Thorizon
🇳🇱 Amsterdam, NL · Founded 2018 · Active
Thorizon is a Dutch reactor developer based in Amsterdam, spun off from NRG, the Netherlands' nuclear research institute, where its molten salt technology was first developed. Its reactor core is divided into replaceable fuel cartridges, swapped every five to ten years, and is designed to use material recovered from spent nuclear fuel. The company says each commercial unit would supply 250 MW of heat or 100 MW of electricity. Its plan runs from laboratory tests in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, through a full-scale non-nuclear pilot, to a research-scale demonstrator called Pioneer at the NRG PALLAS site in Petten and a first commercial plant, Thorizon One, at the Borssele nuclear site, with construction planned to start in the early 2030s.
- 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.
Designs
| Design | Developer | Approach | Electrical output per unit | Size class | Licensing stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thorizon One Thorizon | Thorizon | Molten salt reactor | 100 MWe planned | Small modular reactor | No milestone recorded |
Related companies
Sources
- Thorizon - Nuclear without compromiseoperator
- www.thorizon.com/about-usoperator