5 ms·

lets hope this works. The two fastest growing energy consumers in the world - India & China - are pulling people out of the poverty line by the millions every y

lets hope this works. The two fastest growing energy consumers in the world - India & China - are pulling people out of the poverty line by the millions every year. And so are not signatories to any climate accord. Both are incidentally also the worlds largest reserves of Thorium. And has no military use. An accelerated nuclear power research could end up being the next "COVID vaccine marathon". Cleaner air for everyone.

p_l 5y ago
Thorium is more useful as pathway to nuclear weapons than as reactor fuel :V
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Disagree. If you were now in the 1960s and could plan out a long term energy strategy thorium thermal breeders are by far thebest long term bet from a number of perspectives.
  - sandGorgon 5y ago
    Im not an expert here, but from what I have read - every one of those programs are not getting funding because of a larger disinterest in nuclear power per se. Im fact US, China, Russia, etc have all a thorium reactor in some stage of late stage development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      I don't really care about Thorium that much. A Uranium Fast Breeder can be almost as economical and is more achievable in the short term. The most important is to get a molten salt cooled or molten salt fueled reactor licensed. The problem with all these projects is that they are either government driven and then the resources are very devised and 99% of the time it will not be commercial. Or its semi commercial and then those companies have huge issues with financing. The closest thing to a molten salt reactor that might actually be commercial (with an actual operational license) in the Western world will almost certainty come from Canada. Canada after their Candu project was sold commercially looked for a next generation project. They have a very well respected regulator that is fully committed to actually supporting next generation designs and have implemented a process that actually makes it practically possible to get to a real commercial reactor. See: https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/index.cfm#p3 https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-li... Terrestrial Energy is the closest in actually passing Phase 2. They hope to complete it this year.
      - sandGorgon 5y ago
        but you are not talking from the perspective of India and China - which will soon grow into the most polluting countries on the planet...and steadfastly refused to sign environmental accords. India and China dont have access to Uranium reserves - today or for projected growth in 20 years. You are right that from a Western perspective - a uranium fast breeder reactor is probably better. But I'm hoping the general interest and investment in the space will help Thorium as well as a side effect.
  - p_l 5y ago
    I was talking more from the perspective of how easy the tech was to get working and what were the outputs. Thorium actually fell out of favour by 1960s because it was seen as adding more complexity for little gain. Was it good long term thinking? I think we both disagree. However what I was responding to is more the perception that Uranium was used due to being usable for bombs, when the reality is that Pu-239 (from Uranium) cycle "won" over U-233 (from Thorium) mostly for reasons of it being easier to start the reaction. Normal Uranium reactor tends to produce too much Pu-240 which is undesirable in weapons, so special modified designs and operations had to be introduced all the way back in Manhattan Project.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      I totally agree, the Uranium-Plutonium was always gone be the first one you develop. So it made sense to make the first fission reactors like that. The big mistake of the nuclear age, in my opinion was the adoption of water cooled reactors for civilian nuclear power. They simply make no sense. It makes sense for the Navy, and the navy had the money to develop them. Once that was done the technology was just scaled to a crazy degree for commercial, scale was needed to make it commercial, but result in plants so big that the total number of plants was gone be really small. They could have developed a molten salt cooled reactor as an alternative. You wouldn't even need to go to a fully molten salt fueled reactor. Example: https://kairospower.com/technology/ https://kairospower.com/technology/
- sandGorgon 5y ago
  theoretically yes. but from what i know, nobody does it because of better alternatives. in any case - both the countries are well recognized to be nuclear powers and "on the table".
  - p_l 5y ago
    Ultimately Manhattan Project "prove" the usability of Uranium->Plutonium path and simultaneously made inroads for power generation using Uranium (or Uranium-Thorium mixes). So why experiment with untested version if the tested one is more versatile?

p_l 5y ago

Thorium is more useful as pathway to nuclear weapons than as reactor fuel :V

panick21_ 5y ago
Disagree. If you were now in the 1960s and could plan out a long term energy strategy thorium thermal breeders are by far thebest long term bet from a number of perspectives.
- sandGorgon 5y ago
  Im not an expert here, but from what I have read - every one of those programs are not getting funding because of a larger disinterest in nuclear power per se. Im fact US, China, Russia, etc have all a thorium reactor in some stage of late stage development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    I don't really care about Thorium that much. A Uranium Fast Breeder can be almost as economical and is more achievable in the short term. The most important is to get a molten salt cooled or molten salt fueled reactor licensed. The problem with all these projects is that they are either government driven and then the resources are very devised and 99% of the time it will not be commercial. Or its semi commercial and then those companies have huge issues with financing. The closest thing to a molten salt reactor that might actually be commercial (with an actual operational license) in the Western world will almost certainty come from Canada. Canada after their Candu project was sold commercially looked for a next generation project. They have a very well respected regulator that is fully committed to actually supporting next generation designs and have implemented a process that actually makes it practically possible to get to a real commercial reactor. See: https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/index.cfm#p3 https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-li... Terrestrial Energy is the closest in actually passing Phase 2. They hope to complete it this year.
    - sandGorgon 5y ago
      but you are not talking from the perspective of India and China - which will soon grow into the most polluting countries on the planet...and steadfastly refused to sign environmental accords. India and China dont have access to Uranium reserves - today or for projected growth in 20 years. You are right that from a Western perspective - a uranium fast breeder reactor is probably better. But I'm hoping the general interest and investment in the space will help Thorium as well as a side effect.
- p_l 5y ago
  I was talking more from the perspective of how easy the tech was to get working and what were the outputs. Thorium actually fell out of favour by 1960s because it was seen as adding more complexity for little gain. Was it good long term thinking? I think we both disagree. However what I was responding to is more the perception that Uranium was used due to being usable for bombs, when the reality is that Pu-239 (from Uranium) cycle "won" over U-233 (from Thorium) mostly for reasons of it being easier to start the reaction. Normal Uranium reactor tends to produce too much Pu-240 which is undesirable in weapons, so special modified designs and operations had to be introduced all the way back in Manhattan Project.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    I totally agree, the Uranium-Plutonium was always gone be the first one you develop. So it made sense to make the first fission reactors like that. The big mistake of the nuclear age, in my opinion was the adoption of water cooled reactors for civilian nuclear power. They simply make no sense. It makes sense for the Navy, and the navy had the money to develop them. Once that was done the technology was just scaled to a crazy degree for commercial, scale was needed to make it commercial, but result in plants so big that the total number of plants was gone be really small. They could have developed a molten salt cooled reactor as an alternative. You wouldn't even need to go to a fully molten salt fueled reactor. Example: https://kairospower.com/technology/ https://kairospower.com/technology/
sandGorgon 5y ago
theoretically yes. but from what i know, nobody does it because of better alternatives. in any case - both the countries are well recognized to be nuclear powers and "on the table".
- p_l 5y ago
  Ultimately Manhattan Project "prove" the usability of Uranium->Plutonium path and simultaneously made inroads for power generation using Uranium (or Uranium-Thorium mixes). So why experiment with untested version if the tested one is more versatile?