Moltex Energy, a small British company, has raised millions of dollars through crowdfunding by pitching its new type of nuclear fission, which it calls a Stable Salt Reactor (SSR).

Stable Salt Reactors would be safer than conventional plants, the company argues, because they ditch uranium fuel rods in favor of a type of molten salt that can't react violently to any situation.

This is one of several types of new nuclear energy being explored.

A small British nuclear energy company, Moltex Energy, has raised GBP6 million ($7.5 million) through the crowdfunding investment site Shadow Fundr. The investment will allow the company to begin a pre-licensing process in Canada, conduct further business in the U.K, and continue to develop its signature technology, a stable salt reactor (SSR).

There are several varieties of nuclear fission, which are broken down by the materials they use to moderate and/or cool the intense heat given off by the process. One of these is called a molten salt reactor (MSR), which is moderated and cooled by circulating a molten salt. It's not typical table salt, but usually a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride.

One advantage of an MSR, Moltex says, is safety: Gases aren't produced and the reaction takes place at atmospheric pressure, so the explosive release of any radioactive material isn't possible. Moltex says its SSR is an evolution from the MSR, allowing for the technique to be used without radical new development.

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Here's how it works: The fuel salt is held within vented tubes, similar to the nuclear fuel rods of uranium used in conventional plants today. Then, the tubes are placed in an assembly tank, similar to ones used in today's pressurized water reactors. In water reactors, this is the last stage of converting uranium into a functioning fuel rod.

But in a Moltex assembly tank, the company says, it would then be filled with "safe molten salt coolant, which is not pressurized like gas or water coolants in today’s power reactors and not violently reactive with air and water." Then, a second coolant system would transfer some of the heat into a reserve system. That reserve heat, Moltex says, could be used during an energy crisis, or simply to supplement other renewable energy sources.

"With the U.K. pledging to be net-zero carbon economy by 2050, intermittent renewable sources cannot do the whole job alone: a variable power source is required to bridge the gap between supply and demand. Today that source is gas. Moltex's new fission technology has a variable output and can replace gas in the national grid, making zero carbon electricity generation a reality," the company says in a press statement.

"Zero carbon is one thing, but electricity also has to be cheap," the statement reads. "Fossil fuels will finally be displaced when the alternatives are cheaper, and Moltex offers exactly that, too: electricity generated from abundant sources, carbon-free, for less than the cost of coal or gas. What's more, cheap electricity will speed up the decarbonization of heating and transport."

The company isn't just crowdfunding its way into building a nuclear reactor. In July, it won a $2.55 million grant from the U.S Department of Energy's ARPA-E energy development program.

There's a global race to explore the next, safer generation of nuclear technology. Purdue University is experimenting with having nuclear reactors ditch the vintage analog look and finally covert to digital. In addition to Moltex's SSR fission, there are also thorium plants, for which entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang advocates, and traveling wave reactors, which counts Bill Gates among its champions.

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