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China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

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51–60 of 141 posts

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#51
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of nuclear power is dominated by a poorly designed regulatory environment (which can be changed if regulators are suitablely motivated). https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...

I dispute that. I'm as pro-nuclear as one can be, but I don't think the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is doing a bad job, or that the regulations are unreasonable. In the end, a lot of the regulations came as a response to incidents like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and others less well known. One way or another, nuclear reactors are extremely complex machines, with numerous failure modes. As var…

> ...I don't think the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is doing a bad job...

"He has a master's from Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Valparaiso University."

Christopher Hanson, current chair of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_T._Hanson

He's one of the better ones as he isn't actively trying to block new reactors going up. There are some gems on the other Chairperson wiki pages like "called for a global ban on nuclear power" (Gregory Jaczko if you want to look it up).

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#52
post #23
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About one third of China's politburo, including Xi Jinping, have degrees in Engineering. The West's leadership is all attorneys or finance.

In the case of the US, the latest president is a failed businessman who is more concerned about trans people, abortion, and immigrants than progress. According to media I’m supposed to hate China but I don’t hear Xi Jinping spouting nonsense like that.

Trump is not a great business man, but one thing they are good at is playing the media. I assure you Trump, the person, couldn’t care less about trans people, for better or worse. The fact that you’re even talking about trans at all, as opposed to the fact that they’re a felon, proves it all.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#53

I don't understand why the West hesitates with nuclear power.

The west already built nuclear, but that era is mostly over. Two thirds of the world’s nuclear power capacity is in the west, with the USA far ahead of any country (with double the nuclear output of China).

Even if all of the reactors being built around the world today are completed, overall nuclear power use will decline, as plants from the enormous construction boom of the 1970s-1980s reach the end of their life and are not replaced.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#54
post #39

Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling.

Their ball is already rolling. They put a pair of high temperature gas cooled pebble bed reactors into operation a little more than a year ago. They're actively exploring every avenue of nuclear power without restraint, including thorium and fast breeders. It hasn't yet occurred to the Chinese that the prosperity afforded by abundant energy is a problem they're supposed to be solving.

Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling. /s

In all seriousness, I think they were referring to getting everyone else's proverbial balls rolling.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#55
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the US, the latest president is a failed businessman who is more concerned about trans people, abortion, and immigrants than progress. According to media I’m supposed to hate China but I don’t hear Xi Jinping spouting nonsense like that.

Trump is not a great business man, but one thing they are good at is playing the media. I assure you Trump, the person, couldn’t care less about trans people, for better or worse. The fact that you’re even talking about trans at all, as opposed to the fact that they’re a felon, proves it all.

You can use “he” as a pronoun for Trump, he won’t be offended and your writing will be clearer.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#56
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the US, the latest president is a failed businessman who is more concerned about trans people, abortion, and immigrants than progress. According to media I’m supposed to hate China but I don’t hear Xi Jinping spouting nonsense like that.

You can hate the Chinese system for how it limits human rights, cracks down harshly on dissent, and stifles many creative outlets. Hating China or the Chinese people, which are like anywhere, generally lovely people, is silly. There's plenty of nonsense coming from the mouth of the Party, but it doesn't make the US news, because it's not aimed at the US. There's also a lot less news overall which discusses and critiq…

lol, abortion is perfectly legal in China, the government doesn't control women's bodies.

Certain policies are more set and less up to discussion after a period of experimentation. Political system in China is more geared towards not letting human or interest groups desires reflected in national policies. Instead, national policies reflect the common good and common sense. And political system helps to unify common sense, values, individual knowledge. There is healthy level of diversity, but also a necessary level of unity to prevent extreme polarization, left and right fighting.

For example, no prostitutions, human trafficking, surrogacy, so women from disadvantaged communities are not taken advantage of after decades of that happening in Qing and ROC era. Instead, they are given opportunity to have a proper education, such as in STEM. And they have the opportunity to work in 5G, AI, semiconductors, EVs, batteries, medicine, which interestingly, USA government doesn't want Chinese citizens to work on. U accuse China has no human rights, but China moved from the country with the worst women's rights to one amongst the highest amongst East Asian countries. In my view, women's societal standing in China is equal or higher than South Korea and Japan. And leaps better than India, the largest "democracy" and country closest to China's level 100 years ago.

No drugs, harsh on drug trade, production. So disadvantaged communities are not exploited by drug dealers. We will not let what is happening in the US with fentanyl crisis happen to us. U accuse China caused US"s fentanyl crisis because we make the drugs. Lol, so if we make the drug then why don't we have fentanyl crisis? Shouldn't be its much easier to sell and traffic it where it is produced? Drug issue is a demand problem, there is a demand in the US, no matter how much you squash the supply, people will find a way to make it. U need to end it at the demand side.

