That’s both an upside (as you’ve described), and a downside because the already challenging environment of molten salt becomes increasingly radioactive making servicing even harder than the chemical and thermal environment of the salt make it. You also have to carefully monitor the salt, and a lot of the probes and other means of monitoring it tend to rapidly degrade in the molten salt.
It’s another issue that feels like the answer involves new materials that have a much longer life in situ, so that the inevitable maintence is infrequent. It’s a very promising technology, but it isn’t mature yet.
Terrestrial Energy and Thorcon use small sealed reactor cores that get replaced every few years.
Moltex uses a pool design, where everything is immersed from above in a pool of coolant salt, and can be pulled out and replaced as necessary. The actual fuel is isolated in vertical rods.
At least three companies use chloride salts. According to a presenter from Elysium, in the absence of water the chloride salt is less corrosive to stainless steel than water is.
I certainly agree that the technology isn't mature, since we don't have any production reactors yet. But we're making good progress, especially in Canada where regulation of new nuclear technology is more rational than in the U.S.
Canada is such an amazing contrast to the US in that area, true. I wish people here had a better understand of just how necessary nuclear power is if we want to survive to ever reach the hoped-for “clean energy future.”
It’s another issue that feels like the answer involves new materials that have a much longer life in situ, so that the inevitable maintence is infrequent. It’s a very promising technology, but it isn’t mature yet.