US-based Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) power plant is expected to have construction costs of under $1bn and to generate carbon-free electricity at less than $50 per megawatt-hour, the company’s chief executive officer Simon Irish said.

Mr Irish gave no details of how the costs were calculated. Estimates in the UK have put nth-of-a-kind (NOAK) costs of electricity generation at about $60/MWh for large-scale solar, $63 for onshore wind and $79 for offshore wind.

Mr Irish said: “These are the economics of true clean-energy alternative to fossil fuel combustion. They make an IMSR power plant a bankable infrastructure project, which opens access to the capital essential for nuclear energy’s worldwide growth.”