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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Too bad we do not know which exactly thorium salt mixes they are using, what the materials facing the molten salt at high neutron fluxes are and how they fare long term, whether they use on-site constant or batched fuel reprocessing, whether they kickstarted the reactor with enrichened uranium or reactor-grade plutonium waste and other such questions.
US experiments were broken off because of materials corrosion problem.
US experiments were broken off because it gives no excuse to attain materials for nuclear weapons. Same excuse everyone else use.
Thorium fuel cycle is useful for weapon production. Germany also abandoned thorium despite no interest in weapon production.
Sounds like the US should take a page from China’s playbook and steal the design, then claim to have built it on their own.
i think that lack of willingness to handle fresh fission products has a part in this, in normal reactor you can just do nothing and win (bulk of most dangerous isotopes decays completely within 5y, not possible to do this with MSR)
I think maybe also the fact that nuclear fusion is definitely frfr only a few years away from being viable, no cap, has contributed to a lack of fission research, too.
If only people saying that were aware of their logic flaw of also cutting funding to fusion research
Some of the new Russian reactor types are designed to burn away dangerous hot actinides. MSR need onboard fuel processing to continue to operate anyway.
These are fast reactors and operate on different principles. The coolant there is sodium and while hard to design and run, it's doable. French had similar reactor but only one and it was shut down. Nice thing about fast reactors is that these can burn even-numbered isotopes of plutonium, useless in water moderated reactor, and give fresh mostly 239Pu plutonium of good quality. weapons grade even, and IAEA doesn't like it. But who cares since nonproliferation is dead anyway?
The new generation of Russian fast neutron reactors use lead and lead-bismuth as coolant, not sodium anymore. They are not proper breeders, as I understood it.
It’s probably as simple as we already have something successful. Why spend time and effort overcoming the challenges to create new reactor technology with many of the same benefits and shortcomings as we already have?
I know the arguments for thorium and can see that being a huge benefit to places without a mature nuclear industry and without developed fuel sources.
Sure it would be somewhat better for us as well, but the biggest limitations will be the same. You’re still impeded by fears of radioactivity even if it is less. You still have radioactive waste to handle even if it’s less and less long lasting. You still have legal and regulatory challenges driving costs and timelines through the roof. Thorium hasn’t won the war of public perception, so is no better in the things that actually impede its use