They kept this one under wraps but now fully operational. China Fires Up World's First Thorium-Powered Nuclear Reactor Months after satellites picked up a massive nuclear fusion facility in China's Sichuan province, the country's nuclear industry has blown the lid off fission tech. During a private meeting earlier this month, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed the successful operation of a thorium-powered nuclear reactor located in the Gobi Desert. The team had achieved "full-power operation" last June, according to South China Morning Post, and recently succeeded in reloading the reactor while it was powered up — a world first. It's a major milestone for nuclear power. Thorium offers a more accessible but less weaponizable alternative to uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association, which notes that "thorium-based power reactor fuels would be a poor source for fissile material usable in the illicit manufacture of an explosive device." The Gobi Desert reactor is a two megawatt research unit engineered to use molten salt as fuel carrier and coolant. A molten salt reactor (MSR) theoretically carries far less risk in the event of a meltdown compared to water-based systems, as salts can carry greater loads of thermal energy at much lower pressure.
so thorium was originally developed int he 50's trying to develop a nuclear powered bomber and then mothballed China Fires Up World's First Thorium-Powered Nuclear Reactor Curiously, MSRs are nothing new. They had their day in the US back in the late 1940s and early 50s, when American cold warriors dumped nearly $1 billion into developing a nuclear-powered stealth bomber. Congress halted research on thorium-fueled airplanes back in 1961, and uranium more or less became the gold standard, due in no small part to its military potential. Assumed obsolete, the US' MSR research has since been made public, forming the foundation of the Gobi Desert team's work. "The US left its research publicly available, waiting for the right successor," said the project's chief scientist Xu Hongjie. "Rabbits sometimes make mistakes or grow lazy. That’s when the tortoise seizes its chance."
This is not exactly. There has been a Thorium power nuclear reactors, usually breeder reactors that use U233 after it transforms from Th232. Oak Ridge National Lab ran such a reactor for several years in the 1960's. It was designated a historical site in 1994. The Dutch also achived full power on a Thoriated reactor in 2017. There are others. Not sure from the article what is so special about this one vs all of the other research reactors in operation??
scale? molten salt cooling to prevent meltdown? if so viable, why not being used on a larger scale if it eliminates meltdown risks and spent fuel disposal problems?
The reactor at ORNL was a 1.2 - 1.3 GWatt reactor. Only slightly smaller than the 2 GWatt reactor that the Chinese are bragging about. Why don't we use Thorium based reactors now?? Because in the core, U238 transmutes to U239, which then decays and produces biproducts such as Neptunium239 and.....yep.....Plutoium239. In fact, while there are trace amounts of naturally occurring P239, the only appreciable amount found on Earth is the in cores of nuclear reactors. And, since the military was driving development of nuclear energy, they wanted to use uranium to obtain plutonium. Every other major power with dreams of a nuclear arsenal followed suit. While Thorium decays into plutonium as well, it decays into P238 and not P239. P238, along with the U233 present, is mostly useless for atomic weapons. On a practical technology note, Thorium cannot initiate and sustain a fission reaction. It needs to be exposed to high energy neutrons and then transmute to U233. It is the U233 that can sustain the reaction. So, until that issue is overcome in a cleaner fashion, even Thorium reactors will require U235 or Plutonium239 to "kick start" the reaction. Which mean, reactors will not be as "safe" or "clean" as people are making them out to be.
the first part seems like a good compromise solution to allow Iran to have nuclear power but not have the nuclear material to create bombs..people seem to make it so hard to find win win situations. Let china build and start thorium reactors for Iran and let Iran operate them. duh...inspectors witness any 235 or 239?? imported and utilized for start up? I assume it is no longer useful for bombs after start -up?? it also seems like a good solution for security concerns related to small scale nuclear reactors distributed around the countryside not my area so surely not as simple as that but it seems to have potential. Is there a reason it cannot be scaled up to 10 GW or larger?
First, after having worked at Oak Ridge National Lab, I will continue to be on record as never EVER living anywhere people dream up the stupid idea of putting small scale nuclear power plants in neighborhoods. China has the right idea with their R&D reactor, put it out in the middle of the desert, so when human error discharges something, few people get hurt. But second, the cost of converting a reactor that uses enriched uranium to something that uses thorium is massive. Not quite like building an all-knew power plant, but not that far off either. Energy companies are not going to make that kind of investment in the US until it is absolutely necessary and cost effective. Nor should they in my opinion. The true investment in R&D should be advance storage capacity and renewed research in low-loss transmission lines and screw all of those nuclear power plants. Leave them to the Russians and China.
