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."

Comments

Where we should have been years ago already

[rolfwind]

If it weren't for the enviro-nuts and not-in-my-backyarders who think electricity magically comes from the socket and not instead from coal plants and the like.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[profplump]

Well that and the conflation of defense-industry nuclear materials production with energy production -- thorium reactors are almost certainly better for generating power, but they don't help you build nuclear bombs, so they get less funding (or at least they have historically).

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[afidel]

Especially since we have an estimate 400k tonnes of the stuff at $80/kg mined. I like the fact that this salt bath solution in that it is passively safe in that heat distorts the geometry slowing reaction rates and also they can drain the bath into subcritical loads quite easily (and I'd imagine you could make the drain plug out of a material that would melt above your normal reaction temp but well below critical level).

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame Reagan.

Note how in 1980 all non-defense govt r&d dropped precipitously. Then during the 90s when oil dropped to $10/barrel and the free market abandoned alternative energy research, govt had the perfect opportunity to fulfill its role of investing in the kind of long-term disruptive research biz is too short-sighted to do - but govt didn't.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[Pontiac]

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

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[hcdejong]

The old discussion system (D1) is still available and works correctly.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[WalksOnDirt]

The MSR reactors are neither liquid metal cooled nor water cooled. I don't see the relevance.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[zevans]

Indeed it is off-topic. We appear to have a bug in a moderator who has marked it "informative." There's yer problem.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

I like the fact that this salt bath solution in that it is passively safe in that heat distorts the geometry slowing reaction rates and also they can drain the bath into subcritical loads quite easily (and I'd imagine you could make the drain plug out of a material that would melt above your normal reaction temp but well below critical level).

Indeed. You can even make it from the salt itself. Just by cooling a plug of it in the drain. The original US experimental reactor worked that way. A simple fan cooled the drain plug. When the reactor lost power, the fan would stop, the plug would melt and the reactor would stop. That's no theory either, it was how the reactor was routinely shut down during the weekends. They just pulled the plug and went home!

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[gtall]

Thursday, Feb. 26, 1998: "The U.S. Department of Energy asked for public comment Thursday on its plans to produce bomb material in a commercial nuclear reactor. DOE is considering three Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plants for production of tritium, a form of hydrogen gas that intensifies the explosive force of a nuclear warhead. It would be the first time the United States has used a civilian reactor as its source for tritium. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)"

Except for the above, commercial plants are not producing weapons grade material, it is too much of a security risk.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[Megane]

The worst part is that when a non-root reply is minimized, you can neither see its score (to differentiate the 5s from the -1, Trolls), nor that there are dozens of replies under it. I compliained about this in the original "hey look at our cool new webby thing" thread. The only thing that ever got fixed was putting underlines back on web links, but that was so bad that I was hardly the only one complaining, and it would have been only a CSS change anyhow.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[hey!]

Well, having low prices for petroleum, coal and natural gas after the 1970s *might* have had something to do with the collapse of the US nuclear industry.

Seriously, just how paranoid do you have to be to believe in an environmental lobby that can prevail against any industry that sees big, quick bucks to be made? How out of touch with what environmentalists actually think do you have to be to believe they *don't* know coal is involved in generating electricity?

Environmentalists who are concerned with energy generally want two things: (1) greater efficiency and (2) sustainably renewable energy sources. These also happen to be good things if you are interested in national economic security.

Renewable energy sources are where we'll be in the long run anyhow, because sustainability is, well, *unsustainable*. Unsustainability per se is not a long term problem, because it is a self-correcting problem. The problems with non-sustainable practices are all the things we end up doing to keep the status quo running just a little bit longer; the external costs we dump on the society and the planet because we are facing problems we don't know how to fix in a decade, much less overnight. Deepwater Horizon was an example of that. We pushed our capability to the limit, and because the margins at the limit aren't as generous as we'd like we cut corners.

