The last operational Molten Salt Reactor shut down in the United States in 1969.
It ran in a remote location.
Research documents were kept in a walk-in closet.
For 3 decades, we didn't even know this was an option.
Then in 2002, ORNL's Molten Salt documentation is scanned into PDF
and made accessible to some NASA employees.
2004.
Kirk Sorensen delivers CD-ROMs full of Molten Salt research to policy makers,
national labs and universities.
Dr. Per Peterson at Berkeley receives a copy.
2006.
Kirk moves the scanned research onto his website.
2008.
Molten Salt Reactor lectures begin at the Googleplex,
and are hosted on Google's YouTube channel.
2009.
The very first thorium conference is held.
Wired Magazine runs a feature story on Thorium.
2010.
American Scientist runs a feature on Thorium.
International thorium conferences begin.
Server logs show Chinese students downloading Molten Salt Reactor PDFs from Kirk's website.
2011.
China announces their intention to build a Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor.
In the U.S., Flibe Energy is founded.
Transatomic Power is founded.
2012.
Baroness Bryony Worthington tours ORNL's historic Molten Salt Reactor Experiment,
which has never been made open to the public.
Kun Chen visits Berkeley California,
telling us that 300 Chinese work full-time on Molten Salt Reactors.
2013.
Terrestrial Energy is Founded.
2014.
ThorCon is Founded.
Moltex is founded.
Seaborg Technologies are founded.
Copenhagen Atomics are founded.
2015.
A flood of technical details and technology assessments are released by molten salt startups.
India reveals their new facility for molten salt preparation and purification.
China announces that now 700 engineers are working on their Molten Salt Reactor program.
Bill Gates' TerraPower receives a grant to investigate Molten Salt.
2016.
Just as this video is about to be released Myriam Tonelotto releases a feature length
documentary about Molten Salt Reactors called: "Thorium - Far Side of Nuclear Power".
Dr. James Hansen tells Rolling Stone magazine
that we should develop Molten-Salt Reactors powered by thorium.
And Oak Ridge discovers actual film footage of the Molten Salt Reactor itself.
Produced in 1969, it was forgotten in storage for over 45 years.
It offers up our first and only glimpse of an operating Molten-Salt Reactor.
As a communications asset, this is utterly invaluable
and will be fully incorporated into future videos.
In 2017 I think just about anything could happen.
The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment was one of the most important,
and I must say, brilliant achievements of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
And I hope that after I'm gone, people will look at the dusty books
that were written on molten salts and will say,
"Hey! These guys had a pretty good idea, let's go back to it."
Back in the 60s, Alvin Weinberg saw Molten- Salt Reactors as a means of addressing our
energy pollution, and the need for clean water.
Desalination would turn the Middle East into farmland.
Power centers would co-locate energy intensive manufacturing and Small Modular Reactors.
Surplus power would be sold to nearby communities.
He knew- energy was the ultimate raw material the more energy you have,
the easier it is to recycle, and use virgin materials more efficiently.
Given enough power, we can pull carbon right out of the atmosphere or ocean.
One day, on our path towards such a future, they'll be talking about
putting Molten-Salt Reactor in your home state.
It will create manufacturing jobs, and produce electricity for your home.
It will charge your electric car at night.
Give me a martini, straight-up, with two olives.
For the vitamins.
You'll do things with energy that we can't even imagine.
And you'll be kept safe by a chemically stable choice of coolant,
and gravity powered passive safety systems.
I don't know when we'll get to that point.
Everyone's design is different.
Everyone's path to market- different.
I suspect more than one will succeed.
Before they do, I want everyone to know what Molten-Salt Reactors are, and why they are.