Could China's molten salt nuclear reactor be a clean, safe source of power?

[Klaralven]

A team of government researchers in China have unveiled the design for a commercial nuclear reactor that is expected to be the first in the world that does not need water for cooling, allowing the systems to be built in remote desert regions to provide power for more densely populated areas.

The molten salt reactor, which is powered by liquid thorium rather than uranium, should also be safer than traditional ones because in the event of a leak, the molten thorium would cool and solidify quickly, dispersing less radiation into the environment.

Construction work on the first commercial reactor should be completed by 2030 and the government plans to build several in the deserts and plains of central and western China.

China may also consider building these reactors for some countries that have signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative because, unlike uranium, thorium cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.

“Small-scale reactors have significant advantages in terms of efficiency, flexibility and economy. They can play a key role in the future transition to clean energy. It is expected that small-scale reactors will be widely deployed in the next few years,” Professor Yan Rui and colleagues at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics wrote in a paper published in the Chinese journal Nuclear Techniques last week.

“A molten salt reactor has the advantage of being multipurpose, small in size and highly flexible. It is as easy to design as a small-scale reactor. In recent years, the potential of small-scale molten salt reactors has caught international attention.”

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/could-china-molten-salt-nuclear-114516428.html

[marble falls]

1. I don't know. The Laws of Unintentended Consequences come to mind.

[nuxvomica]

2. I read up a little on thorium reactors when I watched "Occupied"

That's a Norwegian series on Netflix about Russia and the EU occupying Norway after a new government shuts down their oil and gas wells and tries to switch to thorium reactors as an energy source. What I learned was that thorium was promising from the beginning of nuclear energy research but didn't get the government funding uranium had because it couldn't be weaponized. So thorium research is decades behind uranium because it is safer!

[Worried2020]

5. "didn't get the government funding uranium had because it couldn't be weaponized." -

.

Sounds like sumthing the Military–industrial complex might consider . . .



W

[uponit7771]

3. Yes it could be safe, we need nuke power its 2021 not 1981 and science allows for safer reactors

... and recyclable nuke fuel that can be made less lethal than a plane ride.

[RockRaven]

4. Thorium reactors have been a desired thing for quite a while...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, however. We shall see.

[Celerity]

6. Nuclear power is the way to go atm. Renewables are a massive fail atm in terms of EROEI

[mitch96]

7. What? no comments from our resident physicists? What say you... nt

[hunter]

8. The U.S.A. has truly astonishing reserves of depleted uranium and used light water reactor fuel...

... that could be used in similar sorts of reactors, enough to power the nation for centuries.

Uranium and thorium can also be extracted from existing mine tailings.

CANDU reactors, first developed in the late 1950s and 1960s by Canada, can also use thorium as fuel but don't run hot enough to use in dry environments without water cooling.

The development of thorium in modern times has mostly been inhibited by the lower price of uranium. There's no shortage of weapons grade plutonium in the U.S.A. or Russia; neither nation needs uranium reactors to make more. The uranium fueled plutonium producing "N" reactor at the Hanford Site was shut down in 1987.

I think we've worked ourselves into a corner where nuclear energy is the only energy source capable of displacing fossil fuels. The survival of certain cities in the U.S. American southwest will probably depend upon water desalinated by nuclear power.

As global warming gets worse reliable power will also be required for air conditioning.

The Colorado River is drying up faster than anyone expected. We're only a few weeks away from the water level in Lake Powell falling low enough that power generation is no longer possible.

Burning natural gas to replace this lost hydroelectric power or to desalinate water is folly since it was fossil fuels that caused this catastrophe in the first place.

[Klaralven]

9. China has extensive thorium reserves - much more than uranium

Another part of the appeal for China is that it has some of the world’s largest reserves of thorium, a silvery metal with weak radioactivity. By some calculations it has enough to meet the country’s energy needs for at least 20,000 years.

India has the largest thorium reserves and is also developing thorium reactors.