Climate policy is set now, no debate on some company can get lax air pollution policies to help their bottom line. Economic policy is free market, center right, but with basic social safety net in health care, pensions, poverty, high level of social safety net in education, security, crime levels.

We worked hard to lower the price of solar panels, so the world has an alternative energy source in age of global warming. Yet, u accuse us of evil intent to dominate and overcapacity and now expanding hydrocarbon production. So, is global warming not an issue anymore? Or was global warming a narrative used to attack China? The reason we worked hard on lower price of solar is in a perfect free market, solar has to compete with coal and natural gas. And it takes technology and innovation to reduce cost. Cost reduction is a good thing, Moorse law is also cost reduction, if we don't have cost reduction, we will still be using Pentium 3s. So, sorry a lot of solar companies went down, because they can't compete on technology, supply chain, and manufacturing. Ur competitor is not Chinese solar companies, ur competitor is cheap coal and gas. Unless ur solar industry is banking on government subsidies for the rest of their lives. But wait, I thought the west is against government subsidies.

U say Chinese government stifles many creative outlets. When Chinese people work on, dream and create 5G, tiktok, DJI, EVs, solar panels, batteries, semiconductors, AI, phone apps, games, USA is attempting to kill them all, taking away Chinese people's freedom, rights to survival, development and dream. So Chinese people can only do certain things approved by US government? The only thing we approved to do is to overthrow our own government? Or civil war in our country? Or have our country broken into many pieces? Everyone has the right to pursuit of happiness, not Chinese people according to USA.

And how interesting the West is stifling Chinese speech by saying their Chinese propaganda? Speech is "free" if it agrees with West narrative, it is propaganda when it does not.

I used to admire the USA, but not these days. When Chinese people are doing better, being empowered, USA 's response is to attack, oppress, sabotage Chinese people's livelihood. Instead of "it's nice to see good human progress", "we have trade and commerce disputes, but let's resolve that by making the pie bigger for everyone". Tesla and Apple can sell their products without government led market and non-market obstruction, let me know if I can buy a BYD or Huawei in the USA. And US import tariffs of Chinese goods is now much higher than the reverse.

USA accuse us stealing your jobs, no, your own companies shipped these jobs overseas, you should ask your own companies, not attacking some mom and dad working in factories to support their kids in another country. USA is already the richest country on Earth, your problem is most of your wealth is concentrated on top 1%, instead of distributing your wealth better, or help the people in need, you attack regular mom and dads' livelihoods in another country, making them not able bring food for their families. And most people cheer for this and think it is moral? Great values you got there.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#57
post #39

Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling.

Their ball is already rolling. They put a pair of high temperature gas cooled pebble bed reactors into operation a little more than a year ago. They're actively exploring every avenue of nuclear power without restraint, including thorium and fast breeders. It hasn't yet occurred to the Chinese that the prosperity afforded by abundant energy is a problem they're supposed to be solving.

Oh, they know. They've added 200GW of solar power this year.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could probably use a few engineers, but on the other hand I think the CCP could use a few finance people.

Based on what, China is too successful as it stands? Maybe they need to handicap themselves to appear less threatening? The contribution that the finance people in the US made was to - accurately - identify that if they moved all the investment overseas then the US wouldn't need to work as hard. They were correct. The result has been massive leaps and bounds in Asian prosperity and living standards. Which is good for…

Based on China constantly handicapping their capital markets with boneheaded decisions. Their stock market is a wreck sending a lot of their best companies abroad in search of capital.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#59
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this why China is such a great and technically advanced country?

It is but it has its risks/downsides. Engineers want to build and architecture everything which is why China has shit ton of rail, metros, bridges, etc... but also they don't want to hear anything about costs/ROI/Profitability/PMF or any of that annoying economic speak :) Law is a weird one and maybe I am wrong but I think law leadership is the worst of all. They have no understanding of neither engineering or econom…

Everything needs balance at the end.

Re: China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025

#60

Woah, looks like this article has a major error in it right up front: "The project follows a 2-MW experimental version completed in 2021 and operated since then. " They completed the TMSR-LF1 back then, and got authorization to turn it on, but have never announced startup or operation, as far as I'm aware. I've actually been bracing for the headline since 2021 because it would be the first time we operated a molten s…

What makes uranium more economical, fuel production or some aspect of operation? And if it's the first one, is that just lack of scale for thorium or something else?
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