3 ms·
Is Thoriam a real alternative?
by philliphaydon 11y ago
Is Thoriam a real alternative?
- LeifCarrotson 11y agoThorium, and not yet.
- tim333 11y agoAs far as I can tell the basic problem with Thorium reactors is they would be more complicated and expensive than conventional reactors. Given that, Thorium probably isn't going to happen at scale for a long time even though it's technically doable.
- philliphaydon 11y agoBoth China and India are investing in it with China claiming it will have it working within 10 years... It seems like the Molten Salt Refactor is much safer than a Liquid reactor will ever be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
- tim333 11y agoI just noticed UPower (YC S14) is also working on it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195554 Dunno how that will go.
- philliphaydon 11y agoI just noticed in the wiki link: In January 2016, the United States Department of Energy announced a $80m award fund to develop Generation IV reactor designs.[19] One of the two beneficiaries, Southern Company will use the funding to develop a Molten Chloride Fast Reactor (MCFR), a type of MSR developed earlier by British scientists.[16]
- philliphaydon 11y agoMy bad, was on my phone and it auto selected what I wrote :(
- aidenn0 11y agoThe neutron budget of Thorium is much tighter than uranium. However, Thorium breeder reactors are considered more proliferation resistant, because the weaponizable isotope U-233 contains also some U-232 and U-234 which are hard to separate, and U-232 is really nasty stuff to work with, meaning most would-be terrorists are likely to die of radiation poisoning before they could set a bomb off in Manhattan.