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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

#61

Post by Meandering »

timbit42 wrote: post #4
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.

How long does it take to plan and build a nuclear plant? At the rate solar, wind and energy storage are improving, will it be worth the wait? Solar has dropped in price by more than 80% in the past 10 years.

Large reactors currently take at least 10 years to construct. The new small reactors are estimated to take at least 2-5 years.

These plants offer continuous power with minimal maintenance. Renewable equipment needs to be replaced and repaired at a higher frequency. They will also need storage and grid upgrades to stand as a direct replacement. They absolutely have a place in the energy profile. But, nuclear provides a type of base power that cannot be easily or cost efficiently accomplished by renewable technologies. We need to take advantage of the pros and mitigate the cons of each technology.

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

#62

Post by godelski »

notahacker wrote: post #46
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.

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…

> It's the sort of claim thats fairly meaningless to the average person,

We're talking about it, aren't we? I've also seen this news on Reddit. Propaganda doesn't have to be a one size fits all. Targeting armchair experts and tech enthusiasts can still be useful. The point is that people are talking about how awesome your country is. Real or fake, I'd call this news story a success for China.

I'm not saying this technology is vaporware or not, I don't know. I'm just saying that the argument I'm responding to isn't great. I'd also like to mention that propaganda doesn't even imply that something is fake. Sputnik was real and also a great propaganda machine because it got people talking about it but so were other niche things like Russian Chess players and Russian mathematicians. We have international math competitions, you think those aren't used by propagandists? The average person cares nothing about a math competition.

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

#63

Post by zepto »

notahacker wrote: post #46
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.

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…

> but becomes meaningful and embarrassing if its exposed as vaporware

I’d argue that almost no claim like this is even remembered, let alone becomes ‘embarrassing’.

On the other hand when people see them it definitely creates the propaganda or marketing value of China being ‘ahead’ in some way.

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

#64

Post by zepto »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8
tpmx wrote: post #3

That would be awesome, but unfortunately the CCP have proven to us that we can't trust their word.

They say they’re 9 years away. That’s a long enough date that I’d be skeptical of any government that was giving a prediction for nearly a decade out.

That’s far enough away to be essentially meaningless because nobody will remember the claim.

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

#65

Post by fy20 »

Meandering wrote: post #61
timbit42 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long does it take to plan and build a nuclear plant? At the rate solar, wind and energy storage are improving, will it be worth the wait? Solar has dropped in price by more than 80% in the past 10 years.

Large reactors currently take at least 10 years to construct. The new small reactors are estimated to take at least 2-5 years. These plants offer continuous power with minimal maintenance. Renewable equipment needs to be replaced and repaired at a higher frequency. They will also need storage and grid upgrades to stand as a direct replacement. They absolutely have a place in the energy profile. But, nuclear provides…

> nuclear provides a type of base power that cannot be easily or cost efficiently accomplished by renewable technologies

I'm pro nuclear, but the numbers I'm seeing say this statement isn't true. The UK is currently building a new nuclear power station, being called the most expensive nuclear power station in the world by the media. It has a strike price (guarantee wholesale rate) of £90/MWh[0], where as offshore wind has a strike price of £40/MWh[1], and will probably get cheaper.

I understand this isn't the whole picture, as wind energy isn't a constant supply, but the UK is well placed to transition to a smart grid to adjust a large amount of demand dynamically (a lot of homes have electric heating which was designed to be switched on remotely 'off peak' [2]).

I wouldn't say the UK is against nuclear, and this plant is being built by the French multinational EDF - they have some experience building and running nuclear power stations. So why is it so expensive? Where are all these cheap nuclear power stations?

[0] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Strike_price_deal_for_...

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-low-uk-offshore-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7

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

#67

Post by acidburnNSA »

tpmx wrote: post #3

That would be awesome, but unfortunately the CCP have proven to us that we can't trust their word.

This guy on Twitter named Conrad Knauer [1] who has been diligently following satellite photos and cross-referencing them with the design publications for TMSR-1 that makes it all seem pretty believable. Pretty round-about way to verify things but it's something.

[1] https://twitter.com/ConradKnauer

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

#68

Post by acidburnNSA »

DennisP wrote: post #5
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.

One nice thing about a molten salt reactor like China is building is that the dangerous fission products are chemically bound in the salt. If some external event breaks the reactor wide open, the salt cools and you just have radioactive rocks there on the site, instead of a radioactive cloud over a large region.

There are plenty of volatile fission products in a molten salt reactor. For example, at MSRE, a large fraction of the iodine went completely missing and no one to this day knows where it went. Capable and redundant containment systems are absolutely necessary in these reactors.

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

#69

Post by acidburnNSA »

godelski wrote: post #41
philipkglass wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm around. I thought there were just fewer nuclear articles going around! I guess I missed some.

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

#70

Post by acidburnNSA »

apatheticonion wrote: post #42
philipkglass wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I should add this to the page linked, but another excellent resource to kind of help answer your question is the paper the Oak Ridge National Lab folks put together as they lost funding for the molten salt breeder reactor program in the early 1970s: ORNL-5018 -- Program plan for development of molten-salt breeder reactors[1]. This basically is them saying: "ok folks, we're wrapping up for now but when you inevitably pick up this work, here's what you have in front of you."

Though a lot of time has passed since it was written, it's still largely relevant.

[1] https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4227904

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