- Fuel and coolant management for MSR and FHR. Customer: molten salt and salt-cooled reactor vendors and governments. Consider: isotope production. Need: (1) supply of purified salts, and fuel salts for reactor development, reactor start-up and operation. this includes identification of the supply chain. (2) handling of the fuel waste streams. packaging and transportation to disposal sites. this includes identification of the supply chain as well – who will do the transportation (is there already company, or does it have to be in the scope of your project)? – what sites will you used for ultimate disposal of waste steams. consider all waste streams, not just TRUs. Team: Austin Griesbach, Aaron Guckenberger, Aaron Huxford, Ian Joda.
- Non-turbine power conversion for MSRs and FHRs. Customer: molten salt reactor vendors. Need: can you propose one or a set of approaches for the production of electricity from molten salt or salt-cooled power plants without the use of a turbine? You must identify the metrics by which your proposed solution outperforms a turbine power conversion. For example, if not on cost, then on total weight per power, or modularity etc. Your power conversion design must be integral to the nuclear plant design. Consider also construction, assembly, disposal, decommissioning, maintenance, and your supply chain. Team: Daniel Herron, Kyle Blomstrand, Marcus Brown.
- Plant decommissioning for molten salt reactors. Customer: DOE, molten salt reactor vendors, utilities. Need: decommissioning plans for the MSRE, and recommendations for design principles for the design of molten salt reactor to improve the ability of the plant to be decommissioned rapidly, cheaply and with little environmental impact. You need to generate a process flow and timeline for the decommissioning activity, identify all waste streams, and identify your supply chain (or key gaps in the supply chain) – which vendors will you use to procure the equipment that you’ll need, how will you transport and dispose of the waste generated, what waste streams are being generated, what is the workforce that needs to be employed? Team: Tim Finn, Ben Chen, Kingley Ogujiuba, Michael Zupan
- Sensors for MSRs and FHRs and Reactor Demo. Customer: reactor developers, electronics/sensors companies looking to apply their technologies to the nuclear field, utilities, general public interested in learning about the risks of the next generation of nuclear power. Needs: design for the sensors needed in a molten salt plant for operation, inspection, maintenance, information transparency, and community engagement. A set of community engagement tools. Deliverables: technical specification for the instrumentation needed in an MSR, a model showcasing a nuclear reactor and the sensors it is equipped with (physical model and/or virtual reality), at least one community-engagement tool (a game, a competition, other ideas). Team: Gianni Nelson, Alex Doyle, Kyle Krcmar, Kyle Anderson.
- Off-the grid reactor. Customer: communities, hospitals. Needs: Emergency power, water desalination and purification, power for transportation, rapid deployability. You need to consider the safety case. Consider if grid connectivity is an option or not. Consider if operation is done remotely (from a control center), or if nuclear operators need to be on-site, and if so how many and for what purpose. Consider the maintenance and refueling schedule. Consider fleet management – what services do you provide if there is a large fleet of these kinds of reactors. Consider security and proliferation-resistance. You need to pick a specific site – e.g. a specific hospital, or a specific town or community in Puerto Rico, or a community in the Saharan desert – so that the system you design meets the needs. You need to plan the deployment of the reactor, and its removal at end of life. Team: Grant Meadows, Luis Mendoza, Jason Kuhn, James Doherty
MSR = molten salt reactors
FHR = fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors