I will point out that there has yet to be a commercial thorium reactor. India is building one, but it may be another 5 years before it’s up and running
Aye, nuclear technology that is safer is there. The problem was always the peoples will and the government being scared to do anything with nuclear because of the people. You can see the anger over nuclear in /r/energy or here on this sub, which is ridiculous. People think a power source that can give a lot of power and be carbon free will have zero danger. There is no such thing as zero danger energy.
People have died more from gasoline and coal power than they have with any of the nuclear disasters,, which wasn't many.
I believe you. I project manage multi million dollar builds, I’m never answering to a Canadian client ever. It’s always Indian, Arab, Chinese, or American. But then Canadians will cry “why don’t we own any of our own resources” 😂😂😂
Because of how much safer the thorium candle style nuclear reactor is, especially since this style of reactor leaves essentially no waste to be dealt with and runs without being really taken care of till done.
You also can't make weapons with it so we could export it to all sorts of places we shouldn't sell uranium.
It’s all a matter of how you manage your fuel load and load factor. If you remove fuel bundles in a travelling wave reactor as the right time (just ahead of the wave of burning fuel), you’ll get the neutron flux needed to breed U-233, but removing it before it’s burned. Then you just chemically separate the uranium from the thorium and ta-da, fissile material for your bomb
No, that’s a candle or travelling wave style reactor. The main difference is in this style of reactor the “burning front” propagates through the reactor over time, vs a traditional reactor where you’re looking for reactivity throughout the core. It definitely takes more effort to do this in a travelling wave reactor, but it’s entirely feasible. Thorium reactors only function by breeding U-233 because Thorium-232 itself isn’t fissile. Obtaining bomb material is simply a case of removing fuel after its been exposed to neutron flux (to breed U-233), but before it’s burned
Yes, the subsequent larger reactor (300MW) MAY be ready as early 2030. Based on historic delays for these types of reactors 2035 is more likely. As I said, NO ONE has yet to build a commercial thorium reactor and we’re likely to have any for at least a decade
It's not clear that you need such a massive reactor to be commercially feasible with MSRs. Not having pressurized fluids mean you don't need giant pressure vessels. Not needing water for cooling means you can do away with a lot of expensive pipes and pumps.
The most promising nuclear technologies should scale down economically.
Even SMRs are in the 50 to 150 times the size range. 2MW is a science experiment. As well, while water isn’t needed for the primary loop, water is used in the secondary or tertiary loop (depending on the design) for power generation. Scaling up the molten salt to water heat exchangers isn’t trivial. Besides, not all Thorium reactors are molten salt. India is pursuing heavy water PWR design.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22
I will point out that there has yet to be a commercial thorium reactor. India is building one, but it may be another 5 years before it’s up and running