China operationalizes world's first thorium reactor

[jmotivator]

The problem is the lack of funding and support. Some people have this irrational qualm about using stem cells, even for research.

Most qualms are with regard to the source of the stem cells. That was certainly the case for the Bush policy.

 

[Gordy327]

Most qualms are with regard to the source of the stem cells. That was certainly the case for the Bush policy.

Thats part of the problem.

 

[Oozlefinch]

That's not just a mishmash - it's an authentic effort to convert thorium to uranium.

I never said he did not attempt to make one, I simply stated the fact that he did not make one.

An effort or attempt is not the same as success.

 

[phoenix2020]

China is good at making major grandiose proclamations of their technical prowess that generally fail to meet the sniff test.

The headline is even wrong. There have been 19 Thorium reactors built in the world, 16 of which were built before China built their first in 2023. The earliest was built by Canada in 1947.

The article states that they are building a "bigger" thorium salt reactor by 2030 that will generate a whole 10 MW of power. That is university test reactor size, not commercially viable.

I like the Thorium molten-salt technology, and it will be good if/when it starts to become commercially viable, but at the moment SMRs (small modular reactors that can be packed and delivered by a tractor trailer) are the cutting edge tech, and those will be rolling out in the US by the time China finishes it's 10 MW thorium reactor, and the SMRs will pump out 300 MW each.

The "announcement" was the live "refueling" event which had not been done before.

 

[bythoughts]

I never said he did not attempt to make one, I simply stated the fact that he did not make one.

Given his fanaticism for the project, and the increasing amount of radioactivity, with the description of how neutrons were being made, I think it's certain he converted some thorium to uranium and created a thorium reactor. Given that radiation was coming out of that thing, including some neutrons (and the article describes his efforts to research moderators), and his inclusion of cubes of natural uranium in the design, I think it is highly likely he generated some plutonium.

 

[phoenix2020]

The article states that they are building a "bigger" thorium salt reactor by 2030 that will generate a whole 10 MW of power. That is university test reactor size, not commercially viable.

As stated in post #3, grid power is not the use case. The use case are long life applications where 10-50MW can be plenty and the safety risk of a SMR is too high--they specifically are targeting applications like trans-pacific cargo ships. Effectively, commercial nuclear propulsion for sea vessels. Given that China has by far the largest commercial / merchant fleets in the world, most of them being powered by small, compact thorium reactors would be one heck of a feather in their cap, which is why China is investing in this technology.

 

[iguanaman]

New to me. How safe is it?

China can be very careless regarding safety and the environment.

Thorium reactors cannot melt down because their fissionable material is in liquid form and can quickly be pumped out to stop the reaction in an emergency.

• Molten Salt Fuel:
  Unlike solid-fuel reactors, MSRs have their fuel already in a liquid state (molten salt). This eliminates the risk of a solid core melting down.
  
  
• Emergency Shutdown:
  In case of an emergency, the molten salt fuel can be quickly drained from the reactor into a separate containment vessel, halting the nuclear reaction.
  
  
• Lower Pressure:
  MSRs operate at much lower pressures compared to conventional reactors, reducing the risk of pressure-related accidents.
  
  
• No Need for External Cooling:
  The molten salt itself acts as both the coolant and fuel containment, eliminating the need for complex external cooling systems that could fail.
  
  
• Inherent Safety Features:
  MSRs have inherent safety features, such as a fusible plug that melts and drains the fuel in case of overheating.
• 
  
• https://www.google.com/search?q=​Th...1C1CHBD_enUS882US882&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[jmotivator]

The "announcement" was the live "refueling" event which had not been done before.

That claim is also dubious, many of those test reactors ran for 5+ years. Hard to believe they wouldn't have ever tested one of the biggest selling points of a thorium-salt reactor.

We see this a lot, as I said, with Chinese tech announcements they make wild and dubious "We are the first!" claims and hope nobody checks the facts.

