US DOE funding to accelerate molten salt reactor development

The US Department of Energy has approved cost-shared funding to accelerate the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment, a fast-spectrum molten salt reactor being developed by Southern Company, Idaho National Laboratory and Core Power. The project aims to achieve first criticality in 2027. The funding is intended to generate operating data on fuel behaviour and reactor performance to reduce uncertainty for future commercial deployment and inform licensing pathways. Core Power plans to apply the technology to maritime nuclear propulsion.

Where this fits

This is a direct countermove to the renewables-only assumption that has shaped grid policy in Australia and most developed economies. Molten salt reactors offer firm, dispatchable power with no weather dependency, minimal material footprint per unit of energy, and the prospect of higher operating temperatures suitable for industrial heat and desalination. The technology sits outside the ban on nuclear energy that constrains Australia's policy options, making it a material gap in the domestic technology pipeline even as overseas investment accelerates the alternative.

What it means

The US and partners are front-loading the technical and regulatory learning curve that any commercial molten salt deployment will require. Australia has ceded this entire domain: no equivalent experiment runs here, no regulator has licensed a pathway, and no domestic supply chain or workforce expertise exists to support deployment. If molten salt proves viable for firm power at scale, Australia will face the choice between importing the technology after decades of regulatory and industrial lag, or continuing to build a renewables-heavy grid that requires growing gas firming, transmission overbuild, and battery manufacturing from China-dependent supply chains.