China Achieves Thorium-Uranium Conversion Within Molten Salt Reactor (scmp.com)
- Reference: 0179967014
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/11/05/0052206/china-achieves-thorium-uranium-conversion-within-molten-salt-reactor
- Source link: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3331312/china-reaches-energy-independence-milestone-breeding-uranium-thorium
> South China Morning Post, citing Chinese state media, reported that an experimental reactor developed in the Gobi Desert by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics has [2]achieved thorium-to-uranium fuel conversion , paving the way for an almost endless supply of nuclear energy. It is the first time in the world that scientists have been able to acquire experimental data on thorium operations from inside a molten salt reactor according to a report by Science and Technology Daily. Thorium is much more abundant and accessible than uranium and has enormous energy potential. One mine tailings site in Inner Mongolia is estimated to hold enough of the element to power China entirely for more than 1,000 years.
>
> At the heart of the breakthrough is a process known as in-core thorium-to-uranium conversion that transforms naturally occurring thorium-232 into uranium-233 -- a fissile isotope capable of sustaining nuclear chain reactions within the reactor itself. Thorium (Th-232) is not itself fissile and so is not directly usable in a thermal neutron reactor. Thorium fuels therefore need a fissile material as a 'driver' so that a chain reaction (and thus supply of surplus neutrons) can be maintained. The only fissile driver options are U-233, U-235 or Pu-239. (None of these are easy to supply.) In the 1960s, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA) designed and built a [3]demonstration MSR using U-233, derived externally from thorium as the main fissile driver.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~hackingbear
[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3331312/china-reaches-energy-independence-milestone-breeding-uranium-thorium
[3] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium
Nuclear Power Industry won't be happy (Score:3)
I remember years ago reading that the nuclear power construction companies purposely setup regulatory roadblocks so that the West would be stuck using 1940's ERA reactor designs originally for producing weapons grade uranium. It's sad that this is another breakthrough technology coming out of China due to the west not willing to move away from legacy nuclear power...
Re:Nuclear Power Industry won't be happy (Score:4, Interesting)
There have been several experimental thorium based reactors developed in Western countries. They all ended in failure. New problems discovered, very expensive to fix and deal breakers for commercial operation.
The reason they keep returning to old designs is because they are proven. Developing new reactors is expensive and slow. They are a huge financial risk, because they often don't work and not only is the investment is lost, there is a huge clean up cost too.
Right now there is also the fact that renewables are much cheaper and rapidly gaining dominance, so even if your wonderful new reactor does work, will anybody want it in 20-30 years time? Maybe... If it provides weapons grade material.
Neat. Now if someone could come ... (Score:2)
... up with a method to convert radiation to electricity directly, we'd be ready to back to nuclear power.
Until then it remains a dead end.
Nuclear fuel or power isn't the problem. Nuclear Fission steam power and nuclear waste is.
Where's the Thorium Guy? (Score:2)
We should hear from him. He must be having multiple Os over this.
Re: (Score:3)
> Unless they find something to completely use up all the uranium or convert it into something else.
You know what they say. Go Green or Glow Green.
Re: An endless supply of nuclear waste. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, nuclear fission plants generate waste which have to be stored, and no realistic technology can make it disappear. Wings from old wind turbines are also waste, but it is realistic to do something about it, although expensive. But you also need huge batteries, creating their own waste problems - easier to recycle, maybe. If the amount of radioactive waste is very small compared to the energy generated, nuclear can still be considered cleaner, and a much faster way to zero-emission. Ideally, the cost of
Cart before, makes the horse glow. (Score:1)
> Yes, nuclear fission plants generate waste which have to be stored, and no realistic technology can make it disappear. Wings from old wind turbines are also waste, but it is realistic to do something about it, although expensive
Expensive? I could pile the next 100 years of wing waste in desert wasteland at U-Haul transit costs and no one would even know it’s there. Including for the most part Mother Nature.
Another planet is what it would cost to deliver the same level of risk dumping nuclear waste. Will we still argue nuclear is greener 100 reactors from now, when city smog glows at night, and cancer rates are 1 in 2 as the boiled-frog norm?
It’s not merely ideal to solve ALL of the waste problem first. It’s n
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with nuclear waste is that it is difficult and dangerous to handle, making it very expensive.
As for being the fastest way to zero emission, what are you smoking and can I have some? Nuclear is extremely slow to build, and this is just an experimental process so will probably take decades to develop even into a demonstration scale reactor.
The market has decided, renewables are the cheapest, the fastest, and the easiest to deal with. It's sad that we aren't able to manufacture or install them on t
Re: (Score:3)
The GP's comment wasn't accusing there of being a nuclear waste problem (there isn't). They were talking about how nuclear waste can be burned in a breeder reactor, producing orders of magnitude more than the burning of a couple tenths of a percent of the natural uranium in a conventional reactor does.
Despite the press hype about thorium (which is way more popular among the media and nerds on the internet than with actual nuclear engineers), nuclear power is already basically unlimited, even without breede
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but nobody else does either.
Re: (Score:2)
Hah right. Just keep telling yourself that.