Canadian regulators announced that Terrestrial Energy has completed the initial phase of a design review for its molten-salt nuclear power plant, giving the Ontario-based company a small early lead in the race to commission the first commercial fourth-generation reactor in North America. To be sure, it’s a very early step in what will be a long regulatory process, the first of three phases in just the “pre-licensing” review. All the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has really said is that the company has demonstrated it intends to comply with regulatory requirements, while noting that the company has a lot more to do to prove that its conceptual designs will operate safely in the real world.
MIT Technology Review 8th Nov 2017 read more »
The world’s nuclear industry is in revolutionary ferment. The technology superpowers are racing against the clock – and against each other – to build versatile micro-reactors based on radically new principles that may transform the calculus of energy policy. The US energy department and the Chinese military-industrial complex are working on a raft of new designs that are cleaner, safer, and cheaper than the old light-water giants, some promising to deliver ‘dispatchable’ power when needed and to achieve the Holy Grail of energy storage at viable cost as a bonus. Russia and Korea are in the hunt. Canada has stolen a march on everybody, its regulators refreshingly free from the clammy grasp of vested interests.
Telegraph 8th Nov 2017 read more »
