Thorium’s Tipping Point: Tracking the Rise of Molten Salt Reactors

LupoToro Group’s Private Equity Team highlights the breakthrough potential of Copenhagen Atomics’ thorium molten salt reactors, which promise safer, scalable, and waste-reducing nuclear energy for industrial and global energy applications.

For decades, thorium-powered nuclear energy has lingered on the margins of scientific ambition, an elusive, in many ways superior alternative to uranium-based reactors, consistently hindered by regulatory inertia, political detours, and engineering complexity. But what was once a dream buried beneath Cold War-era research papers is now inching toward commercial reality. The catalyst? A quiet but revolutionary push from Copenhagen Atomics, a Danish company determined to rewrite the rulebook on how the world produces clean, scalable, and safe energy.

At LupoToro Group, our Private Equity Team has been increasingly attentive to advanced nuclear energy investments, particularly in technologies that straddle civilian infrastructure needs and long-range defense utility. Thorium-fueled molten salt reactors (MSRs) are now firmly on that radar.

A Second Nuclear Era: The Promise of Breeding Fuel, Not Burning It

Copenhagen Atomics is leading a resurgence in molten salt reactor technology, a concept pioneered by U.S. scientists in the 1960s but later abandoned in favor of more weaponizable uranium-based fuel cycles. Where conventional reactors burn fuel and leave toxic waste, the thorium MSR concept flips the paradigm: it breeds fuel while producing power, enabling a potentially exponential scaling of nuclear capacity.

These reactors aren’t massive concrete behemoths; they are modular, compact, and scalable, about the size of a 40-foot shipping container. The vision: produce one unit per day, truck them worldwide, and offer clients a plug-and-play nuclear solution that includes operations, maintenance, and decommissioning. In terms of deployment agility and cost control, this approach mirrors the evolution of cloud infrastructure in tech.

Why Thorium, Why Now?

Thorium is three to four times more abundant than uranium in Earth’s crust. But the key lies in how it behaves in the reactor. When exposed to neutrons from fissile materials like uranium-235 or plutonium-239, thorium-232 transmutes into uranium-233, a fissile fuel capable of sustaining a chain reaction. The excess neutrons produced during this cycle don’t just maintain the reaction, they create more fuel. It’s a breeder system, one that produces more than it consumes.

This is not theoretical. The original U.S. molten salt reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory ran successfully for over 15,000 hours during the 1960s. Copenhagen Atomics is reviving this model with 21st-century engineering, creating reactors that run not just cleaner, but smarter.

MSR: A Safer, Simpler Nuclear Design

Traditional nuclear reactors operate under high pressure and require water to keep systems cool, risking catastrophic failure if containment is breached. By contrast, molten salt reactors operate at atmospheric pressure, use liquid salts as both fuel medium and coolant, and naturally shut down in the event of overheating. If power fails, the salt drains into a containment tank, solidifying and locking in radioactive material, a safety feature known as “walkaway safety.”

Copenhagen Atomics’ layered “Onion Core” design is particularly notable. It employs heavy water to moderate neutrons and a thorium “breeding blanket” to generate fresh uranium-233. Fuel and heat exchange systems are maintained remotely, with robotic arms and sealed containment structures minimizing radiation exposure and reducing licensing complexity.

From Waste to Fuel: Closing the Nuclear Loop

One of the most compelling value propositions for thorium MSRs is their ability to “burn” legacy nuclear waste. By seeding thorium reactions with isotopes drawn from spent uranium fuel, these reactors don’t just mitigate the nuclear waste problem, they help solve it. Conventional spent fuel must be secured underground for tens of thousands of years; thorium reactor by-products decay in a matter of centuries, manageable by any modern civilization.

Moreover, by leveraging molten salt chemistry, waste products can be extracted while the reactor is running, keeping the reaction clean and efficient. This is nuclear circularity in its most elegant form.

Engineering at the Edge: Meeting the Materials Challenge

The molten salt mix (FLiNaK) used in these reactors operates at 700°C, subjecting system components to constant corrosive and radioactive stress. To solve this, Copenhagen Atomics developed a molten salt pump that levitates its moving parts on magnetic bearings, dramatically reducing wear. The reactor vessels themselves are constructed from custom steel alloys designed to withstand both corrosion and neutron bombardment for five years, at which point the entire module is swapped, but not the expensive fuel salts or heavy water, which are recycled.

This modularity is crucial. Unlike conventional reactors that remain in operation for half a century using aging tech, the Copenhagen model upgrades with every swap. Every five years, clients get the latest generation, driving continual gains in efficiency and cost-reduction.

Market Viability Without Government Dependence

What makes this opportunity even more relevant to private equity and venture stakeholders is its self-contained business model. Copenhagen Atomics is not selling reactors; it’s selling heat. The company will build, site, operate, and decommission its reactors, assuming full liability in exchange for long-term contracts with industrial clients. This avoids entanglements with public policy battles and opens the door to nuclear deployment in markets previously locked out of the sector, like Indonesia, which is already signed on as the company’s first customer.

The applications are as diverse as they are profitable: ammonia production, hydrogen processing, aluminium smelting, industrial drying — sectors that require dense, consistent heat, and where renewables often fall short. The cost curve is also compelling. Once production is scaled, Copenhagen Atomics forecasts energy prices as low as $20–$40 per MWh, about one-quarter of current global nuclear generation costs.

A Breeder Reactor Race: East vs West

While Copenhagen Atomics prepares its full-scale prototype for regulatory testing at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, China has taken early steps with its own state-run molten salt reactor program, already completing 10 days of full-power operation and topping up its reactor without shutdown. But neither party has yet demonstrated a fully self-sustaining breeder reactor, producing more fissile fuel than consumed. The first to do so will likely define the standard for global nuclear expansion over the coming decades.

Copenhagen’s upcoming 30-day trial in 2026 at 1% power is a critical milestone. If successful, it will validate years of modeling and begin the countdown to commercialisation, expected within the next decade.

From an investment perspective, thorium MSRs fit squarely into LupoToro Group’s dual mandate: backing breakthrough energy technologies that not only decarbonize global industry but also provide robust dual-use applications for national defense infrastructure.

The modularity, waste-burn potential, and global deployability of this technology mirror the innovation cycles we pursue in our advanced defense contracting portfolio. In both civilian and classified domains, energy security is becoming synonymous with technological sovereignty. And thorium, once overlooked, could be the rare-earth disruptor that rewrites the nuclear rulebook.

We’re monitoring this space with great interest, not just for what it means for power, but for what it unlocks across our broader network of energy, defense, and technology partners.