"They were the first!!" is extra funny when all they needed was the 50 year old blueprints to be made public domain.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Given that radiation was coming out of that thing

That is just how radiation works. What, you think that you need a reactor of some kind to cause a radiation source like americium to emit radiation?

Are you even aware that people undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments emit radiation at significantly higher levels? By your reasoning, when my wife was getting her cancer treatments she was also as nuclear reactor.

That is why when she was undergoing treatment, I slept in another room. And when she developed cancer several years later she hid from me the fact she underwent radiation treatment yet again. Only slipping up when she mentioned she had to go out and buy new bedding.

 

[jmotivator]

As stated in post #3, grid power is not the use case. The use case are long life applications where 10-50MW can be plenty and the safety risk of a SMR is too high--they specifically are targeting applications like trans-pacific cargo ships. Effectively, commercial nuclear propulsion for sea vessels. Given that China has by far the largest commercial / merchant fleets in the world, most of them being powered by small, compact thorium reactors would be one heck of a feather in their cap, which is why China is investing in this technology.

SMRs are not any more risky than a Thorium Salt reactor. The contamination range of an SMR breach is measured in meters, not kilometers.. but then they aren't a risk for meltdown anyway and the build materials have melting points well above the reactor's heat generation.

If you want 80+MWs (the power output of a container Ship diesel engine) in a Thorium reactor it will be larger than the many SMRs by a lot. The Xe-100 is an 80mw modular reactor that puts out 80MW consistently for 60 years without any need for fuel at which point it is lift and replace, and acts as it's own containment when it's retired. I can't think of many use cases where the life cycle of the thing being powered will be longer than the life cycle of the Xe-100.

To put that in perspective, the oldest container ship currently in service is the Russian registered MSC Eyra which has been in service since 1982. If it was powered by an Xe-100, it would still have 17 years of service life before the powerplant needed to be replaced. And the kicker is that the MSC Eyra only has a 15 MW power plant, so the Xe-100 would have 65 MW to spare.

Like I said, I like thorium-salt reactors, and think they have a future, but they are also old technology and some of the more advanced SMRs have more real world use cases.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Effectively, commercial nuclear propulsion for sea vessels.

Which is a dead end prospect.

There have been a whopping total of four built since 1959, none in service today. Just as the US Navy among others have experimented with putting nuclear reactors on all kinds of ships, today they are only used in Carriers and Submarines.

They actually built 9 Nuclear Cruisers between 1961 and 1980. The last of them decommissioned in 1999.

Here is the thing, nuclear powered cargo ships have been tried in the past. Over sixty years ago. And in the end it was a failure, as the expense was not justified. And if people think oil spills are an ecological nightmare if a conventional powered ship sinks, imagine the nightmare of a ship sinking with radioactive waste.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

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.

Not the very first one but in practical terms, the first one in over a generation for sure.
The very first one was in Oak Ridge TN, and it did operate on a commercial basis. Limited, to be sure, but it was supplying power to homes for about a year or two if I remember correctly.
This was our baby, we abandoned it thanks to a Hobson's Choice put forth by Republicans of the Ike era and the military.
Congress refused to fund both fuel cycles and the military wanted Uranium-Plutonium for weapons, plus U/Pl made power so in effect that ruled out Thorium because the Army got what it wanted.
China has rightly picked up what we threw away, like it was some old classic car, and shined it up and put modern parts in it and now she's gonna take it for a nice cruise.
And the word will have forgotten that WE came up with it originally, they already have forgotten, it seems.

 

[iguanaman]

SMRs are not any more risky than a Thorium Salt reactor. The contamination range of an SMR breach is measured in meters, not kilometers.. but then they aren't a risk for meltdown anyway and the build materials have melting points well above the reactor's heat generation.

If you want 80+MWs (the power output of a container Ship diesel engine) in a Thorium reactor it will be larger than the many SMRs by a lot. The Xe-100 is an 80mw modular reactor that puts out 80MW consistently for 60 years without any need for fuel at which point it is lift and replace, and acts as it's own containment when it's retired. I can't think of many use cases where the life cycle of the thing being powered will be longer than the life cycle of the Xe-100.

