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Company says goal is to have demonstration prototype ready by the early 2030s Federico Carminati: ‘We have all the essential elements to build a new type of reactor’. Courtesy Transmutex. A Swiss company pioneering “an entirely new type of nuclear energy” in the form of a thorium-fuelled reactor that can reuse existing nuclear waste is hoping to reach a levelised cost of energy (LCOE) for the technology of less than $70/MWh – similar to that of large-scale commercial nuclear power plants.

Transmutex, a startup founded in 2019 by nuclear scientist Federico Carminati, former-CERN scientist Jean-Pierre Revol and entrepreneur Franklin Servan-Schreiber, said a review of data demonstrated that when comparing GW-scale nuclear power plants and the company’s planned Generation IV TMX-Start nuclear plant, the LCOE is “of the same order of magnitude” even with appropriate uncertainties at this stage of the project.

The company, whose goal is to have a demonstration prototype of its thorium plant ready by the early 2030s, said the result took into account a series of assumptions including equipment procurement costs and operation and maintenance cost which are uncertain for any Generation IV project because little to no experience feedback is available.

Date: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Original article: nucnet.org/news/swiss-company-transmutex-pioneers-new-type-of-nuclear-energy-process-2-1-2022

File photo of the Aktau fast breeder reactor. Courtesy Argonne National Laboratory. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom will help Kazakhstan decommission the BN-350 fast neutron reactor at the shutdown Aktau nuclear site on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, according to state news agency Ria Novosti.

Ria Novosti said decommissioning of the 350-MW Soviet-era liquid metal fast breeder reactor, also known as Shevchenko and Mangystau, will happen in three stages. The first will involve transferring the reactor installation to safe storage for 10 years. The second and third stages will ensure long-term safe storage for 50 years followed by the dismantling of equipment, buildings and structures, and final management of radioactive waste.

The BN-350 was among the world’s first fast neutron reactors when it began commercial operation in 1973. It was permanently shut down in 1999 and spent fuel removed.

Date: Thursday, 30 July 2020
Original article: nucnet.org/news/rosatom-to-help-with-bn-350-fast-neutron-reactor-decommissioning-7-3-2020

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