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China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

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Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#41

Post by godelski »

philipkglass wrote: post #30
apatheticonion wrote: post #24

I have been doing my best to find critical information on the viability of Thorium based nuclear reactors (because they sound too good to be true). Everyone sings their praises, but what engineering challenges are there and are those engineering challenges large enough to discourage their development/adoption? The biggest thing I have found is that the salt solution for Thorium reactors is quite corrosive and that is…

Here's a well cited perspective, written by one of HN's own active commenters: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html

Has anyone seen AcidBurn recently? They've been notably absent for some time. They used to appear in essentially any HN forum with nuclear. I miss their expert insight.

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#42

Post by apatheticonion »

philipkglass wrote: post #30
apatheticonion wrote: post #24

I have been doing my best to find critical information on the viability of Thorium based nuclear reactors (because they sound too good to be true). Everyone sings their praises, but what engineering challenges are there and are those engineering challenges large enough to discourage their development/adoption? The biggest thing I have found is that the salt solution for Thorium reactors is quite corrosive and that is…

Here's a well cited perspective, written by one of HN's own active commenters: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html

Thanks for sharing this

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#43

Post by arcticbull »

apatheticonion wrote: post #24

I have been doing my best to find critical information on the viability of Thorium based nuclear reactors (because they sound too good to be true). Everyone sings their praises, but what engineering challenges are there and are those engineering challenges large enough to discourage their development/adoption? The biggest thing I have found is that the salt solution for Thorium reactors is quite corrosive and that is…

Extant CANDU reactors can utilize Thorium fuel too. [1] I believe India is planning to utilize them in this way. [2]

[1] https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/20823329

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#44

Post by sandworm101 »

smhost wrote: post #20
wolverine876 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this also isn't the type of thing that governments tend to lie about This is the sort of thing governments lie about, IME - big, sensational achievements that enhance their status.

maybe in movies. governments mostly tend to lie about things they did badly, not about long-term accomplishments that can be fairly easily measured against their previous record, currently level of expertise, etc.

Lies about industrial progress? About industrial capacity? That is exactly the sort of thing that China has lied about in the past. There is a great video of Putin laughing as a minister talks about all the pork they export to indonesia. These sorts of lies are normal for such nations. Nobody takes them too seriously, especially those telling them.

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#45

Post by TimSchumann »

philipkglass wrote: post #30
apatheticonion wrote: post #24

I have been doing my best to find critical information on the viability of Thorium based nuclear reactors (because they sound too good to be true). Everyone sings their praises, but what engineering challenges are there and are those engineering challenges large enough to discourage their development/adoption? The biggest thing I have found is that the salt solution for Thorium reactors is quite corrosive and that is…

Here's a well cited perspective, written by one of HN's own active commenters: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html

Good write up from a great guy. IIRC the author of that page, Nick Touran, works (worked?) for one of the Nuclear Startups that Gates funded. Met him and had a few drinks once, guy knows his stuff.

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#46

Post by notahacker »

wolverine876 wrote: post #15
smhost wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this also isn't the type of thing that governments tend to lie about. it's not like a scenario where a contractor overpromises and underdelivers and government media has to do damage control. they're also not announcing some new leap in scientific understanding. it's old science.

> this also isn't the type of thing that governments tend to lie about This is the sort of thing governments lie about, IME - big, sensational achievements that enhance their status.

It's the sort of claim thats fairly meaningless to the average person, but becomes meaningful and embarrassing if its exposed as vaporware (and the sort of person that's more impressed by this than any other announcement about power stations is the sort of person that's really interested in the detail of how it'll work).

During the Cold War the US and USSR made all sorts of tendentious claims about the superiority of their socioeconomic systems, their military prowess and mendacious things the other side was supposed to be doing and denied all sorts of things they actually did, but they didn't try to lie their way to the front of the Space Race.

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#47

Post by godelski »

j_walter wrote: post #2

Nuclear is far from the best source of electricity, but it is far less damaging to the environment than coal or NG if handled and designed properly. If countries can work together to put them in places that protect from major earthquakes or other natural disasters then I think we can get some decent movement on reduce GHG emissions from power plants.

> Nuclear is far from the best source of electricity

Just to be clear, this is a universal statement. The issue is that there are many factors to consider. There's cost, storage, total output, CO2 and waste production, physical footprint, environmental factors, local resources, and many other parameters that need to be considered when determining what _combination_ of energy sources should be used for an area. I believe that often people abstract these variables out and only concentrate on cost and a secondary factor that supports their point for the specific conversation. We should not be naive and recognize that these are extremely complex systems with equally complex solutions that require significant amounts of nuance to accurately discuss.

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#48

Post by j_walter »

Tade0 wrote: post #14
seiferteric wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the EROEI on solar (~10) vs nuclear (~100), and LFTR (~1200 maybe...) in particular, there is no comparison. In the future we will need far more electrical energy, it's not enough to just replace what we currently have. Also if we want to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere, we will need a tremendous amount of power.

Problem is, we might not be able to build them fast enough. China is currently the leader in deployment of nuclear power, but even there wind power overtook it in terms of GWh delivered in 2013 and the difference was been widening ever since. Similarly within a decade solar went from delivering 1% of the energy nuclear did, to 70%. At this rate it will close the gap before 2025.

Unfortunately a lot of nuclear plants went offline and very few were built in the last 20 years. As they aged they were deemed to much of a risk and shut down. If they had continued to have been built then Solar would not have gained so much, but there was too much push back on nuclear after the Fukushima incident.

https://www.powermag.com/taiwan-shuts-another-reactor-as-par...

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#49

Post by smhost »

sandworm101 wrote: post #44
smhost wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe in movies. governments mostly tend to lie about things they did badly, not about long-term accomplishments that can be fairly easily measured against their previous record, currently level of expertise, etc.

Lies about industrial progress? About industrial capacity? That is exactly the sort of thing that China has lied about in the past. There is a great video of Putin laughing as a minister talks about all the pork they export to indonesia. These sorts of lies are normal for such nations. Nobody takes them too seriously, especially those telling them.

if by "sort of thing" you mean anything related to industry, then maybe you're right. but this is a claim about a particular technology, not a claim about aggregate capacity. if you're using russia as a point of comparison, this is maybe the one area where it might not be to your advantage, since one of the few things russia excels at is producing and selling nuclear technology. people might not take russia's claims about pig exports too seriously, but people do take seriously their nuclear claims (such as announcements about nuclear icebreakers, or whatever).

Re: China Says It's Closing in on Thorium Nuclear Reactor

#50

Post by robocat »

tpmx wrote: post #17
duairc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CCP has proven to us that we can't trust their word. Over and over again. Are you able to substantiate that claim?

> Are you able to substantiate that claim? https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/18/china-covid-19-killed-h... It is widely known that when the new coronavirus emerged in December 2019, the Chinese government downplayed the pandemic threat for several critical weeks. Less commonly known is those same authorities deliberately sacrificed health workers to maintain their lies. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) calculated…

Blaming China is pointless: Western countries had control of their borders and did not act.

Taiwan started its lockdown procedures on people entering from China on December 31st, 2019.

Taiwan knew what was happening, and all governments should have had similar knowledge - they certainly should not have been waiting for China to tell WHO or whatever other lame argument that article makes.

I am sick of the same boring cliché arguments being trotted out about how we think China should act: how we act is what matters.

Sorry, off topic I know.

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