To put that in perspective, the oldest container ship currently in service is the Russian registered MSC Eyra which has been in service since 1982. If it was powered by an Xe-100, it would still have 17 years of service life before the powerplant needed to be replaced. And the kicker is that the MSC Eyra only has a 15 MW power plant, so the Xe-100 would have 65 MW to spare.

Like I said, I like thorium-salt reactors, and think they have a future, but they are also old technology and some of the more advanced SMRs have more real world use cases.

I do not believe the XE-100 you linked to will run for 60 years without refueling. It has an operational life of 60 years and has online refueling capability.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I really, really wish we would invest in thorium reactors here. We just had to let China take the lead, didn't we?

We did, in the Fifties.
But Cold War political concerns, Republicans in Congress and the Army put us in a scenario where we had to choose ONE.

A. Thorium fuel cycle= power generation and little to no weapons potential
B. Uranium/Plutonium fuel cycle= power generation AND weapons production
C. As I said, must choose one only, Congress refused to fund both.

So we threw the Thorium technology away, like a record player that only plays 45 RPM discs.

 

[jmotivator]

I do not believe the XE-100 you linked to will run for 60 years without refueling. It has an operational life of 60 years and has online refueling capability.

I don't see anything about online refueling, since the Generator is entirely sealed and self contained. The main reactor is 3 meters in diameter and 11 meters tall (gravity fed). I suppose in theory they could have a system that cycles out their fuel pellets, but from what I've read the plan is just to lift and replace them after their 60 year life span. There aren't many systems that I can think of that wouldn't need replacing themselves at the end of that 60 years, anyway.

The primary downside being that the materials used to make an Xe-100 can't be recycled since they will be irradiated, so you'd have to park the whole thing is a nuclear waste silo after removing the fuel pellets, though I would assume you could compact it at least. That and the mechanics of the system makes it tall rather than wide, which might limit some applications.

 

[iguanaman]

I don't see anything about online refueling, since the Generator is entirely sealed and self contained. The main reactor is 3 meters in diameter and 11 meters tall (gravity fed). I suppose in theory they could have a system that cycles out their fuel pellets, but from what I've read the plan is just to lift and replace them after their 60 year life span. There aren't many systems that I can think of that wouldn't need replacing themselves at the end of that 60 years, anyway.

The primary downside being that the materials used to make an Xe-100 can't be recycled since they will be irradiated, so you'd have to park the whole thing is a nuclear waste silo after removing the fuel pellets, though I would assume you could compact it at least. That and the mechanics of the system makes it tall rather than wide, which might limit some applications.

• 220,000 Graphite Pebbles with TRISO Particle fuel
• High temperature tolerant graphite core structure
• ASME compliant reactor vessel, core barrel & steam generator
• Designed for a 60-year operational life
• Flexible application – electricity and/or process heat
• Base load or load following
• Online refueling (95% plant availability)
• High burn-up fuel cycle (160 GWd/tHM

 

[jmotivator]

• 220,000 Graphite Pebbles with TRISO Particle fuel
• High temperature tolerant graphite core structure
• ASME compliant reactor vessel, core barrel & steam generator
• Designed for a 60-year operational life
• Flexible application – electricity and/or process heat
• Base load or load following
• Online refueling (95% plant availability)
• High burn-up fuel cycle (160 GWd/tHM

Makes sense given how it works. There are a few different SMR platforms that are being developed and deployed. I think the one I was thinking of were shipping container sized and were also modular. Their selling point, if I recall, was that you rent the SMRs from them and they swap them out for you. That said, if you can just do a live fuel swap and run the generator for 120 years with 1 refueling, I'd pick that one.

I'll see if I can track down that other platform.

 

[iguanaman]

Makes sense given how it works. There are a few different SMR platforms that are being developed and deployed. I think the one I was thinking of were shipping container sized and were also modular. Their selling point, if I recall, was that you rent the SMRs from them and they swap them out for you. That said, if you can just do a live fuel swap and run the generator for 120 years with 1 refueling, I'd pick that one.

