ThorCon: Low Cost, Dependable, CO2-free Power 1 Key Features of - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ThorCon: Low Cost, Dependable, CO2-free Power 1

Key Features of ThorCon Technology Safe 
 ● Low pressure device with passive shutdown - does not depend on operators or electronics 
 Lower cost electricity 
 ● Provides baseload and load following electricity at inexpensive rates. 
 Now - 
 ● Pragmatic approach that does not depend on new technology 
 Volume production 
 ● Design can be mass produced at 10-20 GWe per year (or more). 
 2

Electricity Demand Continues to Grow Rapidly 
 Supplied Mostly by Coal One large nuclear plant is around 1GWe 5000 Total US usage is 500 Gwe 4500 Total Use Roughly 1kW/person in Europe & Calif. World population currently 7B people 4000 Worldwide Electricity Consumption (GWe) Total Forecast May stabilize at 10-12B => 10-12,000 GWe Fossil Supplied 3500 Fossil Forecast Oil unlikely to expand 5x. 3000 Electricity applications will expand 
 transport 2500 Industrial heat 2000 Demand could go as high as 70,000 Gwe 1500 Nuclear is the only energy source that can do the job with low environmental impact. 1000 But to be widely adopted nuclear must be 500 safe and the lowest cost solution. 0 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 Year Source US Energy Information Administration

Indian Electrical Growth is Accelerating 600 Electricity growth is accelerating in India. ● 500 Vast majority of India's electricity generation is ● India Consumption yet to be built China Electricity 400 Production China grew at 35GW/year over the last twelve ● G years. 300 w 80% of that was coal and that is creating ● e problems so that some of the coal power plants 200 are being replaced. IF we can get nuclear to be cheaper than coal we ● 100 can avoid the problems associated with massive coal burning. 0 Indi 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 ● Year

Volume Production System 3

Build Nuclear Power Plants Like ULCC’s Ultra large crude carrier cost $89M ThorCon ¼ th the steel and simpler construction 4

Shipyard Productivity ● Productivity comes from semi-automation. ● 67,000 tons of complex steel vs 18,000 simple for ThorCon nuclear island. ● Direct labor: 700,000 man-hours. About 40% steel, 60% outfitting. ● 4 to 5 man-hours per ton of hull steel. 5

Shipyard Quality. ● 150 to 500 ton blocks. Forces precise dimensional control. ● Inspection and testing far easier at sub-assembly, assembly, and block level. ● Defects found early. Most corrected without affecting overall schedule. ● If ship has > 15 days offhire a year, operating in a hostile environment, it’s a lemon. 15 days annual offhire is 96% availability. 6

Build Everything On An Assembly Line ● Reactor yard produces 150--500 ton blocks. About 100 blocks per 1GWe plant. ● Blocks are pre-coated, pre-piped, pre-wired, pre-tested. ● Focus quality control at the block and sub-block level. ● Blocks barged to site, dropped into place, and welded together. ● 90+% labor at factory ● Hyundai shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea pictured below is sufficient to manufacture 100 GWe power plants per year. Proposed shipyard sufficient to manufacture 10 one 7 GWe power plants per year.

Build the Largest Blocks at the Factory We Can Block size is limited by transport 80% of world population lives within 500 miles of coast or major river Target using barges - allows much larger blocks than train or truck. Barge up to 23 meters wide. Height depends on river or open ocean. Length essentially unlimited. Crane soft limit of 500 tonnes. 8

One large shipyard to factory- Barge to NPP site (around 20 NPP sites (1 GWe site shown) 
 build new power plants barge loads per GWe) 1,000-20,000 GWe total) 9

One large shipyard to factory- Barge to NPP site (around 20 NPP sites (1 GWe site shown) 
 build new power plants barge loads per GWe) 1,000-20,000 GWe total) Canship delivers new cans and takes old cans back for recycling. Also transports new fuel and returns spent fuel. One round trip every four years to each 1GWe site. Can recycling center cleans and inspects cans, replace graphite, stores offgas and graphite wastes. Similar to a shipyard. 10


 One large shipyard to factory- Barge to NPP site (around 20 NPP sites (1 GWe site shown) 
 build new power plants barge loads per GWe) 1,000-20,000 GWe total) Canship delivers new cans and takes old cans back for recycling. Also transports new fuel and returns spent fuel. One round trip every four years to each 1GWe site. Can recycling center cleans and inspects cans, replace Fuel recycling center. graphite, stores offgas and Initial fluorination & vacuum distill to graphite wastes. Similar to a recover most of fuel salt. Store spent fuel shipyard. for future processing. 
 11 Future IAEA secure site. 
 Uranium re-enrichment and Pu extraction to recover remaining valuable content.