This problem is exacerbated by the unwillingness of people to think ahead. People equate thinking ahead with doom and gloom. When they fix a problem, they want it to be fixed forever, even if that's unreasonable. If we planned ahead, we could use nuclear power to help us transition from petroleum.The first bite of a non-sustainable practice is the least environmentally costly. But we have trouble not taking the next bite, and the bite after that, until we've used it all up.

What would happen if we decided to pursue nuclear as bridge to future sustainable energy production? I think very quickly people would view this as a new status quo that will last forever. They won't think about decommissioning, waste disposal an fuel supply problems that are two or three decades in the future. Oh, they'll pay lip service to these things, but then go ahead and build plants on a scale that ignores these coming problems. The urge build our way out of our short term problems will be almost irresistible. If we succeed in building our way out of our short term problems, energy efficiency will go out the window because we'll consider our problems solved forever.

Nonetheless, I think we *should* increase our use of nuclear power. We'll probably need to increase our use of natural gas and (ugh) coal. There will be millions spent lobbying to choose one of these technologies and treat it as a silver bullet (which none of them will be). We just have to accept that's a fight we'll have to have, because having failed to convince people to look ahead forty years ago, we can't just wag our finger at them and say, "See? This is what we said was going to happen, even if in the short term oil prices went down." You don't win people over by rubbing their nose in their being wrong.

The important thing is to move to a diversified portfolio of energy sources, and electricity generation is key to this. As any single energy source becomes economically or environmentally non-viable, we won't be faced with the end of civilization as we know it. This will also be a bridge to a sustainable energy future. As each non-sustainable energy source drops out, consumers will economize and economically marginal energy sources (e.g. photovoltaics) will attract more private investment.

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[pixelpusher220]

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

Re:Where we should have been years ago already

[garyebickford]

This was apparently a factor back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when they shut down the experimental LTFR at Oak Ridge, but has certainly not been a factor since about 1980. Then for a long time the climate for new nukes of any kind was so poor that there was no interest in designing new reactors of any kind (in the US), and IMHO an element of sheer inertia was involved as well - there just wasn't much conversation. Since then, a bigger factor has probably been the commercial consideration that the big nuclear industry players make most of their money on making, selling and reprocessing fuel rods, which requires big expensive high tech machinery and extreme security precautions, and so provides a huge barrier to entry of other companies. The LTFR doesn't involve such huge technical and security expertise and infrastructure, so their business will suffer. Therefore the big nuke players have no incentive to go there - rather they would prefer to drag things out as long as possible.

Of course, a real high tech company realizes that if they don't develop the technology that will replace their core business, somebody else will. So Westinghouse et al _should_ be going full speed on developing the replacement, which certainly looks like LTFR right now (but may not be - we really don't know yet). They may in fact be doing so - I haven't kept up with the literature.

Go China!

[neiras]

I've been running across tantalizing scraps of info about thorium reactors and their supposed advantages for years. I half thought the theory must be questionable (obviously I'm no physicist) largely because if it were so promising, why would thorium designs not be prevalent in Europe or the US?

This is exciting news. Seems like China is the place to be if you're looking to experiment with new (or old, rediscovered) ideas.

Re:Go China!

[afidel]

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.

Gentlemen...

[l0ungeb0y]

We now face a Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor gap.
However Jimmy from Cub Scout Den 561 assures us that our nation's Sugar Crystal Nucleation Reactors are operating at optimal conditions.

ARGH

[magus_melchior]

This is infuriating. While the oil and coal shills in Congress and the conservative propaganda networks insist global warming is not real, and while the Greens refuse to have anything to do with nukes, China will be light-years ahead of us in technology.

Don't worry.

[pizzach]

The US can probably just install a virus into their computers to make the plants worthless. The US might be labeled as terrorists for doing something so dangerous, but it is a small price to pay to hold the temporary status quo.

Re:Don't worry.

[taiwanjohn]

Not sure it's necessarily bad for the US if China has this technology. The more energy they get from nukes, the less China will compete for oil on the int'l market.

Re:Initiated.

[gmaslov]

That is how progress is made. I think the relevant quotes are "shoulders of giants", "those who ship, win", and possibly even "shit or get off the pot".

