Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[gcarlin]

New to the forum.

Currently working on a Masters degree in Nuclear Engineering.

Has anyone ever heard of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)?
It looks like a pretty neet idea. I have been watching some videos by a guy named Kirk Sorensen who is a big proponent for this technology.

If you want some information on them here is a good 80 minute video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8"

It would be nice to get peoples views on the technology that are in the industry.

 

[etudiant]

There is considerable discussion of the LFTR on the various forums dedicated to nuclear power.
There is no question that the concept is very attractive and has been demonstrated to work reliably on a small scale. The challenges that remain are the practical ones, which are much more difficult to solve and reduce to regulation.
The design will need to be scaled up and either made much more durable or completely rethought. Our experience with large volumes of radioactive molten salts is not huge, but it clearly indicates that everything gets eaten away, valves, pumps, heat exchangers, containers and measuring instruments. Building such a reactor may need a very different design concept, where instead of running a plant for 40 or more years with ongoing maintenance, a three or 5 year and out approach is needed. Fortunately, the very high precision part of the facility, the turbines, only see clean steam from the secondary heat exchanger, so they could serve for decades as before. In the 1950s through the 1980s, aircraft engines for example were managed for decades on the basis of a few hundred to a few thousand hours of service life, so the use briefly and throw away approach is clearly feasible. However, it seriously impacts the expected economic benefits a thorium reactor might provide.

 

[gcarlin]

From the ORNL reports they published after running a small experimental reactor for 5 years during the 1960's, they stated that corrosion was not extraordinary and that it could be managed without too much issue.

Also, since this design would run at around 800*C a gas turbine could be used to utilize the Brayton cycle.

 

[edpell]

I am not "in the industry" but I have been following LFTR for a while now. I think it is a great idea. Kirk Sorensen has started a company Flibe Energy their website is flibe-energy dot com
Their plan is to sell to the military to avoid having to deal with the NRC. The military regulates itself on nuclear matters. There are 200 bases in the US that want to have "base islanding" that is their own on site power supply independent of the civilian grid. Kirk has mentioned first criticality July 2015.

 

[gcarlin]

Yes, I have read this. I would love to get involved in this project once I finish my Master's. I found a great forum at http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum". Lots of information on LFTR.

 

[Astronuc]

Besides energyfromthorium, there is a fairly decent page on wikipedia that describes the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment (page has some links to ORNL reports)
Importantly, it was only 7.4 MW_th and only operated ~4 years after achieving criticality. Capacity factor would be another critical matter. On the other hand, compact plant of 7 MW might be appropriate for a base or plant.

Scaling up would not be trivial.

There are also modern concepts for the MSR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

According to one colleague, there was a problem of freezing (solidified) salt or plugged lines, and apparently nearly an unintended criticality event. However, I haven't verified this.


Corrosion, creep and creep fatigue are paricular concerns as operating temperatures increase, particularly above 1/3 of T_melt.

 

[ShotmanMaslo]

If scaling up is the big problem causing huge decreases in service life, why even do it? Maybe it would be more economical to build an array of more smaller kW range LFTRs with longer service life than fewer bigger ones with reduced service life (for the same power generation capacity).

 

[Astronuc]

If scaling up is the big problem causing huge decreases in service life, why even do it? Maybe it would be more economical to build an array of more smaller kW range LFTRs with longer service life than fewer bigger ones with reduced service life (for the same power generation capacity).

Small (kW) LFTRs would be prohibitively expensive, and basically, small fissile systems would be prohibitively expensive from a commercial standpoint due to the security/safety and liability issues. Fissile material is classified as special nuclear material, and there are necessarily stiff regulations regarding control of SNM. Also, compact cores are much more sensitive with respect to control.

Economies of scale are partly driven by the necessary safety considerations associated with maintaining control and retention of fission products, i.e., keeping fission products from the environment.

 

[Stanley514]

I could imagine that Thorium reactors will have the same basic problems as any other fast breeder reactors.They are terribly radioactive and in case of Thorium mean not only fast neutrons but also terrible gamma radiation as part of its cycle.It will recuire huge lead protector and expences.Also it means terrible induced radioactivity and degrading of reactor walls and materials and necessity of expensive and frequent repairs.
I know that in USSR molten salt rectors (though not necessary Thorium) were found to be without perspectives.Also since then techics may go much forward,I guess that economy just will not work it out for now.

