por 
THE BAJA POST
NEWSROOM
SOURCE: PR NEWSMEDIA
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a construction permit (CP) for the deployment of the Natura Resources’ MSR-1 system at Abilene Christian University (ACU). This marks the first construction permit for a liquid-fueled advanced reactor and only the second for any advanced reactor issued by the NRC.
«Natura recognized early on that the NRC is the gold standard of licensing of nuclear reactors. We made a conscious decision to work with the NRC to license our technology for deployment here in the States rather than taking our technology outside their jurisdiction or attempting to avoid the licensing process entirely. The NRC’s issuance of the Construction Permit for the Natura MSR-1 deployment at ACU shows that our technology can be licensed and de-risks the licensure of Natura’s 100MWe systems,» said Douglass Robison, Founder and President.
Natura Resources has taken an iterative, milestone-based approach to advanced reactor development and deployment, focused on efficiency and performance. This started in 2020 when Natura brought together ACU’s NEXT Lab with Texas A&M University, the University of Texas, and the Georgia Institute of Technology to form the Natura Resources Research Alliance. In only four years, Natura and its partners have developed a system that the NRC has successfully licensed. The successful deployment of the Natura MSR-1 system at ACU as the molten salt research reactor (MSRR) is going to provide valuable operational data to support Natura’s 100MWe systems and will also serve as a world-class research tool to train advanced reactor operators and educate students.
«We appreciate the thorough reviews by the NRC staff. The environmental review was completed in March and found that the MSRR would have no significant impact on the environment. The safety review that was just completed found that the Natura MSR-1 design and analysis meets the federal regulations and is safe to construct. This construction permit is the first step in the NRC’s two-step licensing process. It allows Natura and ACU to build and operate the MSRR without uranium. The next step is the operating license, which will authorize Natura and ACU to fuel the reactor and demonstrate the elegance of molten salt technology,» said Ben Beasley, Director of Licensing.