Re:Greed

[c0lo]

A thorium reactor does not require the expensive hard-to-make enriched uranium fuel rods that conventional pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors do.

No, it requires special alloys for piping the molten salt (fluorides are still corrosive), may require replacing the graphite moderator every 4 years (keep in mind not to allow moisture to come in contact with the salt, HF is nasty for your pipes no matter what material you'd be using), raises challenges in regards with by-product processing. citation if one needs it.

These guys (which played with MSR since '50-es) are saying, while the reactor accident risks are decreased, the processing accident risks are increased (see page 13-15).

Re:Slight exaggeration

[WalksOnDirt]

clad failure

There is no cladding on the fuel.

we lack the capability to model fast reactors well.

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.

Um....

[crhylove]

I see a lot of comments stating something negative about environmentalists because we don't have molten salt reactor technology in development. This has not been the fault of environmentalists at all. This is almost purely the fault of the money making machine that is the military industrial complex, wanting to sell the technology they spent so much precious time developing, despite the factor a superior technology was readily available.

We could have electric cars too, but the patents on many batteries are owned by petroleum industry corporations.

I never saw an environmentalist with a shirt that said, "Down with molten salt reactors!!!" I'm sure given the choice and scientific evidence, most environmentalists would much more readily opt for that rather than the currently in use nuclear power paradigm.

Only a few reactionary environmentalists are anti technology. The vast majority of modern environmentalists just want less chemical waste and incidents of cancer. And to save the polar bears, though it's their own hides they should really be defending.

Re:Um....

[greg_barton]

On the whole environmentalists are not anti technology, but there is a definite strain of anti nuclear bias. I'm about as left wing as they come, and when I talk nukes to my lefty friends there are almost universal blank/glassy stares back at me.

I don't disagree with you at all about resistance from the right. The main problem with nuclear is that it gets hit rom all sides.

Re:Patent infringement time?

[jandersen]

I don't about the rest of the people around here, but I get really weary of all the snide remarks, sometimes.

Wherever we live in the world, and whatever you think of the Chinese government, should we not be able to be glad on behalf of the Chinese? And for ourselves too - because the West are not going to let China just run away with the full benefits of developing this technology; and it is going to do us all a lot of good.

So let us all be glad, and not too petty to congratulate others for achieving things.

ok, I don't get this

[Thud457]

from the summary :

produces far less toxic, shorter-lived waste than existing designs,

I thought the more radioactive the isotope, the shorter the half-life.

Start with Wikipedia

[garyebickford]

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. :)

Re:Slight exaggeration

[damnfuct]

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.

If you don't know the difference between Na &

[MarkusQ]

If you don't know the difference between sodium metal and salt, I'd advise you to be very careful when cooking, as well as when posting.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Patent infringement time?

[DarenN]

Eisenhower - who remains the only US president to reduce military spending. Also coined the phrase "the military/industrial complex".
Backed the Marshall plan - he hated hitler and the nazi's but ended up quite liking the germans.
Had another few notable foreign policy acheivements, such as ending the Korean war and refusing point blank to get involved in Vietnam because he knew that the US couldn't win there and besides sympathised with the vietnamese wanting to cast off French rule.
Was probably the single most popular man in the world due to WWII - he was all but worshipped in Europe, had decent relations with Russian leaders and was largely respected everywhere else.
Pushed HARD for a common european defence force, but the french nixed that (and de Gaulle insulted him and the American soldiers who'd fought to liberate France). Was the commander in chief of the compromise - NATO.
He also tried for a worldwide atomic research agency and nuclear weapons treaties with Russia, but that fell apart when the U2 spy plane was shot down in the last months of his presidency. It was one of his great regrets that he authorised that flight, but anti communist fever was sweeping the US at the time and the CIA insisted that they needed it.

Those that followed undid all his work so quickly it was shameful leading to the 60's which had the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile crisis, the Vietnam war, the nuclear and conventional arms race and numerous other proxy wars. They spent the considerable capital that their soldiers and leaders like Marshall and Eisenhower had built up as if it was water. Shame, really.