 

[tt23]

Actually the nice thing about thorium cycle is that one does not need to use fast spectrum neutrons - Th/U cycle works well in thermal spectrum too, unlike the U/Pu cycle. This is explained in the OP Google lecture. This means low fissile loads, slow reactor periods, and low neutron damage to structural materials. Indeed the molten salt reactors allow for much lower fissile loads than even the light water reactors, as the major neutron poisons (Xe135 and other volatile FPs) are continuously removed by He sparging, and the ionicly bonded fluid fuel form allows unlimited burnup and continuous refueling, thus eliminating the need for large excess reactivity on every batch refueling common in solid fuel reactors.

Th/U cycle does not produce any more gammas than any other chain reaction fission, and any reactor needs to be designed to take that.

The only two MSRs ever operated were ARE (1954) and MSRE (1964-1969), both at ORNL. USSR never built a molten salt reactor, nor did any other country to this date.

Power scaling is also easier than suggested above. The issue is power density (hence neutron flux, thus the lifetime of primary barrier) not total power, and this was thoroughly investigated by ORNL research following the completion of the MSRE experiment. This was discussed by David LeBlanc, a physicist from University of Ottawa, see his talk given last year at ORNL here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/ThoriumHammer/videos/1/

I would recommend that people first to take time to familiarize themselves with this technology, as it is very much different from both either water moderated rectors or the fast breeders, before voicing strong opinions either way. The good place to start are talks and discussions at
http://www.energyfromthorium.com
I would like to recommend this interview in particular for popular audience, Dr. Kiki's Science Hour:

Concerning economics, there were four detailed estimates of cost of a large 1GWe MSR plant done in the past, and when corrected for inflation they come to $1~2/We at current costs. Obviously the proof is in the pudding.. See the talk of Robert Hargraves at his website for details. https://sites.google.com/site/rethinkingnuclearpower/aimhigh

A short 16 minute primer is here:
If you want to study the technology in detail, most of the original ORNL's papers were scanned and can be downloaded, along with other relevant publications, here: http://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/

Currently there is active research of MSRs within GenIV International Forum, mainly in the US, France, and the Czech Republic. Recently Chinese announced a large and high profile national program to develop thorium MSRs, but without any international cooperation - they intend to keep the related intellectual property to themselves. http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/01/30/china-initiates-tmsr/
There are also several commercial companies (Flibe, ORLY, Thorenco, Transatomicpower)in the US recently established to pursue this technology, and other independent commercial efforts centered in Japan and South Africa.

 

[Stanley514]

There seem to be a huge issue with Uranium 232 which is part of Thorium cycle and which is
terribly gamma radioactive.Proponents of Thorium power plant say it is advantage which will prevent nuclear weapon prolifiration.But in the same time which protection mesures are suggested and how much will they cost?

 

[tt23]

There seem to be a huge issue with Uranium 232 which is part of Thorium cycle and which is
terribly gamma radioactive.Proponents of Thorium power plant say it is advantage which will prevent nuclear weapon prolifiration.But in the same time which protection mesures are suggested and how much will they cost?

Stanley, the gamma radioactivity from U232 decay chain is only an issue if someone wants to isolate the uranium bred in the reactor and run away with it - then there is additional protection in the Th/U cycle which is not necessarily present in U235 or U238/Pu239 based fuels.

As long as the uranium stays in the reactor (as it should), this activity is insignificant compared to all the "regular" gammas associated with the fission process and FP decays. Therefore there are no additional measures or costs due to U232 activity.

Now all MSRs likely need to be operated in a hotcell in a double containment to provide for enough independent barriers to fission products. I would expect however that the cost of that would be significantly smaller than the containment costs of water cooled reactors, as there is no high pressure steam or other pressure/chemical driver to take the core out in the MSR, so the containment can be much smaller and close fitting - it just needs to be leak-tight and protect against external events, it does need to hold enormous pressures from the inside.

 

[Stanley514]

What is major issues with LFTR reactor then and why they are still not build everywhere?

