| TU-Delft, host to a symposium on the perspectives of Thorium in the Molten Salt Reactor in Deft today, presented the European Thorium MSR Project - SAMOFAR_ - due to start in August 2015. This announcement is clear sign of European interest in Thorium MSRs. It cannot be seen as a national program like the ones in China and India but is a good start and hopefully will lead to a host nation within EU stepping in as a major actor. |
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This announcement is clear sign of European interest in Thorium MSRs. A symposium on the perspectives of Thorium in the Molten Salt Reactor was held today at the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands. The symposium host, TU-Delt, presented and officially announced a European Thorium MSR Project - SAMOFAR - due to start in August 2015. SAMOFAR (Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor) is a European Commission Horizon 2020 -funded project with 11 partners from both science and industry. The scientific partners are CNRS, JRC-ITU, CIRTEN, PSI and CINVESTAV. Industry partners are Areva, CEA, EDF, KIT and IRSN. We already reported on SAMOFAR in the Thorium Energy Report, where the goal of project was summarized as follows: ‘The grand objective of SAMOFAR is to prove the innovative safety concepts of the MSFR by advanced experimental and numerical techniques, to deliver a breakthrough in nuclear safety and optimal waste management, and to create a consortium of stakeholders.’ This announcement is clear sign of European interest in Thorium MSRs. It cannot be seen as a national program like the ones in China and India but is a good start and hopefully will lead to a host nation within EU stepping in as a major actor.  Tim van der Hagen and Jan Leen Kloosterman from TU Delft. The Project The SAMOFAR project focuses on the MSR as a "self-breeder", producing its own fuel from cheap and abundant thorium without generating a surplus of proliferation sensitive fissile material, like all other reactors in the world do. The MSR can operate either as a ‘burner reactor’ or a ‘breeder reactor’. The ‘breeder reactor’ converts thorium to fissile U-233. ‘The use of the Th-U fuel cycle is of particular interest to the MSR, because this reactor is the only one in which the Pa-233 can be stored in a hold-up tank to let it decay to U-233. To eliminate the proliferation risk of the highly fissile U-233, several innovative options could be considered.’ says Mr Kloosterman. Read more about SAMOFAR |