Motherboard: Why Canada Is Selling Advanced Nuclear Reactors to China

Canadian nuclear startups are also chasing new technologies. Terrestrial Energy has plans to build a commercially-viable molten salt reactor (MSR) by the 2020s.

Since the concept was first developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s, it’s been touted as a safer alternative. Terrestrial’s small, modular design is targeted at remote communities and providing carbon-free power directly to heavy industrial installations.

The nuclear fuel used in an MSR is liquid, so it can’t melt down, and it’s chemically bound to the molten salt coolant. That means a loss of coolant, like the one that happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011, isn’t possible, said Canon Bryan, Terrestrial’s co-founder.