Molten salt reactors a way to power future
WHEN I was a young civil engineer I worked on two nuclear power stations, Wylfa and Hartlepool, which have since produced reliable and safe power, as the vast majority of these plants do, for more than 40 years.
Britain used to be the world leader in nuclear design and construction, but now that these plants are being decommissioned we are reliant on somewhat dubious, foreign design and information security.
Combined use of “home-grown” nuclear, wave power, offshore wind, tidal barrages, some solar farms, some hydro plants, efficient battery/ power storage and microgeneration should be our future, balanced sources of power generation.
Currently, Wales is flooded (perhaps an apt word in a different context) with inefficient on-shore wind farms, which have many negatives, and though England won’t have them in affluent hilly areas, they are quite happy to use our “intermittent” power.
However, the “game-changer” in our search for clean, reliable power should be molten salt reactors (MSRs – a type of nuclear fission reactor), as Mairede Thomas from Anglesey sensibly suggested in her Western Mail articles last year.
Many countries with large fossil fuel deposits would face serious financial difficulties if they significantly reduced the domestic use or exports of their fossil fuels.
Also, the powerful, multi-national mining/extraction firms want to continue making large profits from the sale of fossil fuels.
Both these entities will continue to pollute our environment and they will strongly resist the advent of any new “rivals” such as MSRs.
MSRs use relatively small amounts of imported thorium, or use spent nuclear waste.
Safety is enhanced because they don’t operate under extreme pressures and can’t melt down.
They produce far less waste than conventional reactors, and this waste is relatively much less radioactive, with a much shorter “after-life”.
They do not pollute the environment and you can’t make nuclear weapons from thorium very easily.
The cost of the energy produced is comparable with that sourced from gas-fired power stations.
Small MSRs would have obvious,
locational advantages.
Worldwide, thorium is four times more abundant than uranium. India has large resources of thorium and is marching ahead with MSRs.
The Dutch have developed an MSR. China might follow.
Several prominent people have noted that research and innovation are the key to Wales’ future prosperity, particularly as we strive, tortuously, towards proper democracy.
Could “innovative” Wales lead the way with renewables and MSR involvement in our future new Britain?