Some proponents of Thorium power also propose to burn in such reactors Uranium 238 (altogether with Thorium).
Will it require fast neutron mode then or it still could be done with thermal neutrons only?

Concerning economics, there were four detailed estimates of cost of a large 1GWe MSR plant done in the past, and when corrected for inflation they come to $1~2/We at current costs.

Could you convert it into $/kW-h?And compare with price of coal power and usual Uranium power plants?

 

[gcarlin]

Thorium molten salt reactors were initially tossed on the shelf after the ORNL experiments in the 60's due to LWR's already having heavy national and private investment. This was a big driver for the government to end the liquid thorium program and never let it demonstrate its potential.

I believe one of the largest issues why they aren't being built right now is that it is a completely different way to go about nuclear power. The industry doesn't want the change and if it turns out to be a cheaper, safer way to do nuclear, than the coal industry is highly likely to be against it as well so they would hedge their bets and rail against it immediately.

The anti-nuclear crowd still see's it as nuclear and can attach the radioactive term to it and sell it as just another way to kill millions of people when a commonly occurring nuclear accident occurs at a plant (sarcasm). This influences politicians who want to ride the 'green' energy wave while its hip because it is a safer bet in terms of votes. In the end, no big push for advancing nuclear technology results (a.k.a. funding for research, etc.).

A lot of people in the nuclear industry (from my experience) only have a vague knowledge of molten salt reactors and most likely have never heard of a liquid fluoride thorium reactor. If they have, it has usually been incorrect information. This doesn't help progression of the technology.

But the biggest reason I see as for why no one is building them is no one has ever built a fully functioning Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. China, as tt23 stated, announced a program to design and build thorium MSR's in January. Hopefully that will help ignite a spark for this technology and maybe get something built here.

 

[tt23]

What is major issues with LFTR reactor then

The basic issue is regulatory. This technology is completely different from everything that the NRC and nuclear engineers know. No water, no steam, no solid fuel, no high pressures,..

why they are still not build everywhere?

This argument can be used against literately any progress of any kind. There is a long list of reason which I could give you, but none of them is neither very good nor convincing, at least in the current paradigm (which mind you changed dramatically since early 1970s).

The principal reason why was this abandoned in the early 1970s was that Alwin Weinberg, then director of ORNL, started to publicly question safety and sustainability of the light water reactors. Mind you he was one of the inventors of this design, which made matters worse obviously. He got consequently kicked out of ORNL, and the molten salt program - his brainchild - was abruptly killed shorty thereafter.

ORNL was the only lab which was pursuing this, nobody else really knew much about it, and it fell into obscurity. As the concept was reviewed within GenIV nearly 3 decades later, some European groups went to ORNL and made private copies of the research papers, and resumed their own (small scale - dozens of people maximum) research within GIF.

Kirk Sorensen managed to get NASA funding to scan and PDF most of these documents, and put them on the web in late 2006. Since then the information is publicly available with ease. I would say that the fact that Chinese started a high priority $1B national effort to build these reactors on their own within few years after this information became available, speaks rather favorably about merits of the concept.

Some proponents of Thorium power also propose to burn in such reactors Uranium 238 (altogether with Thorium).
Will it require fast neutron mode then or it still could be done with thermal neutrons only?

There are reasons why to use "denaturated" molten salt reactor, that is with U238 in the core. The principal one is further enhancing proliferation resistance, such as if you want to sell these reactors to potentially unsafe countries. The original DMSR is a converter with breeding ratio ~0.8, so it needs some fissile fuel to keep going. This is still much better than light water reactors with BR of 0.2-0.3.

It is possible to go to fast(er) spectrum by eliminating the graphite moderator (which is currently favored by the French research), using less moderating salt than FLiBe, and/or increasing the fraction of heavy metal (nuclear fuels) dissolved in the salt. There are limits to the last one, as the solubility of tri-fluorides (mainly PuF3) is limited, so to run U/Pu cycle in molten salt we either need to increase salt temperature to ~800C, or to use different salt. Chloride salts are excellent for fast MSRs, but much less proven than Fluoride ones.

I do not think we need to consume U238 in MSRs, at least not in the next centuries, there is plenty unused thorium, as a waste from rare Earth mining, so we can let the chloride reactors as a task for future.

