Who Killed the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)?

[PamW]

39. 1979 - 1994 is also after TMI

Interesting. It's certainly not before TMI. But perhaps you have a different perspective of linear time.
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TMI occurred in 1979. The IFR was killed in 1994.

The time period 1979 - 1994 is after TMI. According to the statement, "Fast spectrum research died after TMI", the period from 1979 to 1994 is after TMI, and hence by the quoted statement, fast reactor research was dead.

However, during the period 1979 - 1994; fast reactor research was NOT dead.
The IFR was developed during that time. Argonne was still researching fast reactors after TMI.

Fast reactor research continued after TMI. TMI was NOT the event that killed fast reactor research.

Fast reactor research was killed by President Clinton:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: Is the IFR still operating?

A: No. The IFR was canceled in the end of September of 1994, two years ago.

Q: Who made that decision?

A: The decision was made in the early weeks of the Clinton administration. It was tempered somewhat in the Department of Energy in that first year. Congress then acted to keep the program alive in that first year. And then in the second year of the Clinton administration, the decision to really reinforce the earlier decisions was made final, and the Administration put a very considerable effort into assuring successfully that the IFR would be canceled.


Contrary to the previously posted statement that fast reactor research died after TMI, it wasn't TMI that killed fast reactor research. There was a decade and a half of fast reactor research after TMI. What killed fast reactor research was a decision by then President Clinton.

PamW