MSRR presentation held at ANS HQ

Convening on February 27 in the Behrens Conference Room, Lester Towell, director of operations at ACU’s NEXT Lab in Texas, updated ANS members on the project’s progress and timeline as well as molten salt’s potential as the future of nuclear reactor technology.

If the project’s deployment deadline—anticipated for the fourth quarter of 2026—is met, the reactor will be the first molten salt research reactor (MSRR) in the United States and will pave the way to further scientific development in the field.

“The mission of ACU’s NEXT Lab is to provide global solutions to the world’s need for energy, water, and medical isotopes by advancing the technology of molten salt reactors while educating future leaders in nuclear science and engineering,” said Towell.

According to Towell, “Molten salt takes all the things that makes nuclear good and makes it better.” Beyond being safer, cleaner, and more multifunctional than traditional reactors, MSRs are “scalable across the board,” able to be built anywhere from microreactor-sized all the way to grid-sized. MSRs are also able to use a wide variety of fuel types, including thorium and spent nuclear fuel, potentially meeting the nation’s energy and radwaste needs simultaneously.

ACU’s MSRR received its NRC permit on September 16, 2024; it is the first liquid-fuel advanced reactor in the United States to receive such a permit. It is also the first research reactor to receive NRC approval in four decades. Towell went as far as to say that “the purpose of this research reactor is to prove that we can get a license from the NRC,” highlighting how this process has laid the groundwork for future MSR construction.

The NEXT Lab is staffed by 35 full-time employees and has been assisted by more than 250 visiting researchers and ACU students. It is funded by Natura Resources, which hopes the project is a step toward developing commercially deployable MSRs in the future.