Natura Resources
🇺🇸 Abilene, US · Founded 2020 · Active
Natura Resources is a company in Abilene, Texas, developing liquid-fuelled molten salt reactors, in which the uranium fuel is dissolved in a circulating fluoride salt. Its first unit, the MSR-1, is a research reactor of less than 1 MW thermal to be built on the campus of Abilene Christian University: on 16 September 2024 the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the university a construction permit for it, which POWER Magazine reported as the NRC's first for a liquid-fuelled advanced reactor. Natura led the licensing effort with the university's NEXT Lab, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin. Its commercial design, the MSR-100, is described by the company as delivering 100 MW without saying whether electric or thermal. The company also says a reactor could produce desalinated water and medical isotopes.
- Sector
- Fission
- Technology
- Molten salt reactor
- Fuel
- High-assay low-enriched uranium
- 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.
- High-assay low-enriched uranium
- High-assay low-enriched uranium: uranium enriched to between 5% and just under 20% uranium-235, as the US Department of Energy defines it. It is still formally low-enriched, because the international line for highly enriched uranium is 20%, which is why many designs specify 19.75%. The binding supply constraint for many advanced reactor designs. The 5 to 10% part, which carries lighter US physical-security requirements than material from 10% up, is also tagged as LEU+. A developer calling fuel in that band 'LEU' is making a labelling choice, not describing a different enrichment.
Designs
| Design | Developer | Approach | Electrical output per unit | Size class | Licensing stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSR-100 | Natura Resources | Molten salt reactor | Output not stated | Not classed | No milestone recorded |