Successful thorium-to-uranium conversion in China's new molten salt reactor
English language articlehttps://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1101/c90000-20385027.htmlChinese language article with some pictures, video and animationhttp://www.news.cn/20251101/9d89580a5524423c985c21e6bc6f0e9e/c.html
>>16834144Yes, that is in fact a core feature of thorium reactors. There would be serious cause for conern if it could not perform a central design function.Also weekly reminder that Chinese nuclear power plants release more radioactive water yearly than Fukushima did in the aftermath of the meltdowns.
>>16834161Fuck off retarded pol bot. PS. normal reactors will transmute part of its uranium into plutonium too, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel , but by design neutron poisons (atoms that will capture neutrons slowing and killing the nuclear reactions) impede the use that plutonium generated without the problematic reprocessing. Thorium and fast breeders are designed to 'breed' more fuel while removing the neutron poisons and improve the "burning" of fuel by orders of magnitude, current reactors can only use the U235 (and a negligible part of its plutonium/others heavy isotopes) that limits them to burn only 0.4-0.5% of the mined uranium because they can't use the U238 that is main isotope of Uranium (~99.3%)
>thorium threadI feel like it's 2012 again.
>>16834144Cool. Let me know when the US or a European country builds one so we know it won't fucking blow up.
>>16834176>doesn't produce plutoniumgay
>>16834150More photoshttp://www.xinhuanet.com/photo/20251101/2b9aded50ca4452e80aaf8a7f48d4b12/c.html
>china saysits fake, they only communicate in order to mislead
>muh thorium
>>16834300I don't see why people disparage thorium. The scalable green energy technologies are solar, wind, and breeder reactors. Solar and wind suffer from weather and geographic constraints. Thorium breeders have the potential of being cheaper than u238 breeders.
>>16834348>I don't see why people disparage thorium.If that people isn't a nuclear engineer or actually makes a good argument then you can ignore them. It's all internet drama.
10 minutes long clip from Chinese newshttps://m.weibo.cn/status/5228617854359572
>>16834369Catbox link (1080p)>https://files.catbox.moe/on190b.mp4>我国钍基熔盐实验堆首次实现堆内钍铀转换 [5228617854359572]
>>16834176Isn't an additional and important advantage of LFTR that there is no inherent upper limit to how big they can be made? It's hard to build a PWR more powerful than 5GW thermal, especially if it is to have passive safety features
>>16834176>core meltdown is absolutely not a problemWell, the core is supposed to be molten during normal operation, so you'd hope that isn't a problem
>they use robot hands for manipulating radiactive materialscool