However, it is possible to use small amounts of transuranics - the problematic waste from current reactors - as a fuel in regular MSRs, as a means of waste disposal. Chloride salt reactors would be better at that potentially, but are not necessary.

PS: All your questions are answered in better detail in the resources linked in my first post.

Perhaps one more, a well written first hand account of the original research:
H. G. MacPherson: The Molten Salt Reactor Adventure
http://home.earthlink.net/~bhoglund/mSR_Adventure.html

Could you convert it into $/kW-h?And compare with price of coal power and usual Uranium power plants?

Check the slides and the talk by Robert Hargraves I linked above.

 

[Stanley514]

Unfortunately Thorium plants still will need Uranium 235 as a supplement and therefore
this technology is still limited by small reserves of Uranium 235.
There is another option to use particle accelerator but efficiency and costs are still prohibitive.Also,what materials are able to withstand molten salt temperatures and corosion?

 

[tt23]

Unfortunately Thorium plants still will need Uranium 235 as a supplement and therefore
this technology is still limited by small reserves of Uranium 235.

No they do not - molten salt reactors/LFTRs that is. It is possible to use thorium as a solid fuel in light water reactors (see Lightbridge corp., Radowski design, etc.), where it only saves 5-10% of the mined uranium, but that is a completely different beast from the LFTR/MSR approach we discus here.

LFTR/thorium-MSR needs a fissile "kindling" to start the reaction off, but that kindling can be any fissile - U233, U235, or trans-uraninuim elements (TRUs) from the existing light water reactor's spent nuclear fuel. There is plenty of fissile to start the reaction with. Actually the problem now is that we bread too much of TRUs, and we do not know what to do with them, see the Yucca Mountain controversy.

There is another option to use particle accelerator but efficiency and costs are still prohibitive.

Yes indeed, this would be nuts.

Also,what materials are able to withstand molten salt temperatures and corosion?

Clean halide-fluoride salts are not corrosive to begin with - they are very stable being what they are. There are issues with some fission products though, such as tellurium. A compatible material must be selected, and reductive environment must be maintained (typically by UF3/UF4 ratio of ~0.02). High nickel alloys such as Hastelloy-N or MoNiCr are the most common candidates, qualified up to 704C.

Other options were investigated by fusion research - stainless steel (for low temperatures), amorphous carbon, Si-C composite, high molybdenum alloys such as TMZ, and tungsten. There is a slide showing the respective temperature windows in LeBlanc's talk somewhere.

 

[Stanley514]

LFTR/thorium-MSR needs a fissile "kindling" to start the reaction off, but that kindling can be any fissile - U233, U235, or trans-uraninuim elements (TRUs) from the existing light water reactor's spent nuclear fuel.

Do you want to tell that we don`t need to add Uranium 235 in LFTR on a regular basis?
Because in one place I`ve read that Thorium is converted to U233 during cycle but not in sufficiet quantity to sustain complete self reproduction.
I think that Thorium power plants could be good solution to stop burn natural gas and coal
but in this case situation might be a bit controversal.Because when we burn coal,we don't burn carbon ferever and with time it is recycled somehow in nature.But when we burn Thorium or Uranium,we burn chemical element forever.And it will gone until the end of the Universe.
So nuclear energy is least renewable from all.And what will say our descendants in few hundred of years when they will need Thorium for some reason?And how energy will be produced after all recoverable Thorium will gone?

 

[tt23]

> Because in one place I`ve read that Thorium is converted to U233 during cycle but not in sufficiet quantity to sustain complete self reproduction.

This is incorrect - it applies to U/Pu cycle in thermal spectrum, not to Th/U cycle, which is the main point.

Specifically U233 fission in thermal spectrum produces 2.3 neutrons per neutron absorption. 1 neutron is needed to keep the chain reaction going, another 1 neutron to breed U233 from Th232, and 0.3 neutrons to take care of parasitic absorption and leakage. Plenty.

Any energy source is finite (see elemental thermodynamics). Thorium will easily last for tens of thousands of years, consume long lasting TRU waste, and produce on-demand energy without emissions of any air pollution or green house gases. I'd say that is good enough.

Is geothermal energy renewable? If you think it is, thorium energy is renewable - most geothermal heat originates from thorium decay.

