ThorConIt’s been 30 years since America built a really new nuclear power plant, but we haven’t been idle over this time. One such reactor is ThorCon, a fission reactor with a liquid molten salt fuel containing thorium+uranium. The United States successfully conducted a Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1950s. Since ThorCon fuel is a liquid salt, if the reactor overheats for whatever reason, ThorCon will shut itself down, and passively handle the decay heat. The ThorCon reactor operates at near-ambient pressure, about the same as a backyard garden hose.

Source: Forbes May 31, 2019 21:45 UTC