Indonesia’s Directorate of Nuclear Installation and Material Licensing, Bapeten, has completed field verification activities at the site selected for a possible Thorcon 500 NPP on Kelasa Island, part of the Bangka Belitung Islands. The verification team comprised eight specialists and team leader Nur Siwhan as Associate Expert Radiation Supervisor.
US-based nuclear company ThorCon signed an agreement with Bapeten in 2023 to officially start a safety, security, & safeguards (3S) consultation in preparation for licensing its 500 MWe demonstration NPP.
Bapeten carried out a series of required technical evaluations, including the Site Evaluation Programme (PET – Program Evaluasi Tapak) and Site Evaluation Management System (SMET – Sistem Manajemen Evaluasi Tapak) proposed by Thorcon Power Indonesia.
Bapeten said the verification aims to ensure the compatibility of PET and SMET documents with conditions in the field as well as the fulfilment of applicable standards and legislative requirements. Verification is also carried out to ensure the availability of adequate secondary data, checking locations for the installation of monitoring stations and drilling sites, testing field conditions and checking management system documents. This included initial verification of the availability of seismicity, meteorological & climatological monitoring infrastructure from the Meteorological Agency of Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG – Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologidan Geofisika)
Based on the results of the verification, Bapeten said Thorcon “is considered to meet the licensing requirements … with several recommendations” and “the Tread Evaluation Approval permit process can be forwarded to the stage of issuing applicable regulations in accordance with the law”.
Singapore-based Thorcon said this is the first-ever nuclear power plant-related licensing approval from the Indonesian government “and it marks the completion of the first step of Thorcon’s nuclear power plant licensing campaign in Indonesia”.
The approval comes after the Indonesian government announced in May plans to introduce 10 GWe of nuclear power by 2040. Currently, more than half of Indonesia’s installed power capacity is coal. Thorcon says its molten-salt reactor (MSR) technology and shipyard-build approach is uniquely positioned to deliver nuclear power to the region that is cost competitive with coal.
“We see enormous potential for nuclear power in Indonesia, which is why we have established a domestic nuclear power and licensing team,” said Kun Chen, Chief Nuclear Officer. “We are the first and only nuclear company to have done this.”
According to Thorcon, the next steps for the Kelasa site are to obtain the site licence and design approval, with the potential to start construction in 2027 and achieve full power by 2031. This project will provide domestic jobs related to preparing the site to receive the power plant, operating and securing the plant once it is fully deployed, and building and operating an Indonesia-based fuel salt preparation centre. Once the plant is fully deployed, it will provide clean electricity to power industry in the Bankga Belitung Province and beyond.
“We’ll be working closely with the local community and governor as we work towards the site license and design approval,” noted Dhita Ashari, COO at Thorcon Power Indonesia. “It is now widely understood that nuclear power is one of the safest forms of electricity generation, but we’re keen to ensure local communities understand the inherent safety of Thorcon’s unique design.”
Matt Wilkinson, CEO, Thorcon International said: “Our MSR technology operates at low pressure with liquid fuel. These two factors enable our inherent safety. We’re safe thanks to the laws of physics. In contrast, traditional nuclear safety relies heavily on operators.”
According to Thorcon’s website its molten salt reactor technology is “based on Oak Ridge National Lab’s successful 1960s experiments”. The plants will be “built in shipyards, floated to site, and operational in just two years”. Built with double-hull oil tanker designs, Thorcon reactors “leverage efficient shipyard techniques, reducing deployment times to two years and enabling flexible deployment”. Two 557 MW thermal reactors will power a single 500 MW plant, “using standardised components for repetitive production and cost efficiency”.
As to fuel, “uranium dissolved in molten salt eliminates the need for precision fabrication of fuel pellets and assemblies, significantly reducing production costs”. Thorcon plans to use standard, 5% enriched uranium-235 dissolved in beryllium and sodium fluoride salts which “provides high-temperature tolerance and low-cost heat transfer, avoiding the need for expensive enriched lithium salts”.
An earlier version of ThorCon’s website said its power plant “is a straightforward scale-up of the successful United States Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). A full-scale 500 MW ThorCon prototype can be operating under test within four years. After proving the plant safely handles multiple potential failures and problems, commercial power plant production can begin.” However, MSRE was shut down in 1969 and is now being prepared for dismantling. While there is now renewed interest in MSR technology in the US and elsewhere, there are no projects anywhere in the world near realisation.
ThorCon has been promoting its technology to key Indonesian institutions since 2015, the year that Indonesia decided to cancel its $8bn plans to construct four nuclear plants with a total capacity of 6GWe by 2025. In 2014, ThorCon’s parent company Florida-based Martingale, had completed the preliminary detailed design of a molten salt reactor, technical details of which were published at thorconpower.com “It is the basis for securing feedback, funding, and siting for the project,” it said, adding that “the goal for 2015 is to identify a host country and site for construction of the non-nuclear prototype ThorCon, along with funding to enable construction”.
In January 2015 Martingale formally unveiled its ThorCon liquid-fuel nuclear reactor design using uranium and thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt. At that time, production was expected to start by 2020. ThorCon’s initial approach to Indonesia took place in October 2015 when the Indonesia Thorium Consortium signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Martingale to develop thorium molten salt reactors. ThorCon’s statement said Indonesia then planned to commission its first such reactor in 2021. The consortium comprised PT Industry Nuklir Indonesia (INUKI), the state-owned nuclear fuel processing company; PT PLN, a state-owned power generation company; and PT Pertamina, the state oil and gas company.
In the subsequent years ThorCon signed a raft of further agreements. State shipbuilding company PT PAL Indonesia agreed to conduct a development study and build a 500MWe plant as EPC contractor which would be placed on a 185-metre-long barge built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in Okpo, South Korea and then towed to a site in Indonesia. Indonesia’s Defence Ministry signed a MOU with ThorCon to study developing a thorium molten salt reactor for either power generation or marine vehicle propulsion. The ministry aimed to have an operational molten salt reactor by 2025.
In mid-2022, Thorcon reached agreement with the National Research & Innovation Agency (BRIN) to jointly develop and build an experimental NPP based on molten salt reactor technology. An agreement with inspection and certification company Bureau Veritas (BV) followed in December 2022. It was then anticipated that the Technology Qualification process would take a minimum of three years and, if successful, the deployment phase would require an additional two years bringing implementation to 2027.
However, Dandang Purwadi, Director of National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) told The Jakarta Post in 2023 that thorium nuclear technology was not yet ready for commercial application. “We have to wait around 10 years for the technology to mature, then it takes 10 years to build the facility”, he said.
Thorcon’s current website says it aims to operate its first 500 MWe plant in Indonesia by the early 2030s, marking Southeast Asia’s first large-scale shipyard-built nuclear plant. “This breakthrough project is just the beginning – paving the way for a clean energy revolution across the region.”
