The U.S.'s Molten Salt Reactor Non-Program: putting together the pieces [View all]

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Last edited Sun May 19, 2013, 04:30 PM - Edit history (1)

How does an energy technology with incredible potential get sidetracked? For the molten-salt reactor (MSR), there's less evidence it was the casualty of a conspiracy than politics and bad timing.

The successful Molten Salt Reactor Experiment of the 1960s demonstrated that the MSR concept was feasible and would be safer than solid fuel reactors. At the time a nascent uranium mining industry and expertise gained from the U.S. weapons program favored going down a different path, that of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), and MSRs were abandoned. They experienced a rebirth in 2005 after an influential paper by Ralph Moir and Edward Teller which revisited the idea, even suggesting it as a powerful weapon against global warming.

In 2007 the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was looking like a done deal, but the state of Nevada didn't want it. At about this time Harry Reid learned that MSR technology would not require significant storage and could actually burn up existing waste. Utah was another state that was a potential target for a repository, and so in October 2008 Reid and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch co-sponsored the Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2008, allocating $250 million for MSR research. The bill was referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where it died.

Why? There are several possibilities, but the most credible ones involve the committee's chairman, Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). MSR technology would only require minimal amounts of uranium to start the reactor, and New Mexico has the second largest known uranium reserves in the country. The state is home to several institutions which profit from traditional uranium fuel cycle research, including Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Also, New Mexico is more friendly to waste storage than either Nevada or Utah - the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad is the source of almost $630 million in annual federal funding.

Reid's bill was re-introduced in 2009 and 2010 and died both times, with Bingaman at committee helm. Meanwhile, Reid promised to support Obama's nomination if Obama named Gregory Jazcko as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who openly opposed Yucca. Obama won, Yucca lost, and MSRs were still dead in the water.

The landscape has since changed. Jazcko resigned, there is talk of re-opening Yucca, and Ron Wyden (D-OR) has taken Bingaman's place as chairman of the Energy and Resources committee. Wyden is a nuclear safety proponent but not anti-nuclear per se; China, India, Russia, and Norway all have MSR programs underway. If Reid and Hatch choose to re-introduce their bill, it might get some well-deserved traction in today's political climate.