Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

[Huan]

I think China will have a bigger lead in thorium reactor technology than India in the long run.

 

[CardSharp]

I think China will have a bigger lead in thorium reactor technology than India in the long run.

Of course. China excels at infrastructure project like this.

 

[rcrmj]

Actually, major technology in the world is based on

the ability to question rules and authorities + ability to do some original research and not copy

Poor chinese tend to possess none of these and thus tend to divert their shortcomings by attacking Indians.

well india doesnt fit any of these categories, poor india still believe its good in hig tec``lol, u guys dont even hv the technological know how to copy` yet still blar blar blar```

 

[Renegade]

India's Kakrapar-1 achieved critical in 1995, and was unplugged soon after due to a major accident and re-plugged earlier this year.

What nonsense!! Can you provide a credible link for your nonsensical claims? I bet you cant!! This statement is reason enough not to bother reading the rest of the drivel that you have written. Go ahead keep day dreaming.

The fact remains that India has had a plan for using Thorium & used it in a rector much before China even came up with the idea. Even before you guys thought about it, we put it to action. Maybe no one gave you the technology earlier so that you could reverse engineer it, but that is understandable.

As for "Arjun" the initial problems have been resolved & the tank has been accepted by the Indian Army & already deployed on the Western Border. By some reports it has done exceedingly well in its field trails & that's the reason the Army accepted it in the first place.

Do read a little before posting it will save us the trouble of educating you & save you some embarrassment.

 

[marshall]

India's Kakrapar-1 achieved critical in 1995, and was unplugged soon after due to a major accident and re-plugged earlier this year.

However , that India led the world to field such a minor technology at a time is very different from that India led the world in its tech. " the early pioneer of the technology was U.S. physicist Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, who helped develop a working nuclear plant [ read THE FIRST] using liquid fuel in the 1960s. " ( source: Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

You're mixing up India's thorium reactors which are SOLID fueled with the LIQUID fueled thorium research at Oak Ridge. These are totally different technologies and have nothing in common except for their use of thorium as the feedstock. India's thorium reactor research is designed to leverage EXISTING uranium reactor technology so that thorium can eventually act as an almost drop-in fuel replacement for existing uranium reactor designs. China's LIQUID thorium reactor research requires the complete rebuilding of nuclear infrastructure for its support because it is an unpressurized reactor design and fundamentally different from all existing nuclear reactor designs whether solid uranium fueled or solid thorium fueled.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

You're mixing up India's thorium reactors which are SOLID fueled with the LIQUID fueled thorium research at Oak Ridge. These are totally different technologies and have nothing in common except for their use of thorium as the feedstock. India's thorium reactor research is designed to leverage EXISTING uranium reactor technology so that thorium can eventually act as an almost drop-in fuel replacement for existing uranium reactor designs. China's LIQUID thorium reactor research requires the complete rebuilding of nuclear infrastructure for its support because it is an unpressurized reactor design and fundamentally different from all existing nuclear reactor designs whether solid uranium fueled or solid thorium fueled.

I thought MSRs were something in between. They are a molten solid.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

Does anyone here have an background in nuclear reactor design?

 

[CardSharp]

Does anyone here have an background in nuclear reactor design?

From what I can tell the professional qualification here run from an electrical engineers, a medicinal chemist, a chemical engineer, a hedge fund employee, and some other kind of engineering.

No nuclear physicists.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

From what I can tell the professional qualification here run from an electrical engineers, a medicinal chemist, a chemical engineer, a hedge fund employee, and some other kind of engineering.

Disappointing because Wikipedia and Google just doesn't really cut it for this kind of information.

Guess I'll keep looking

 

[tanlixiang28776]

Found a good site.

Thorium

people need to read this before making comments.

Can't understand all the technical details. Can someone help.

China

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

A quite different concept is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), utilizing U-233 which has been bred in a liquid thorium salt blanket.

The core consists of fissile U-233 tetrafluoride in molten fluoride salts of lithium and beryllium at some 700°C and at low pressure within a graphite structure that serves as a moderator and neutron reflector. Fission products dissolve in the salt and are removed progressively – xenon bubbles out, others are captured chemically. Actinides are less-readily formed than in fuel with atomic mass >235, and those that do form stay in the fuel until they are transmuted and eventually fissioned.

