Dr. David Holcomb, Fissionaire, LLC, will give a talk entitled "Fissionaire’s Proliferation Resistant Thermal-Spectrum Molten Salt Breeder Reactor"

February 06, 2026

@10:10 am, Blacksburg, 440 Goodwin Hall (in-person), Arlington, 6-051 VTRC.
For remote access, click here.

Abstract
Fissionaire is developing proliferation-resistant, thermal-spectrum molten salt breeder reactor (TS-MSBR) power plants. TS-MSBRs offer the potential for affordable, safe, inexhaustible energy with minimal potential for nuclear material misuse and without significant actinide waste generation. Realizing the full set of TS-MSBR capabilities is only now becoming possible with the advent of advanced fuel-salt-processing techniques, improved materials, advanced modeling and simulation tools, and a more detailed understanding of fuel-salt properties. Fissionaire will be building and operating a small (10 MWth) TS-MSBR university reactor within the next 5-years as a stepping-stone towards modular ~300MWth reactors within the next decade. The seminar provides an overview of Fissionaire’s TS-MSBR design with emphasis on maintaining strong passive safety, initiating a breeding fuel cycle with LEU+ fuel, maintaining strong proliferation resistance, and minimizing high-level waste production. The seminar also briefly discusses how Fissionaire’s approach minimizes construction, licensing, and operating costs.

Bio
David Holcomb is currently the Chief Technology Officer and a co-founder of Fissionaire Corporation. He was previously the Molten Salt Technology Lead and a Nuclear Science and Engineering Fellow at Idaho National Laboratory. Dr. Holcomb retired from a 30-year career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Holcomb also previously served as the U.S. Department of Energy molten salt reactor (MSR) national technical area lead. Dr. Holcomb is a Battelle distinguished inventor and chairs the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS) working group that developed the first MSR design safety standard. Dr. Holcomb also led the development of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s molten salt fuel qualification methodology. He is also a past chair of the ANS Human Factors, Instrumentation and Controls Division. Dr. Holcomb is adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee Department of Nuclear Engineering, has previously served as adjunct faculty at the Colorado School of Mines and serves on the Ohio State University’s nuclear engineering program advisory board. Dr. Holcomb holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from The Ohio State University (OSU) (1992), an M.S. in nuclear engineering also from OSU (1990), and a B.S. degree in engineering science specializing in engineering physics from Colorado State University (1987).