France 24 has the story. It's a tiddler of a reactor but it's a prototype. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be watching very carefully. Thorium is vastly more common - and cheaper - than uranium and the basic design is much safer than water-cooled reactors.
China has built a Thorium molten salt reactor
- Thread starter Quartz
- Start date
-
- Tags
- china nuclear power thorium
China are also in the process of building their scaled up fast neutron reactor, at 600MWe that's about as powerful as our mature reactors already.
They are way ahead of the game when it comes to civilian nuclear power, while our old reactors fall apart, the wind dies down, gas prices shoot up and we cut down forests for biomass leaving us in energy and climate crises they are taking the initiative and building a safe, green nuclear program.
They are way ahead of the game when it comes to civilian nuclear power, while our old reactors fall apart, the wind dies down, gas prices shoot up and we cut down forests for biomass leaving us in energy and climate crises they are taking the initiative and building a safe, green nuclear program.
Soldato
Well done to them! Makes me sad how the UK used to be one of the world leaders in nuclear technology, and now we can barely build a single reactor.
Absolutely one of the areas of technology that we should have been investing in to provide sustainable (both in an environmental, political, and economic sense) power. Imo nuclear technology is also really important for stimulating other areas of high tech industry, materials science, etc.
If they manage to successfully scale it up and demonstrate a viable commercial scale plant then they'll be in a great place to export the technology all over the world (to those countries that are in their good books...)
Absolutely one of the areas of technology that we should have been investing in to provide sustainable (both in an environmental, political, and economic sense) power. Imo nuclear technology is also really important for stimulating other areas of high tech industry, materials science, etc.
If they manage to successfully scale it up and demonstrate a viable commercial scale plant then they'll be in a great place to export the technology all over the world (to those countries that are in their good books...)
Money doesn't stop the mindless screaming at the idea of new nuclear reactors being built anywhere in the UK.
Meanwhile we import the French nuclear generated electricity.
Soldato
Yeah it seems that the theory behind how to do it is well known, and indeed I think my school physics teacher might even have described the concept to us years ago.
Wikipedia tells me that lots of countries have had research projects and there were test molten salt reactors built in the 60s, but seems no one has built any since then, despite there apparently being ongoing research projects. However it's one thing researching the concept and knowing the theory behind it, but actually solving enough technical problems to build a working reactor and then gaining all the new knowledge that that will bring is surely the best way to make progress.
Actually building a working reactor in the 21st century will give them a huge amount of knowledge and experience to drive the technology forwards, presuming that the communist party decides to keep signing the cheques. I think things have probably moved on quite a bit since the 60s so although the tests back then might still be useful, building a new reactor based on modern technology and science is the only way to really get things moving.
I guess it's also a bit of a demonstration that they're taking it seriously. Paying a few research teams only takes a marginal government interest, but actually putting in enough money to build a test reactor show's China isn't just dabbling like we are.
Soldato
It makes me mad how many of the environmental lobbies that theoretically I should be a supporter of are anti-nuclear
At least we haven't yet gone full Germany and decided to abandon nuclear power completely.
We're too busy appeasing the tree huggers.
Nuclear power is a bad idea that's why.
The price is too high when it goes wrong and it will go wrong and your spending millions to decommission them which no one cares about as they kick the can down the road for the next generation.
Fantastic on paper but we would be better spent wasting millions on fusion and building some more windmills.
The price is too high when it goes wrong and it will go wrong and your spending millions to decommission them which no one cares about as they kick the can down the road for the next generation.
Fantastic on paper but we would be better spent wasting millions on fusion and building some more windmills.
Soldato
I think a big problem with the early test reactors built (which were largely successful) is that the coolant/heat exchange molten salt part is A. Incredibly hot and B. Incredibly corrosive. Modern materials have both of those covered now. Of course, these reactors are much much less efficient at making weapons grade materials, which is probably why the technology wasn't researched further than it was
There is an argument to say that burning fossil fuels is far more damaging to the environment long term. Increasing nuclear power also helps with energy security with less reliance on the Middle East and Russia. I would love it if we could replace all of the UK's energy generation with renewables. But currently that's not possible. So I'm in favour of nuclear to replace coal, oil and gas.
While run within the original intended lifespan + what can be extended in a normal working state by newer tech post build sure. There seems to be a fascination lately, probably due to the cost involved, of trying to extend them beyond that by running them once failure sets in by modelling the failure state to try and finesse the tolerances as long as possible and it doesn't tend to end well.
