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China Starts Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor Project
greg_barton writes "The Energy From Thorium blog reports, 'The People's Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. It was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences annual conference on Tuesday, January 25.' The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is an alternative reactor design that 1) burns existing nuclear waste, 2) uses abundant thorium as a base fuel, 3) produces far less toxic, shorter-lived waste than existing designs, and 4) can be mass produced, run unattended for years, and installed underground for safety."
They aren't prevalent because the commercial nuclear industry grew largely out of the military industry which needed two things, fuel for bombs and small light reactors for ships and submarines.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Try where we WERE years ago..
FFTF was a sodium cooled reactor built at Hanford in 1982 and run until 1992
http://www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/fftffocus.pdf
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
There is no cladding on the fuel.
This is not a fast reactor. It is thermal.
We don't have a lot of experience with molten salt reactors, which is a large part of what China is researching. Your criticism is at least premature.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
Electricity *can* be produced greenly. Show me how gas and coal does that hmm?
Switch your system to run on electricity and then switching your production to a clean method is an easy next step. You simply can't clean the emissions of 100 million ICE cars and coal power plants.
The 'nuts' are trying to save your ass from yourself...but don't let that get in the way of your rants
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Wikipedia now has a dozen or so informative articles on Molten Salt Reactors, Liquid Thorium Fluoride Reactors, etc. It's a good place to start. There is a website supporting the LFTR: Energy From Thorium. I note that I believe a lot of the PR out there regarding thorium is produced by a company that presently owns a huge percentage of the mining rights to thorium deposits in the US. Which is fine by me. :)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Toxicity is not a by-product of radioactivity. A [very mildly] radioactive metal like lead-204 is still lead, and will kill you like lead if you are exposed to too much; the fact that it is radioactive is trivial in a case like this. In a case like U-238, the radioactivity of the metal is quite low and the real danger of handling it is heavy metal poisoning.