Education and Training Series #92: International Molten Salt Research in Support of MSR Development
Part of a webinar series hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group since 2016.
Who should attend?
Policymakers, industry professionals, regulators, researchers, students, the general public.
About the "GIF Education and Training" Webinars
These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.
These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG).
About this Webinar
With the energy crisis in Europe and the global climate change, we are seeing an international resurgence of interest in Molten Salt Reactor Systems with numerous research programs focusing on the development of new concepts of various designs. MSR concept is recognized as one of the few game-changing technologies that can overcome existing barriers to the adoption of commercial nuclear power. Not only is the generation of electricity with closing the fuel cycle foreseen, but new opportunities are emerging like producing clean water from desalination, or carbon-neutral hydrogen. Panelists from Canada, Denmark, France, and USA with a wide range of expertise spanning molten salt chemistry, materials science, modeling and simulation from academia, national laboratories, and commercial organizations will engage the audience in presenting their concept with the purpose of identifying innovative technology driven approaches to accelerate MSR development and deployment.
Presentation made during the webinar
Meet the presenters
Speakers
Aslak Stubsgaard is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Copenhagen Atomics, in Copenhagen Denmark. Aslak earned a Master of Sciences in theoretical and mathematical physics from Aarhus University. In addition to the distinctive approach to thorium energy - using molten salts, Copenhagen Atomics fabricates and then sells to other players some of unique components both in molten salt energy storage, concentrated solar power and molten salt reactor industries.
Edward Pheil, Chief Technology Officer & Founder at Exodys Energy, graduated from Penn State University with a Nuclear Engineering Fusion degree. He has 32 years of experience earned in multidisciplinary reactor technologies at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory, KAPL. Ed has spent the last 9 years dedicated to the development of molten salt reactors, first with Elysium Industries and now with Exodys Energy.
Isabelle Morlaes has 30 years of experience in the nuclear business, in both reactor design & maintenance field and fuel cycle field (both front and back ends). She holds several management and strategy positions in different business units of AREVA and Framatome, then Orano. Since 2000 she is the Senior Vice President, MSR Project Manager in Orano. She works in the Innovation Department of Orano. Her mission includes the exploration of new business models for Orano on the fuel cycle using MSR “burning” capabilities, the coordination of initiatives to develop partnership and business with MSR designers, and the search for international collaborations and co-financing schemes, to accelerate the development of the MSR technology and its fuel cycle, in synergy with the La Hague plant.
Dr. Pearson serves as the Director of the San Rafael Energy Research Center in Emery County, Utah where he works with local leadership and universities to research and commercialize groundbreaking sustainable energy technologies. Dr. Pearson earned an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California Irvine studying used nuclear fuel recycling. Dr. Pearson has worked in the energy field in nuclear energy and advanced unconventional fossil fuels, as well as in energy policy having served in 2015 in Washington D.C. as an AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science - Science and Engineering Fellow in the office of Senator Orrin G. Hatch.
Dr. Markus Piro is currently an Associate Professor at McMaster University where he is conducting research in nuclear fuels and materials for conventional and advanced reactors. Previously, he was the Chair of the Energy and Nuclear Engineering Department and Canada Research Chair in Nuclear Fuels and Materials at Ontario Tech, and Head of the Fuel Modelling Section at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. He earned a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada and did a Post Doc at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In addition to research in academia, he is the President of Piro Consulting, a consulting firm supporting the nuclear industry primarily in safety and licensing.
Moderator
Dr. Patricia Paviet is the National Technical Director of the Molten Salt Reactor program for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy managing research and development to support development of Molten Salt Reactor Systems across six US national laboratories. In addition, she is the Chair of the Generation IV International Forum Education and Training Working Group which she has managed since November 2015. Efforts of this group focus on the GIF webinar series, Pitch your Gen IV Research competition, as well Knowledge Management and Knowledge Preservation of advanced reactor systems. She has 30 years of experience in the nuclear fuel cycle, actinide chemistry and repository sciences. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France and a PhD in Radiochemistry from the University Paris XI, Orsay, France.