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Chris Anderson, Founder of the TED organization, is the lead investor in ThorCon. He addresses Indonesia energy policy makers gathered via Zoom, February 26, 2021. Excerpts of his video remarks follow.
In his TED interview with Anderson, Bill Gates asked how are we going to power our future, without causing terrible damage to the planet? Nuclear energy absolutely has an essential role to play in humanity’s future.
The quest to find a great nuclear company to invest in is what brought Anderson to ThorCon. He settled on ThorCon for three main reasons.
1. The scalability of the company: Recalling Elon Musk’s TED interview, the need is to build a machine that builds the machines. The ThorCon approach using shipyards is brilliant — a breakthrough.
2. Fundamentally conservative engineering culture: Solving climate change requires scaling up, cost effectively.
3. The response in Indonesia: Cautious, but not wanting to block the fundamental approach to a better future. Indonesia could play a world-leading role in solving climate change, while at the same time increasing prosperity for its people.
UNS — Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta signed a Partnership Agreement with ThorCon International, Pte. Ltd virtually on Thursday (7/1/2021). The agreement manuscript was signed directly by the Chair of Institute for Research and Community Engagement (LPPM), Prof. Okid Parama Astirin, and Chief Representative of ThorCon International, Pte. Ltd, Bob Soelaiman Effendi.
The partnership between the two institutions covers “Research and Mapping Survey on Community Acceptance Related on the Establishment of Nuclear Power Plant as the Solution for Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Energy to Pursue the Prosperous and Low Carbon Indonesia in 2050.”
ThorCon CEO Lars Jorgensen answers this in a concise talk invited by Oak Ridge National Laboratories in late 2020.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation on earth, and its leadership is motivated to grow electric power from 70 to 420 GW in 2050. Government agencies have greenlighted ThorCon, signed MOUs, and visited EPC DSME and turbine supplier DHI.
Enjoy the video, edited by Gordon McDowell.
ThorCon continues to move forward with its molten salt reactor demonstration program in Indonesia. MOU’s regarding its 500 MW power plant have been signed with PLN, the state-owned utility; Indonesia Power, the country’s largest power plant operator; with PT PAL, the state-owned shipyard; and with the Governor of Bangka who wants the plant located in his province. In July the Indonesian Government gave ThorCon the green light for the demonstration plant. Site feasibility and grid integration studies are being organized. Preparations for pre-fission testing of the primary power loop have begun. This full scale version of the reactor will be built and tested at PT PAL’s shipyard in Surabaya. An important round of funding has just been successfully completed which will provide the funds required to bring the program to the point where construction on the pre-fission test platform is ready to begin. This is scheduled for January of 2022.
The fuel salt chemistry continuously evolves as transmutations, fission product generation, structural material constituents dissolution, salt ingress into graphite pores, off-gassing, precipitation of insoluble species, and temperature cycling occur.
ThorCon is working with US national labs to optimize molten salt fuel performance, which depends on nuclear, chemical, and physical properties.
This Indonesia university in Surakarta will work with ThorCon to survey community acceptance in Bangka Belitung Province, review the design, and conduct education and training programs.
According to ThorCon, the firm and Indonesia’s Defence Ministry have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to study developing a 50 MW thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) for either power generation or marine vehicle propulsion.
ThorCon CEO Lars Jorgensen presents an in-depth look at the ThorCon thorium-converting molten salt reactor to an audience of Indonesia government officials and scientists. Independent videographer Gordon McDowell created this fast-moving, informative, trending video attracting many comments. YouTube captions are available in English and Indonesian.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory alum Dane Wilson explains ThorCon progress to powering up Indonesia with liquid fission power plants. Dane is ThorCon’s materials expert. Dane’s talk includes redundant passive decay heat cooling systems, collaboration with Argonne National Labs work on salt properties and computational evolution, seismic characteristics, and airplane impact safety. Click here for Dane’s YouTube video.
Scientists attending the International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems in Bali, Indonesia, were excited by ThorCon CEO Lars Jorgensen’s presentation of the design of the TMSR-500 liquid fission power plant. The ThorCon team then returned to state-owned shipyard PT PAL Indonesia, which had begun reviewing ThorCon specifications in July.
P3Tek presented the results of a 10-month study of the ThorCon thorium/uranium-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) power plant. The study reviewed regulation, safety, economics, and the grid load and concluded the ThorCon TMSR500 liquid fission power plant can supply Indonesia electricity needs in 2026-2027. September 17, 2019
“The thorium molten salt power plant can produce clean energy cheaper than coal, which could be reliable energy system toward a low-carbon economy,” PAL said.
Gary Bergstrom is jumping from the world of data-based investing to the gritty problem of how best to supply relatively inexpensive energy to the developing world. June 7, 2019
Jim Conca wrote about ThorCon in Forbes on May 31, 2019.
The most dangerous energy ... is none at all.
CEO Lars Jorgensen at the Thorium Energy World conference in Brussels in October 2018. ThorCon safety does not depend on skilled operators or faultless software. The audience was stunned to see a complete basic design of a real liquid fission power plant, and to receive detailed answers to probing questions.
Power Magazine wrote about ThorCon in its May 2019 issue.
The fuel salt chemistry continuously evolves as transmutations, fission product generation, structural material constituents dissolution, salt ingress into graphite pores, off-gassing, precipitation of insoluble species, and temperature cycling occur.
ThorCon is working with US national labs to optimize molten salt fuel performance, which depends on nuclear, chemical, and physical properties.