6 Aug (NucNet): A Massachusetts company developing an advanced molten salt nuclear reactor has announced that FF Science, an investment vehicle of Founders Fund, has invested two million US dollars (1.49 million euros) to help the company with its “seed stage” development.
Transatomic Power said the funds will be used for “bench-top laboratory testing and refinement of the company’s designs and computer models”.
The company’s proposed reactor is based on inventions developed by company founders Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie while they were graduate students in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s department of nuclear science and engineering.
The company is still doing technical research, but the investors at San Francisco-based Founders Fund were comfortable with the long timeline and hefty capital requirements, said Ms Dewan, who recently became Transatomic chief executive officer.
“Founders Fund and FF Science were the [investors] we clicked with. Everyone is on the same page in recognising that it might take a long time, but if it comes to fruition, it will be amazing for the world,” she said.
Founders Fund is behind some of the more successful Internet startups including Facebook, Yammer and Spotify, but also some science-focused companies such as Climate Corporation, Space-X and satellite startup Planet Labs. The fund was created by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and his partners.
The proposed reactor uses nuclear fuel dissolved into a molten salt, rather than the solid fuel of conventional nuclear reactors. This liquid fuel makes it possible to generate power at atmospheric pressure, greatly reduce the creation of long-lived nuclear waste, and improve safety and cost.
The basic approach was demonstrated in the 1960s, and now Ms Dewan and Mr Massie say they have developed key material and design improvements that could increase the reactors effectiveness up to 100-fold and transform the nuclear industry.
They say the reactor can consume the spent nuclear fuel generated by commercial light water reactors or use freshly mined uranium at enrichment levels as low as 1.8 percent U-235. It achieves actinide burnups as high as 96 percent, and can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor.
Reactor details have been published in a technical white paper:
http://transatomicpower.com/white_papers/TAP_White_Paper.pdf