China's rapid technological progress is nothing compared to the wests massive progress on destroying its own manufacturing industry, white privilege, gender neutral language, censorship of anything that offends and being able to stop far left loons from blocking motorways. We're definitely winning this one lads.
Soldato
China never listened to Greenpeace and CND. That's why they are so far ahead of us and we are trailing them in a technology that we used to be world leaders in. Shameful.
From what I know, thorium reactors were a competing technology with uranium reactors during the 'R&D' stages.
Uranium won out as it can be weaponised so it had more uses despite being a much dirtier and dangerous technology.
Thoruim reactors don't produce the toxic waste that needs to be buried for thousands of years, for example.
And if they blow up its 'just' an explosion rather than wrecking miles of surrounding land for years to come with radioactive contamination.
Last edited:
Because we sold off all our industry, then Blair's policies (wanting a "service" economy) finished it off. Now we are seeing the problems with doing that, services are expendable but engineering talent is not.
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Apr 2009
- Posts
- 9,952
Not just China. Indonesia, India, probably others too. About time IMO.
Curious to see how it's gonna develop. The only downside I can see is nuclear waste. And it's suppose to be far better at it than current reactor technology. Could even recycle some of the waste. Will see how realistic that is. Will be funny when they start competing on the international energy market.
You want to be 'carbon neutral' while not having to go back to the stone age? Develop cheap, safe nuclear power, better batteries not made of lead and poison, and spruce up the powergrid. Hell, maybe go to workable hydrogen cars, you'll have all the energy you'll need. That'll do nicely until fusion is ready, if it's ever gonna be.
Curious to see how it's gonna develop. The only downside I can see is nuclear waste. And it's suppose to be far better at it than current reactor technology. Could even recycle some of the waste. Will see how realistic that is. Will be funny when they start competing on the international energy market.
You want to be 'carbon neutral' while not having to go back to the stone age? Develop cheap, safe nuclear power, better batteries not made of lead and poison, and spruce up the powergrid. Hell, maybe go to workable hydrogen cars, you'll have all the energy you'll need. That'll do nicely until fusion is ready, if it's ever gonna be.
Man of Honour
No, we wouldn't. Windmills can't sustain a modern society. No matter how much financial cost and environmental damage you accept as the price to pay for them (and it's a very high price on both counts). It's not even vaguely close to being within screaming distance of possible. There's a lot of ignorance and lying involved in the silly pretence that it is possible. Things like people citing the nameplate generating capacity as the actual generating capacity 24/7/365. Anyone who does that is either monumentally ignorant of the subject or is lying. Giving how much "free" (i.e. paid for from public money) profit is available to people in the renewables industry, lying is ensured. Same goes for all the other renewables, individually or together. If you can't control it, you can't run a grid from it. Renewables are an extra, not a foundation.
As for the price "when it goes wrong and it will go wrong", nuclear is far better than hydro in that respect. Far less damage has been done and far fewer people have been killed. It's also worth noting that the handful of serious nuclear power incidents all involved primitive systems and incorrect use and/or deliberate contamination (in the case of Khystm...I'll check that spelling, it looks wrong...Kyshtym). The least blameworthy example was Fukushima Daiichi, which required a primitive system pushed past its intended use by date plus a massive earthquake plus a massive tsunami plus a fundamentally wrong plant design plus flood defences known to be inadequate plus inadequate redundancy plus inadequate backups plus inadequate disaster mitigation systems. And it still wasn't very bad. There are zero deaths directly attributable to the Fukushima Daiichi incident itself. None. Not a single one. And that was the 3rd worst nuclear plant distaster in the world. The highest number of deaths caused by a single hydroelectric power station incident is ~250,000. No typo - a quarter of a million people. Is that price too high for you? Wind and solar are a bit safer than nuclear fusion (EDIT: fission, not fusion. Wind and solar are more dangerous than fusion) but only if the comparison is made on a deliberately unlike for unlike comparison, comparing obsolete nuclear power stations (run incorrectly) with modern wind and solar power stations.
Practical fusion would be the best solution, but it doesn't exist. It probably will exist in the not too distant future, but it would be insane to gamble the entire human civilisation on hoping that a technology that doesn't currently exist can be created quickly enough. We need something functional in the meantime and that means either nuclear fission or burning carbon-based fuels. Of those two, nuclear fission is vastly safer.
Last edited: