suffocate life on the surface.). Other factors relevant to the cost profile are that a thorium-MSR can do without expensive emergency coolant injection systems, lower fuel costs (natural thorium instead of enriched uranium, no need for fuel element fabrication), simpler fuel handling (liquid fuel, no periodic shutdowns needed to replace solid fuel elements), smaller components, and a much higher energy efficiency. Conventional nuclear can be built at very low cost. But some authors argue that construction cost only explains a modest part of the capital cost required for nuclear power: a substantial part of the capital cost for nuclear power plants to the mandatory licensing costs. The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor concept has strong safety advantages over today’s nuclear reactors and the potential to implement a highly efficient and sustainable fuel cycle. Another reason for high construction costs is that most of the existing nuclear power plants have their own design. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is a heterogeneous MSR design which breeds its U-233 fuel from a fertile blanket of lithium-beryllium fluoride (FLiBe) salts with thorium fluoride. It does mention thorium on the page but not for this reactor. The challenge however will be to get past the initial cost. Georgia power’s share is around $6.1 billion, while “remaining ownership of the two reactors is split among Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG Power), and Dalton Utilities”. The salts cost roughly $150/kg, and … Because there is not an infrastructure in place to support thorium technologies, the cost of start-up would need to include the cost to implement administrative oversight of this technology. Fuel input per gigawatt output 1 ton raw thorium 5. Would Molten Salt Reactors Really Prevent Fukushima Disaster? Another factor relevant to the cost per kWh is that thorium-MSR’s are expected to perform with higher efficiency, due to their higher operating temperature of up to 700 °C. Another factor relevant to the cost per kWh is that thorium-MSR’s are expected to perform with higher efficiency, due to their higher operating temperature of up to 700 °C. Researchers are exploring methods of using MSR heat to extract CO2 from solid materials containing a lot of CO2, store the carbon and release or use the oxygen, and then we could put those CO2-absorbing materials into the ocean to remove CO2 from the water. The objective of the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) design proposed by Flibe Energy [] is to develop a nuclear power plant that will produce electrical energy at low cost. The 500MW molten salt nuclear reactor: Safe, half the price of light water, and shipped to order. There are several types of nuclear reactor possible, that can fission All that uranium, plutonium, and other transuranic elements. The fuel cost is significantly lower than a solid-fuel reactor. (Compare that 1000kg with 135kg for 350 years, to 250,000kg uranium to make 35,000kg enriched uranium for a solid-fueled reactor like LWR, for that same gigawatt-year electricity, all needing storage for 100,000+ years. Soil contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Ambient-pressure operation makes MSRs easier to build while costing less (no high-pressure steam containment building, no high-pressure pipes); Operating cost is less since the inherent safety of MSR means less complex systems than the LWR (every LWR requires multiple-redundant high-pressure systems); Fuel cost is lower since no manufacturing fuel pellets (LWR pellets have to contain fission products under very high pressure) or fuel rods. (We’ve been mainly using the Light Water Reactor, LWR, with solid fuel in pellets cooled by high-pressure water.). Mass produced thorium-MSR’s could even replace the power generation components in existing fossil fuel powered plants, integrating with the existing electrical distribution infrastructure which would also save large amounts of money (Deutch, et al., 2009, p. 6), (Juhasz, et al., 2009, p. 4), (Hargraves & Moir, 2010, pp. The total cost of developing MSR technology and building assembly line production (like assembly line production of aircraft or ships, with better safety standards than is achievable with on-site construction, at much lower cost) will be much less than the $10-$12 Billion for a single new solid-fueled water-cooled reactor or single nuclear waste disposal plant. This way, the LFTR uses/recycles 99% of its fuel while other reactors can drop to as low as 2%. Conventional nuclear fission reactors are the safest energy in terms of deaths per terawatt hour. There are reasons to assume that construction costs of thorium-MSR-based power plants will be lower. One concept is a hardened concrete facility below ground with a concrete lid on ground level to protect it from aircraft impact and other possible forms of assault. (MSR can transfer heat to existing equipment such as steam generators, for example replacing the boiler at a coal plant, but doesn’t use water anywhere in the reactor.) Total to develop LFTR technology and a factory to mass-produce them, will be less than the $10-12 Billion cost of a. These differences create design difficulties and trade-offs: Build 100MW LFTRs on assembly lines: ~$200 Million. Development of LFTR equipment technology, testing of the design and construction, and construction of factories to produce them: ~$5Billion. How Much Industrial Heat can Molten Salt Reactors Make? After a few years, radioactive decay brings them below background radiation, ready for use. Nevertheless, some statements regarding the cost bandwidth of MSR’s are worth noting. 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