China operationalizes world's first thorium reactor

[phoenix2020]

I'm just talking about the radioactivity of the waste products themselves. Cesium-137 and strontium-90 are fairly nasty.

A thorium reactor would produce roughly half the amount of Cesium-137 per GWh versus a U-235 reactor. Start with half the waste, deal with half the radioactivity. It's a somewhat similar story for Strontium-90.

 

[phoenix2020]

Could it launched towards the sun*, or is it a cost problem?



* - only partially tongue-in-cheek

I doubt anybody would want to launch large quantities of radioactive cesium and strontium on a vessel that could explode in the atmosphere.

 

[Oozlefinch]

China builds world’s first thorium reactor with US secret files

After years of research and US data analysis, China has built a working thorium reactor and run it through a successful fuel reload.

interestingengineering.com

Online searches can brief you on the potential advantages of this new source of energy, but in short, there are many. It's only 2MW so still quite small, but it's operationalized with the ability to replace the molten salt while the reactor remains operational, which was one of the final remaining problems to solve. Sounds like they'll now move on to developing a 10MW demonstrator.

Very impressive work.

But it is not the "first thorium reactor". That was actually the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) back in 1965 at the Oak Ridge Lab. And after that you had the Light Weight Breeder Reactor (LWBR) Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania that was rated at 60 mw from 1977-1982.

Like so many things, this is yet another example of where despite the claims made by some it is hardly the first. It has been done before. So great, they have a 2 mw plant and want to develop a 10 mw plant. Still a fraction of what the US did almost half a century ago.

Oh, and then there is the issue of what to do with the radioactive molten salts. That was a major issue when both MSRE and LWRB were decommissioned. As extreme care must be taken with them because they are so damned easy to leech into the water supply.

Oh, and that thorium reactors are by how they operate breeder reactors, so can be used to breed weapons grade uranium. The first experiments into this actually date all the way back to Glenn Seaborg in 1940. And probably the first purpose built "thorium reactor" was in reality EBR-1. But the same techniques were used for production of fuel for atomic weapons.

So in reality, not very impressive. Just going over territory done decades earlier. But good news, this can now be exported by China to multiple other nations to assist in the nuclear proliferation.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Start with half the waste, deal with half the radioactivity.

I guess we will ignore the radioactive molten salts.

 

[CLAX1911]

China builds world’s first thorium reactor with US secret files

After years of research and US data analysis, China has built a working thorium reactor and run it through a successful fuel reload.

interestingengineering.com

Online searches can brief you on the potential advantages of this new source of energy, but in short, there are many. It's only 2MW so still quite small, but it's operationalized with the ability to replace the molten salt while the reactor remains operational, which was one of the final remaining problems to solve. Sounds like they'll now move on to developing a 10MW demonstrator.

Very impressive work.

I know how a uranium reactor works they react uranium-235 with uranium-238 and that generates heat. Is there a similar way a thorium reactor works?

 

[phoenix2020]

I know how a uranium reactor works they react uranium-235 with uranium-238 and that generates heat. Is there a similar way a thorium reactor works?

Same basic mechanism - fission generating heat, converting that heat to a generator. Just different fissile materials. In fact the thorium is bombarded with protons and converted to U-232 which then undergoes fission.

 

[CLAX1911]

Same basic mechanism - fission generating heat, converting that heat to a generator. Just different fissile materials. In fact the thorium is bombarded with protons and converted to U-232 which then undergoes fission.

Interesting. I remember a few years ago hearing about a thorium the doctor and I was wondering if you have a different types of thorium but you can bombard it with something that isn't necessarily thorium. If that's the case that's why it won't melt down typically when a fishing reactor that runs on uranium melts down it's because the do isotopes stick to one another it'll be confused and then it's a runaway thing.

If that's taken out of the equation yeah it's pretty safe

 

[CaughtInThe]

We have coal.