Terrestrial Energy’s 400-MW Integral Molten Salt Reactor has begun the second stage of its pre-licensing vendor design review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the company said October 16.
Terrestrial CEO Simon Irish touted the safety advantages of the IMSR design in a speech October 2, saying that molten salt is “capable of a passive mechanism of convection cooling in every possible set of circumstances.” The relative simplicity of the IMSR design, he said, reduces its “complexity and cost” compared with conventional reactors. Unlike other advanced reactor designs under development that would require so-called high-assay LEU, or HALEU, the IMSR uses uranium that is “currently available in nuclear supply chains,” he said.
