Baroness Worthington gets William and Kate onside for Thorium

60 years ago, the young Queen Elizabeth II was handed a plastic bag containing plutonium The 
drama of plutonium 









And here's Baroness Bryony Worthington moving the debate into the 'SECOND NUCLEAR ERA':  Baroness Worthington at TEAC4 Only a matter of a week or two ago, in front of throng of thorium supporters, she came up with the 'sound-bite' of the decade - the Duchess of Cambridge being handed a gift-wrapped package of thorium. We'll be on all of the front pages tomorrow!!!

And guess who's handing the package over?  It's Will himself!

En Route To Building The First-Of A Kind LFTR In The UK!

PRISM is not the only reactor that 
can 'burn' our 
plutonium

stockpile.

What a chance this would be to get some molten salt reactor experience. We could scale up the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE), operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) from 1964 to 1969, under the Directorship of a true doyen of nuclear energy, Alvin Weinberg. In the last few months of operation, the feasibility of 'burning' plutonium, as a fuel in the reactor core, was put to the test.


For a pittance of a Government investment, we could get this operationally proven technology up and running in 5 years - after all, in 5 years from funding approval, the MSRE was designed, manufactured and 'switched on', in the days of slide-rules, tee-squares, protractors and compasses - what could we do now, with CAD/CAM and 3D computer modelling and planning?




Has Paul Howarth, The Director of the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), charged with assessing the likely effectiveness of GE Hitachi's PRISM, got the vision and the guts to at least mention this to Ed Davey as a possible alternative?  


This hot salt reactor plant is just 'glorified' chemical plant and the UK has the design and technological expertise and manufacturing capacity to produce this reactor in its entirety. If we could get a couple of years of operational experience on a plutonium 'burning' unit, we'd be within a shout of getting the first-of-a-kind Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) built and, for the UK, this would mean manufacturing jobs, growth and prosperity we have not seen in 3 generations; plus, as a little aside, operators could halve the price of electricity to domestic and industrial users and still make a handsome profit - because you get twice as much bang for your bucks from a LFTR 'fired' power station.

Nuclear Waste Problem - What Nuclear Waste Problem?

Memorandum of Understanding to study the Breeder Reactor Solution to the UK's Plutonium Stockpile.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) on handling UK plutonium.

NNL will provide expert technical input to the potential U.K. deployment of GEH’s innovative PRISMreactor, which would be specifically designed to deal with the UK’s plutonium while generating 600 megawatts of low-carbon electricity.

GEH met with a number of skilled nuclear workers in West Cumbria to learn how they could work with GEH on PRISM’s potential deployment.

The country is currently storing more than 87 metric tons (and growing) of plutonium at the Sellafield nuclear complex in West Cumbria, England. 

“We are excited for the potential opportunity to utilize the expertise of NNL and help the U.K. continue to take a leadership role in the reuse of plutonium,” said Danny Roderick, senior vice president of new plant projects for GEH.

“With our recognized technical capability and long experience in fuel cycle analysis, we are pleased that GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has looked to NNL to provide independent and authoritative input to the potential U.K. application of a PRISM reactor,” said Paul Howarth, managing director of NNL.

Today, GEH, along with leading U.K. engineering firms Costain, Arup and Pöyry, (GEH’s “CAP Alliance” partners), met face-to-face with the number of highly talented and experienced nuclear sector suppliers in West Cumbria.

Should PRISM be approved for construction, in addition to creating about 900 permanent jobs and thousands of expected indirect jobs for the local community, this multibillion-pound investment would stand to create a range of opportunities for suppliers while continuing to develop the country’s nuclear energy skills base.

Drawing of the PRISM Reactor
(Power Reactor Innovative Small Module) 

About PRISM

PRISM is based on technology that was demonstrated in a fast reactor in the U.S. called the EBR II (Experimental Breeder Reactor) that operated successfully for 30 years. Calculations have shown that PRISM technology would use practically all the stored plutonium at Sellafield, as PRISM consumes much of the plutonium as a true fuel.