Reply To: Competition from the Thorium reactor

[Tulse]

Axil wrote: If a reactor and/or its fuel is not self protected and its can be subject to proliferation, it must be guarded against any credible threat.

Unless this IAEA security requirement (aka security plan) is met, the NRC will not license the reactor.

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In order for the FF reactor to be licensed by the NRC, if the FF reactor is not buried underground, a security force will be required to repel any credible threat 24/7/365. Most probably, the size of that force will be the same as the guard force that protects the current fleet of light water reactors.

Proliferation of what? Decaborane? The reason the NRC and IAEA worry about fission reactors is that their fuel can be used for bombs, and is highly radioactive. FF devices have extremely low levels of radioactivity, and their fuel isn’t useful for making weapons. I doubt the IAEA would even see a FF device as falling within its mandate (at least no more so than a hospital cyclotron), and similarly the NRC is going to care much less about a FF device than a nuclear battery filled with uranium.

There are plenty of devices in the world that produce X-rays and ion beams and neutrons. Many of those are used for industrial and medical purposes. FF isn’t really doing anything new, and is not a proliferation threat.