The blanket contains a mixture of thorium tetrafluoride in a fluoride salt containing lithium and beryllium, made molten by the heat of the core. Newly-formed U-233 forms soluble uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), which is converted to gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) by bubbling fluorine gas through the blanket solution (which does not chemically affect the less-reactive thorium tetrafluoride). Uranium hexafluoride comes out of solution, is captured, then is reduced back to soluble UF4 by hydrogen gas in a reduction column, and finally is directed to the core to serve as fissile fuel.

The LFTR is not a fast reactor, but with some moderation by the graphite is epithermal (intermediate neutron speed). Safety is achieved with a freeze plug which if power is cut allows the fuel to drain into subcritical geometry in a catch basin. There is also a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity due to expansion of the fuel.

The China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 launched an R&D program on LFTR, known there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology.

India

With about six times more thorium than uranium, India has made utilization of thorium for large-scale energy production a major goal in its nuclear power programme, utilising a three-stage concept:

Pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) fuelled by natural uranium, plus light water reactors, producing plutonium.
Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) using plutonium-based fuel to breed U-233 from thorium. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so that further plutonium (particularly Pu-239) is produced as well as the U-233.
Advanced heavy water reactors burn the U-233 and this plutonium with thorium, getting about 75% of their power from the thorium. The used fuel will then be reprocessed to recover fissile materials for recycling.
This Indian programme has moved from aiming to be sustained simply with thorium to one 'driven' with the addition of further fissile uranium and plutonium, to give greater efficiency. In 2009, despite the relaxation of trade restrictions on uranium, India reaffirmed its intention to proceed with developing the thorium cycle.

Another option for the third stage, while continuing with the PHWR and FBR stages, is the use of subcritical accelerator driven systems.

All mumbo jumbo to me.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

The LFTR is not a fast reactor, but with some moderation by the graphite is epithermal (intermediate neutron speed). Safety is achieved with a freeze plug which if power is cut allows the fuel to drain into subcritical geometry in a catch basin. There is also a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity due to expansion of the fuel.

So it seems the technology is actually quite safe.

Now the only question is power output.

 

[Vinod2070]

What kind of Thorium deposits does China have?

American estimates in tonnes (2010)
Country Reserves
United States 440,000
Australia 300,000
Brazil 16,000
Canada 100,000
India 290,000
Malaysia 4,500
South Africa 35,000
Other Countries 90,000
World Total 1,300,000

Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list doesn't have China in it, so it can't be very large.

On the other hand, it seems China has sufficient Uranium deposits.

Question: Why is China interested in Thorium reactors? Where would it source the material from?

 

[tanlixiang28776]

What kind of Thorium deposits does China have?

American estimates in tonnes (2010)
Country Reserves
United States 440,000
Australia 300,000
Brazil 16,000
Canada 100,000
India 290,000
Malaysia 4,500
South Africa 35,000
Other Countries 90,000
World Total 1,300,000

Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list doesn't have China in it, so it can't be very large.

On the other hand, it seems China has sufficient Uranium deposits.

Question: Why is China interested in Thorium reactors? Where would it source the material from?

Our backyard. Australia

Heres a more reliable list

Country Tonnes % of total
Australia
489,000
19
USA
400,000
15
Turkey
344,000
13
India
319,000
12
Venezuela
300,000
12
Brazil
302,000
12
Norway
132,000
5
Egypt
100,000
4
Russia
75,000
3
Greenland
54,000
2
Canada
44,000
2
South Africa
18,000
1
Other countries
33,000
1
World total
2,610,000

 

[Vinod2070]

Our backyard. Australia

Yes, kinda guessed it.

But you would research and build the whole thing on that premise!

Why not simply use Uranium that you have already and that you can also source?

What is the benefit of Thorium over Uranium for China?

 

[gubbi]

Our backyard. Australia

Exactly. And for that precise reason, being China's mineral rich backyard, Australia refuses to sell Uranium to India.