Thorcon’s design is much simpler than a conventional pressurized water reactor (PWR) and the reactor operates at garden-hose pressure.  Many of the expensive and time-consuming high-pressure components like exotic high-pressure vessels and stressed concrete containment domes are not needed. Nor is the very thick, hard-to-weld piping.

Thorcon’s low pressure allows for the plant to be constructed using the same materials and construction techniques that a shipyard uses.  Building the plant in a modern shipyard saves years of construction time.

Thorcon’s molten salt technology, proven at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960’s, makes the reactor inherently safe. If power to the reactor is lost, the fuel automatically drains out of the reactor to drain tanks below where it cannot fission and where it passively cools and remains stable indefinitely. No operator action is required.

Considering all of the above, Thorcon is able to safely produce inherently safe, CO2-emissions-free electricity at a cost competitive with coal.