Thorcon Thorium Energy Converter Styles and Argonne National Laboratory Products Analysis

ThorCon is a molten salt fission reactor. Unlike all present nuclear reactors, the fuel is in liquid type. It can be moved around with a pump and passively drained pipes. This 500 MW fission power plant is encapsulated in a hull, built in a shipyard, pulled to a shallow water site, ballasted to the seabed. ThorCon is a straightforward scale-up of the successful United States Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE).

The total ThorCon is produced in 150 to 500 heap blocks in a shipyard, assembled, then towed to the site. This produces order of magnitude improvements in efficiency, quality control, and construct time. A single large reactor yard can turn out twenty gigawatts of ThorCon power plants per year. ThorCon is a system for building power plants.

ThorCon has actually been working with the Indonesian federal government to add dependable electrical power to the grid. In 2019 the Ministry of Energy began a research study of the safety, economics, and grid effect of the 500 MW model ThorConIsle.

ThorCon is working with Argonne National Labs on product tests. They are moving to establish a non-fissile test plant to validate all elements of the plant before progressing to a very first of kind fissile reactor.

They are verifying the seismic security with simulations. They are confirming the safety of shipping the reactor versus the worst oceanic storms.

They target making the energy more affordable than coal from the reactor.

Indonesia had a target cost for their energy and their analysis is that ThorCon will have lower cost than their target.

The last Indonesia recommendation report for the President of Indonesia is still being finalized.

Phase 1 is to build and test it with action by action commissioning, ending in a type license for future power plants.
Phase 2 is the shipyard production of ThorCon plants to offer an additional 3 GW of low-cost, reliable electrical power.

Dane Wilson recently retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At ORNL, Dane worked on products and systems for usage in molten fluoride salts, high-temperature gaseous environments, and other pernicious working fluids of interest to energy and hydrogen production. Dane has a BSc in physics (solid-state), MS in product science and engineering and PhD in metallurgy (corrosion and surface area science).

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