 

[Stanley514]

This is incorrect - it applies to U/Pu cycle in thermal spectrum, not to Th/U cycle, which is the main point.

Well,probably you could build reactor which is designed to work few decades on the same pieces of Uranium and Thorium and you don`t need to add more Thorium or Uranium dyring its cyclelife.But when you decomission old reactor and build a new one you still need a new kindling made from Uranium.I guess you can`t firestart new reactor from an old one.
Therefore there should always be some amount of rare Uranium isotope per certain amount of
Thorium.I think it is not going to work for tens of thouhand of years because rare Uranium isotopes such as U 235 will not last for so long...

 

[tt23]

No. You take the kindling from the old reactor. Besides there is plenty of TRUs around.

 

[gcarlin]

If we were to end using LWR's or reactors that require U-235 as the main source of fission, yes you could use these reactors for that long. The reactor only needs U-235 as a start up, not as a sustained injection.

Your argument is confusing me. Your arguing that a reactor which uses almost no U-235 will not be sustainable as apposed to our current reactors which require U-235 throughout their entire life as their primary fuel. This is not the issue.

Also, burning fossil fuels is anything but sustainable. Yes, carbon could one day become oil or coal again, but not in any amount of time that will matter for the human race and not at the rate we are burning it. And by the way, thorium, uranium, all heavy isotopes are being created all the time in supernovas everywhere in the universe (As well as carbon during the stars regular life). To say that fissioning them will remove them from existence forever is somewhat silly. Give the universe enough time and all elements will disappear via a black hole.

Edit: As tt23 just said, you can use the TRU's from solid fuel reactors to start the process in a LFTR instead of 'fresh' U-235. This could double the reactor as a power generator and waste incinerator.

 

[edpell]

The cleanest version of thorium reactor uses U233 as the fissile material. The reactor can gain 6% per year. That is produce enough U233 from thorium to replace the fissioned U233 and add have 6% more U233 at the end of a year. So you can double the U233 in about 12 years. The whole idea is to transmute thorium into U233 by having it absorb a neutron. Thorium is abundant enough in granite to use it as ore. There is no shortage of granite. There are only two root sources of energy in the universe 1) gravitational potential energy (not to practical) 2) fusion of elements below Fe and fission of elements above Fe.

 

[tt23]

Here is another answer to "why hasn't it been done before" from Kirk Sorensen's chat at Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/sep/07/live-web-chat-nuclear-kirk-sorensen

You asked, "most of the information on the web regarding LFTR/Thorium power is overwhelmingly positive. Why then has it not been investigated more before now?"

I have asked that question many times myself. As best as I can find out, it is because the technology is so different from existing nuclear technologies that it is not taught in the schools. Thanks to the internet things are changing.

You asked, "the answers given seem to suggest that it is because it was not weaponizable like U/Pu and so historically no government money, but that does seem a little like a conspiracy theory-type answer. is ther more to it than that?"

There is more to it, but remember that at the time this was being investigated in the US in the 1960s the overwhelming focus of the US Atomic Energy Commission was on the production of enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons. This led to huge investments into uranium technologies and plutonium separations. These technologies were totally compatible with light-water reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors, and so these were highly favored by companies and organizations that wanted to "play" in both spaces. The thorium technology is totally different and was not favored.

 

[Stanley514]

And by the way, thorium, uranium, all heavy isotopes are being created all the time in supernovas everywhere in the universe (As well as carbon during the stars regular life).

As tt23 just said, you can use the TRU's from solid fuel reactors to start the process in a LFTR instead of 'fresh' U-235.

You a bit contradict to yourself.If there is no reason to care what will happen in thousand year
timeframe,why to care about long living TRUs?

 

[gcarlin]

You a bit contradict to yourself.If there is no reason to care what will happen in thousand year
timeframe,why to care about long living TRUs?

They are highly toxic to most living things if exposed.

 

[Stanley514]

Is geothermal energy renewable? If you think it is, thorium energy is renewable - most geothermal heat originates from thorium decay.

Well,there exist certain difference between geothermal energy which will last for billions of years ( as well as wind and tides ) and say Uranium 235 which will last only for 50-100 years under current rates of consumption.Or deuterium in the oceans which would last millions of years if they would make fusion work.If you could firestart entire generation of Thorium reactors from small piece of Uranium this is of cours great and extends resources a lot.
At least until they will develop something even more everlasting .

