It marks the first long-term, stable operation of the technology, putting China at the forefront of a global race to harness thorium – considered a safer and more abundant alternative to uranium – for nuclear power.
The experimental reactor, located in the Gobi Desert in China’s west, uses molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium – a radioactive element abundant in the Earth’s crust – as the fuel source. The reactor is reportedly designed to sustainably generate 2 megawatts of thermal power.
Refreshing not to see the comment section full of anti-nuclear brainlets. For a second I thought Lemmy was a Greenpeace hot-spot.
Anyway…
One good turn deserves another. If others won’t follow because of good example, hopefully other countries will instead follow because of competition.
If true, this is a huge step! Congrats to China!
“Strategic stamina” is something that the US used to have but which has disappeared as the country just tries to catch its breath.
If it’s true, China has energy security for the foreseeable future - as Thorium is usually found along side rare earths, and China has the largest deposits of those. More than anywhere else in the world.
I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but we’ll see how it lasts and scales 😅 it’s certainly promising, but 2MW also isn’t much. I’m curious how large they can scale single reactors, and how close they can safely be to populations - one of the problems with nuclear always ends up being transporting the energy (usually quite far away) once you’ve generated it.
2MW also isn’t much
It’s a proof of concept, they’re not actually trying to power anything with this. They’re just checking their math on a small scale before doing the full scale lol
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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.
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.
Thanks for the archive link, OP. Shit that site was cancerous
Thorium tarnishes to olive grey when exposed to air. This makes it kinda greenish. Green is the color of stamina, so this checks out.
If you’re feeling out of breath, drink a thorium potion!
If I drink the blue potion, I get tingly and my skin starts sloughing off. Must be the cobalt.
It’s got electrolytes!
Good news, mankind should be pushing farther into this technologies… so we finally have our first gen IV reactor? I honestly thought we would never reach them on time.
Plus Thorium rocks
Remember when it was all the hype when things just started - crazy to see it actually happen
Norway has a thorium reactor since 1959
Who still thinks the South Chinese Morning Post is a legit source after what happened to Hong Kong needs a reality check.
SCMP is one of the most libshit news in China
Also, chill it cracker, it’s news about a reactor, we don’t need your state dept. programming here
Joined 2 weeks ago, spews bs & propaganda.
Also, “cracker” ?? 🥴🤣 Is this supposed to be some very dangerous insult lol
That’s what I tell my partners. They are, thus far, unimpressed.
Thorium? Fucking sweet!
Well, that and lack of diligently enforced safety standards.
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This technological breakthrough is amazing, yes, but does not make disappear the constant harassment of minorities, the lack of freedom, the labor camps, the violent repression in Hong-Kong and all the other freaking shit China does on a daily basis.
And thanks for asking about the freedom of expression in Europe, it’s going really fine.
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“Strategic Stamina,” Is that what they’re calling the 996 now?
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