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China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

thoriumenergyworld.com

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Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#21

Post by femto »

beefman wrote: post #20
femto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia's export of uranium to India. India has made an explicit decision not to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). As a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia is supposed to export only to countries that have signed the NPT. An exemption has been granted to India. This means India is receiving uranium from Australia, but its facilities are not subject to the full range of inspections requir…

India has been a nuclear power since 1974.

I guess you're right under the definition of proliferation being a new nation gaining nuclear weapons. I was thinking of proliferation, in the sense of their being more nuclear weapons, even if it doesn't involve a new nation.

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#22

Post by KMag »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #14
FlipperBucket wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation ? Thorium/breeder reactors don't work for large booms, but would be fine for small booms and dirty bombs.

What I mean to say is: Consider that the world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England, was opened in 1956 ¹, has there ever been a nuclear material used as a weapon other than the obvious two and conventional depleted uranium armour piercing projectiles? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Early_years

If you're going to count DU shells as nuclear proliferation, you should also count Po-210 poisoning (Litvinenko, and perhaps others) and that guy who poisoned his gf with I-131.

Though, when talking of nuclear proliferation, we almost always mean just the proliferation of nuclear and thermonuclear explosive devices.

North Korea used a power reactor to produce all of the Plutonium for its nuclear explosive devices, some of which were supposedly of a weapon form-factor have been used. If by "used" you mean "used in anger", then of course, there are only the two instances. (It also should be noted that in the context of nuclear reactors and proliferation, Little Boy is only tangentially related. Nuclear reactors weren't used in the production of Little Boy.)

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#23

Post by angry_octet »

femto wrote: post #18
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anybody provide any real-world examples of proliferation issues from nuclear material?

Australia's export of uranium to India. India has made an explicit decision not to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). As a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia is supposed to export only to countries that have signed the NPT. An exemption has been granted to India. This means India is receiving uranium from Australia, but its facilities are not subject to the full range of inspections requir…

Not only do we have low assurance that Australian uranium won't end up in weapons, but indigenous sources of uranium can now be dedicated 100% to weapons, instead of being shared with energy production. There is also the use of neutrons from 'energy uranium' being used to produce tritium from lithium-6, which is essential for producing fusion boosted and thermonuclear weapons.

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/north-koreas-lith...

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#24

Post by angry_octet »

beefman wrote: post #20
femto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia's export of uranium to India. India has made an explicit decision not to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). As a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia is supposed to export only to countries that have signed the NPT. An exemption has been granted to India. This means India is receiving uranium from Australia, but its facilities are not subject to the full range of inspections requir…

India has been a nuclear power since 1974.

I don't see any reason why countries committed to nuclear non-proliferation should endeavour to make weapon production cheaper. In fact, they should have to decide between peaceful uses and weapons of mass destruction.

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#25

Post by noobermin »

philipkglass wrote: post #10

AFAICT this article offers no dates, no numbers, and no primary sources. China did announce a thorium research program back in 2011, and continues to publish research, but I don't see any notable recent developments reported on other sites. The IAEA does not currently list any reactors matching this description in operation or under construction in China: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails...…

Perhaps it's a slow...news(?) day at "thoriumenergyworld.com"

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#26

Post by jhayward »

FlipperBucket wrote: post #12
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anybody provide any real-world examples of proliferation issues from nuclear material?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation ? Thorium/breeder reactors don't work for large booms, but would be fine for small booms and dirty bombs.

>Thorium/breeder reactors don't work for large booms

Thorium breeder reactors in fact will work just fine for big booms by selectively producing protactinium-233 and then running it through a couple of decay and chemical separation cycles.

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#27

Post by [deleted] »

philipkglass wrote: post #10

AFAICT this article offers no dates, no numbers, and no primary sources. China did announce a thorium research program back in 2011, and continues to publish research, but I don't see any notable recent developments reported on other sites. The IAEA does not currently list any reactors matching this description in operation or under construction in China: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails...…

[deleted]

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#28

Post by tim333 »

philipkglass wrote: post #10

AFAICT this article offers no dates, no numbers, and no primary sources. China did announce a thorium research program back in 2011, and continues to publish research, but I don't see any notable recent developments reported on other sites. The IAEA does not currently list any reactors matching this description in operation or under construction in China: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails...…

Something here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinese-government-invest-bil...

>[late 2017] China Academy of Sciences and the government of Gansu Province signed a co-operation agreement to work together on China’s Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) project and to have a demonstration or research reactor built in Gansu Province by 2020.

>The total investment was planed to be 22 billion CNY (3 billion USD)

Re: China Invests Big in Clean and Cheap Energy from Thorium

#29

Post by philipkglass »

tim333 wrote: post #28
philipkglass wrote: post #10

AFAICT this article offers no dates, no numbers, and no primary sources. China did announce a thorium research program back in 2011, and continues to publish research, but I don't see any notable recent developments reported on other sites. The IAEA does not currently list any reactors matching this description in operation or under construction in China: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails...…

Something here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinese-government-invest-bil... >[late 2017] China Academy of Sciences and the government of Gansu Province signed a co-operation agreement to work together on China’s Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) project and to have a demonstration or research reactor built in Gansu Province by 2020. >The total investment was planed to be 22 billion CNY (3 billion USD)

Right, some other documents I found indicated that there would be a research reactor scheduled for 2020. But the documents I found about it were from before 2018. I couldn't understand why this story was published in August 2018. There doesn't appear to be anything new happening right now. The next interesting development will be when the research reactor actually starts up, hopefully in 2020.
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