Atomic Show #261 – Three advanced nuclear technology developers

Advanced nuclear development projects have made some significant steps during 2017. I met – via Skype – with representatives of three of the projects yesterday. Several more were invited, but were busy doing business even on a Sunday evening.

The three who were able to attend were Seth Grae, the CEO of Lightbridge (NASDAQ: LTBR), Canon Bryan, the CFO of Terrestrial Energy, and Robert Hargraves a key player on ThorCon’s team.

Seth talked about Lightbridge’s innnovative new fuel for light water reactors and its potential to affordable increase power output, add substantial safety margins, and increase the time between refueling outages. He described Lightbridge’s announced joint venture with Areva, the testing program, the regulatory path to fuel certification and the plan for commercialization.

Disclosure: I own Lightbridge stock but have not made any recent trades and will not make trades in the next 7 days.

Canon discussed Terrestrial Energy’s sealed reactor modules, his company’s decision to use fuel that is enriched to less than 5%, their recent completion of the first stage of vendor design review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and the aspects of molten salt technology that convinced him of its financial viability.

Bob described how his company was focusing on achieving competitive lifecycle costs, working with countries that had an immediate need for new, reliable power sources, and how the Devanny’s shipbuilding experience was influencing their designs for manufacturability.

All three described some of their common challenges and their efforts to overcome those hurdles.

Though I would have liked to include more participants to show the breadth and diversity of the advanced nuclear technology development efforts, I think you will enjoy this episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:14 — 55.3MB)

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