 

[tt23]

Here is a calculation of how long uranium resources would last, if we fission down all of the abundant even isotope U238: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

Thorium is about 4x more abundant than uranium..

 

[Stanley514]

Here is a calculation of how long uranium resources would last, if we fission down all of the abundant even isotope U238: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

There is not too much proved data,mostly ``cosiderations``.
If they are going to exract Uranium from a granite they would need to reprocess trillions tons of that staff anually.I guess you realize simple stupidity of such gargantuan works?..
The same relates to sea water.I just can`t believe in any reasonable economy or common sense of it, regardless of ``considerations``.
If you so much in favour of gargantuan metter extraction and reprocessing why not to build
from all that extracted granite giant tidal dams and replace all nuclear reactors?At least there
would be no need to do it annually.

 

[tt23]

Actually it is proved data. U concentration in oceans is well known and so is the extraction technology. The processed amount of sea water is irrelevant- the process is passive sorbtion and the water is pumped around by solar powered sea currents.

The general point is that if you can fission all the heavy metal fuel, such as in a LFTR, the fuel required is very small: about 200x less than in a LWR.


Concerning thorium specifically we already mine more than we need to power civilization (that is about 7000 tonnes per year) due to rare Earth mining. REEs are mined for all kinds of renewable energy and other green applications, funny enough ...

 

[Stanley514]

The processed amount of sea water is irrelevant- the process is passive sorbtion and the water is pumped around by solar powered sea currents.

Well,concentration of Uranium in seawater is 3 parts per billion.It means you need to sorp 3 billion tons of water to get 10 tons of Uranium.100.000 tons of Uranium (current anual consumption) will require to sorp 30 trillions tons of seawater anually.Do you realize gargantuan size of a such fascilities?You will need to sorp entire Gulfstream! (Sorry,that`s lie.Only 1/30 of average Gulfstream flow.But this is in case of 100% efficiency of extraction only).

Maybe it`s easier to install water turbines and get energy directly from the currents?
Try to calculate it for fun.

 

[edpell]

This thread is about thorium reactors which require zero uranium beyond the startup load. The ideal startup load is U233. Please watch one of the many videos by Kirk Sorensen that example thorium reactors in detail. Just google his name.

All future U233 used in the reactor is breed from thorium in the reactor. Zero uranium input after startup. In fact is can breed more U233 than is uses so providing startup loads for new thorium reactors (1 goes to 2 goes to 4 goes to 8 ...).

 

[edpell]

"Mining thorium in the Lemhi Pass is immediately feasible, because the deposits there are not only high-grade but also near the surface. Additionally the identified mining sites are close to roads, water, and power as well as to long established towns and cities in Idaho and Montana. Thorium Energy, Inc. believes that its existing reserves could be as much as three times the 915,000 tons that have been geologically identified on its properties.

The company believes that already identified resources of high-grade thorium minerals are economically extractable and that these accessible deposits of thorium are large enough to supply the power needs of the entire U.S. for centuries through thorium-fueled nuclear reactors."

from http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_po...-to-uranium-for-nuclear-power-generation.aspx

This is the property held by one company in the US.

 

[Stanley514]

This thread is about thorium reactors which require zero uranium beyond the startup load.

Very well,I agree that in short term perspective it would be better swith Uranium to Thorium as fuel.Another perspective is some renewables.But because Uranium 233 doesn`t occur in nature and any synthetic isothopes like this is only ``remnants`` of more abundant products, I decided that there should be mentioned resources of U 235.
What is concerning Thorium reactors,Indians seem to have some operative experimental facility.It is not known if they are fond of it.I guess it means that lot of problems should be solved.For example how are they going to work on separation of Protactinium and graphite cores degradation?

 

[jkiel]

Indians seem to have some operative experimental facility.It is not known if they are fond of it.

It's my understanding that Thorium reactors in India are using solid fuel. While it's interesting to hear about what they have accomplished, from what I can see solid fuel reactors have very little crossover with Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) or Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR). With MSR/LFTRs in mind, the Indian results are inconsequential.

MSR/LFTR are the items to be researching, not Thorium alone.