Flibe Energy
🇺🇸 Huntsville, US · Founded 2011 · Active
Also known as Flibe
Flibe Energy is a company in Huntsville, Alabama, founded in 2011, that develops the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). In this molten salt reactor the fuel is dissolved in a liquid fluoride salt of lithium and beryllium (the salt called FLiBe that gives the company its name), and the graphite-moderated, thermal-neutron core is designed to consume thorium. The IAEA's 2024 catalogue lists a 600 MW-thermal, 250 MWe design with a closed-cycle gas turbine. In 2026 the company said the US Department of Energy had selected it, with four other companies, for negotiations under its Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program.
- Sector
- Fission
- Technology
- Molten salt reactor
- Fuel
- Thorium
- Role
- Reactor developer
Terms
- Molten salt reactor
- Fuel DISSOLVED in the salt, which in most designs is fuel carrier and coolant at once. Distinct from a salt-cooled reactor with solid fuel; the two are often confused. Moderator, where one is used at all, is a separate design choice from the salt: thermal-spectrum MSRs are typically graphite-moderated, fast-spectrum MSRs carry no moderator.
- Thorium
- Thorium-232, which is fertile rather than fissile: after absorbing a neutron it becomes uranium-233 through two radioactive decays, the second taking about a month, and only then can it fission and sustain a chain reaction. A thorium reactor therefore needs a starting charge of fissile material. Thorium is about three times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust.