Canadian David LeBlanc is developing the Integral Molten Salt Reactor, or IMSR. The goal is to commercialize the Terrestrial reactor by 2021.
Molten Salt and Oilsands
* Using nuclear produced steam for Oil Sands production long studied
* Vast majority of oil only accessible by In-Situ methods
* No turbine island needed so 30% to 40% the capital cost saved (instead of steam to turbine for electricity just send it underground to produce oil from oilsands)
* Oil sands producers expected to pay 200 Billion$ on carbon taxes over the next 35 years, funds mandated to be spent on cleantech initiatives
* Canada Oil Sands in ground reserves of 2 trillion barrels, current estimate 10% recoverable (likely much higher with cheaper steam)
* 64 GWth nuclear to add 6.4 million bbls/day (200B$/year revenue)
* 64 GWth needed as about 200 small 300MWth MSRs
* Oil Sands a bridge to MSRs then with time, MSRs a bridge to not needing oil
So each 300 MW thermal MSR would generate $1 billion per year in oil revenue from the oilsands.
A 300 MW thermal reactor would be the same as a 100 MW electrical reactor. Even if costs were as much proportionally as a $10 billion 1 GWe conventional nuclear reactor (the high costs of the most expensive european or US projects.) the $1 billion cost would be recovered in about 2-4 years. Also, they indicated that there is no turbine to produce electricity since only steam is used. So the costs should be $700 million max.
This profitability means that the first 200 units should easily be profitable. Usually making more units has a improvement rate in lowering costs by a few percentage points for each later unit. The oilsand units would also generate the money to help payoff research and development costs, which would initial come from oilsand taxes and oilsand partners.
The 25 MWe version of the IMSR is the size of a fairly deep hottub
IMSR design
* No fuel fabrication cost or salt processing = extremely low fuel costs
* Under 0.1 cents/kwh
* Right size reactors, right pressure steam
Looking at the cost components of current nuclear reactors
Old Nuclear Coal New LWR est IMSR first IMSR later 1 Fuel 5.0 11.0 5.0 0.1 0.1 2 Operating, Maintenance - Labor and Materials 6.0 5.0 8.0 1.0 0.2 3 Pensions, Insurance, Taxes 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.2 4 Regulatory Fees 1.0 0.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 5 Property Taxes 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 1.0 6 Capital 9.0 9.0 39.0 20.0 5.0 7 Decommissioning and DOE waste costs 5.0 0.0 5.0 0.5 0.1 8 Administrative / overheads 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 Total 30.0 29.1 60.0 27.6 8.6
I think the IMSR can get down to 0.86 cents per Kwh.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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