Plant Overview 12

ThorCon: Cheap, Dependable, CO2-free Power Outside-in overview of ThorCon Design 13

1 GWe ThorCon Baseline Site Plan 310 m 330 m 14


 
 Fission Prototype Uses Two Power Modules 
 500 MWe ● Uses 600MWe turbine/generator ● Same spec’s as coal plants ● Most cost efficient size ● Back off from full spec’s to increase reliability and lifetime ● Need turbine/generator for full testing 
 ● (Small markets could use a single module and a smaller turbine/generator.) 15

Power Module is 250 MWe ● Nuclear plant divided into 250 MWe/ 557 MWt underground power modules. ● Each module is made up of two Cans housed in silos. ● Each Can contains a 250 MWe reactor, primary loop pump, and primary heat exchanger. ● Cans are duplexed. To accommodate 4 year moderator life, Can operates for four years, then cools down for four years, and then is changed out. 16

ThorCon’s Heart: The Can ● Pump pushes fuelsalt around loop at just under 3000 kg/s. 14 sec loop time. ● Pot full of graphite slows neutrons produced by fuel creating chain reaction which heats fuelsalt from 564C to 704C. ● Also converts portion of Th to U-233, portion of U-238 to Pu-239. ● Primary Heat Exchanger transfers heat to secondary salt cooling. ● One major moving part. ● Pot pressure about 4 bar gage. ● Pump header tank extracts fission product gases. ● Fuse valve (grey) melts on Can over-temperature. 17


 ThorCon Can Silo ● If Can overheats for whatever reason, fuse valve melts and primary loop drains to Fuelsalt Drain Tank (FDT). ● No moderator, geometry designed to reduce reactivity, => no chain reaction, no chance for re-criticality ● No operator intervention required. ● No valves to realign. ● Nothing operators can do to stop this drain. 
 ● If primary loop ruptures - (equivalent to a meltdown and primary containment breach) then the fuel salt drains to FDT. ● In most cases, damage limited to Can change out. 18

ThorCon is a Four Barrier Design 1. Primary Loop Piping, Pump, Pot, HX ● At least one internal barrier between 2. Can/Drain Tank , 5 bar over-pressure. modules. 3. Silo Cavity. Inerted. Duplex/triplex barrier. ● All but top of silo hall barrier well 4. Silo Hall, 1 bar over-pressure. Triplex underground barrier. ● Fuelsalt chemistry: the 5th barrier? 19

Fixability ● Don’t pretend things will last 30 or 40 years. Often we don’t know the MTBF. Even if we did, things are going to break and we do not know when. Plan for it. 
 ● Everything but the building must be replaceable with modest impact on plant output. 
 ● The existing nuclear challenge: when something breaks, it can be very hard to go in and fix it. 
 ● ThorCon addresses this key problem with duplexing, easy access (due to low pressure), and swappable modules. 20

The ThorCon Design Philosophy Cheap, reliable, carbon-free electricity 
 NOW! no new research steam power conversion no unobtainable materials factory quality control shipyard production speed fixable, replaceable parts replaceable irradiated materials no scale-up delay 21

The ThorCon Required Funding Seed Prepare bid packages, negotiate bids, identify any risk areas, draft PSAR Build 250MWe non-fission prototype (year 2), nonfission tests (year 3) Nonfission Plant Build 500MWe fission plant (year 4) Fission Plant Fission Tests Tests leading to license (years 5&6) Yard Build reactor yard (year 7) Deploy ThorCons 
 2 5 10 Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 
 $10M $85M $35M $210M $275M $65M (self-financed) 22

Goals for Seed 
 (Year 1) • Develop bid packages • negotiate with vendors • identify areas that are beyond current commercial capabilities • design out what we can • Generate and R&D plan for the remainder • Goal is to be ready to build, some components may still require development but we need to identify the box they fit into. • Determine the host country, site selection • Raise next round funding. 25