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THORIUM POWER LTD (U-THPW) - News Release
Thorium Power Reaches Major Milestone in Testing of Its Proprietary Nuclear Fuel
2007-03-06 09:00 ET - News Release
MCLEAN, VA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 03/06/07
Thorium Power Ltd. (OTCBB: THPW), the leading developer of low waste, non-proliferative nuclear fuel technology for existing and future reactors, today announced the successful completion of thermal-hydraulic experiments, a key step in the validation process of its thorium-based nuclear fuel designs. The work was performed at the thermal-hydraulic facilities of OKBM, the leading nuclear design bureau in Russia.
The recently completed testing consisted of two experiments simulating emergency pressure and temperature conditions inside the core of commercial reactors: The first included a one-meter long complete seed and blanket assembly compatible with the VVER-1000 reactor design. The second experiment simulated conditions in Western PWR reactor designs, and was performed on a one-meter long partial seed fuel assembly consisting of 25 rods.
Thorium Power's CEO Seth Grae said: "This is a breakthrough result for Thorium Power. It confirms that our thorium-based fuel designs are scalable and can meet the pressure and temperature performance standards for commercial light water reactors. We are on track for the full scale validation of our fuel in a commercial reactor."
Dr. Andrey Mushakov, Thorium Power's Executive Vice President-International Nuclear Operations, added: "Over the last three years we have successfully demonstrated the promise of our fuel designs on a small-scale basis by fabricating fuel samples for irradiation testing in the IR-8 research reactor. We have now successfully scaled up our designs -- by more than a factor of three -- to fuel rods of a full meter. The final step will be to increase the scale of the rods to the size used in commercial reactors -- approximately three and a half meters. Further, while our initial thermal-hydraulic testing involved separate seed rods and blanket rods, the new tests combined the seed and blanket bundles in a single fuel assembly -- the exact configuration we will use in full scale commercial VVER-1000 reactors. Thorium Power's Technical Advisory Board, comprised of nuclear industry experts with long track records of designing and selling new fuels and reactors worldwide, met from February 28th to March 2nd and reviewed these results in the course of developing plans to accelerate the technology demonstration and commercialization schedule."
Mr. Grae continued: "Going forward, the company will execute fuel product validation steps leading to demonstration of our fuel (so-called lead test assemblies, LTAs) in a VVER-1000 nuclear power plant powering over one million households. These validation steps include:
-- Scaling up the fuel fabrication process to full length (10 feet) rods
used in commercial VVER-1000 reactors
-- Validating thermal hydraulic performance of full size (10 feet) seed
and blanket fuel assembly
-- Completing ampoule irradiation testing and perform post-irradiation
examination to confirm fuel performance
-- Obtaining final regulatory approvals for insertion of fuel in VVER-
1000 commercial reactors."
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