I'll see if I can track down that other platform.

Again the operational life of the generator is 60 years. You can't use it for 120 years. It probably needs refueling every 10 years or less.

 

[jmotivator]

Granted, now the wet blanket on SMR AND thorium-Salt reactors.

Neither have been proven commercially viable. NuScale and X-Energy have been plagued by cost overruns and delays for a long time now. What makes SMR viable is mass production and scale, but all mass production products need early adopters, and the price tag for these reactors means that there aren't many early adopters. Virginia is investing in SMR, but will it be Virginia's bullet train? Who knows.

Thorium-Salt reactors have never been scaled up to Commercial use, either and a commercially viable Thorium reactor hasn't even been tried yet.

 

[jmotivator]

Also, here is T. Folse Nuclear's comments on the China Thorium story

 

[Oozlefinch]

Also, here is T. Folse Nuclear's comments on the China Thorium story

And Thunderfoot (who is also a nuclear physicist) covered this over a decade ago



He is one of my "go to guys" when it comes to analyzing junk science. And one thing he covers is the fact that the thorium cycle. This is what makes it possible to use as a fuel. It uses Thorium 232 with Uranium 233 to convert more Th232 into U233. And the process can be continued to convert the resulting U233 into Plutonium 239.

Oh, and the process also emits a lot of gamma radiation. And you would need 24 inch concrete shielding to contain that radiation for the lifespan of the reactor.

And that then brings up something else. This shielding is not like a kevlar vest, while it is doing it's job it is literally absorbing the radiation. Capturing it in it's makeup. So when the reactor is ready to be retired, you not only have the radioactive material in the reactor to deal with, but everything else - including that 24 inches of concrete. Because it is now radioactive as well. And they have not said how much volume the reactor will take up, but a 2'x2'x2' cube of concrete is around 150 pounds. Multiply that by the total area that needs to be shielded, and that is a hell of a lot of radioactive concrete at the end.

This is why even though the US Government has looked into small nuclear reactors for decades, other than for spacecraft (normally in the form of RTGs). That is why The Martian covered it in both the book and movie.



And one thing that Russia is still dealing with. The Soviet Union scattered huge numbers of RTGs, and many of them are now dangerously degraded and corroded.

 

[CLAX1911]

And Thunderfoot (who is also a nuclear physicist) covered this over a decade ago



He is one of my "go to guys" when it comes to analyzing junk science. And one thing he covers is the fact that the thorium cycle. This is what makes it possible to use as a fuel. It uses Thorium 232 with Uranium 233 to convert more Th232 into U233. And the process can be continued to convert the resulting U233 into Plutonium 239.

Oh, and the process also emits a lot of gamma radiation. And you would need 24 inch concrete shielding to contain that radiation for the lifespan of the reactor.

And that then brings up something else. This shielding is not like a kevlar vest, while it is doing it's job it is literally absorbing the radiation. Capturing it in it's makeup. So when the reactor is ready to be retired, you not only have the radioactive material in the reactor to deal with, but everything else - including that 24 inches of concrete. Because it is now radioactive as well. And they have not said how much volume the reactor will take up, but a 2'x2'x2' cube of concrete is around 150 pounds. Multiply that by the total area that needs to be shielded, and that is a hell of a lot of radioactive concrete at the end.

This is why even though the US Government has looked into small nuclear reactors for decades, other than for spacecraft (normally in the form of RTGs). That is why The Martian covered it in both the book and movie.



And one thing that Russia is still dealing with. The Soviet Union scattered huge numbers of RTGs, and many of them are now dangerously degraded and corroded.

Thunder fight was one of my go-to's until he became obsessed with Elon musk.

I watched the one debunking hyperloop and I liked that. I think that video probably got a bunch of views and so the algorithm is a harsh Mistress.

Debunking musk's crap is fine raging about him seems to be going off the rails. When the algorithm quits rewarding that sort of thing then I'll probably become a fan of thunderfoot again.