You possibly can mainly copy and paste that line into numerous tales about at present’s superior reactor expertise. Molten-salt cooling programs? Invented within the mid-Twentieth century however by no means commercialized. Identical for a number of various fuels, like TRISO. And, in fact, there’s thorium.
This one analysis reactor in China working with an alternate gasoline says loads about this second for nuclear power expertise: Many teams are wanting into the previous for applied sciences, with a brand new urge for food for constructing them.
First, it’s vital to notice that China is the sizzling spot for nuclear power proper now. Whereas the US nonetheless has essentially the most operational reactors on this planet, China is catching up rapidly. The nation is constructing reactors at a exceptional clip and at present has extra reactors beneath development than every other nation by far. Simply this week, China authorized 10 new reactors, totaling over $27 billion in funding.
China can also be main the best way for some superior reactor applied sciences (that class consists of mainly something that deviates from the usual blueprint of what’s on the grid at present: massive reactors that use enriched uranium for gasoline and high-pressure water to maintain the reactor cool). Excessive-temperature reactors that use fuel as a coolant are one main space of focus for China—a number of reactors that use this expertise have lately began up, and extra are within the planning phases or beneath development.
Now, Chinese language state media is reporting that scientists within the nation reached a milestone with a thorium-based reactor. The reactor got here on-line in June 2024, however researchers say it lately went by way of refueling with out shutting down. (Standard reactors usually must be stopped to replenish the gasoline provide.) The undertaking’s lead scientists shared the outcomes throughout a closed assembly on the Chinese language Academy of Sciences.
I’ll emphasize right here that this isn’t some huge energy plant: This reactor is tiny. It generates simply two megawatts of warmth—lower than the analysis reactor on MIT’s campus, which rings in at six megawatts. (To be honest, MIT’s is likely one of the largest college analysis reactors within the US, however nonetheless … it’s small.)
Regardless, progress is progress for thorium reactors, because the world has been solely centered on uranium for the final 50 years or so.
A lot of the unique analysis on thorium got here out of the US, which pumped sources into all types of various reactor applied sciences within the Fifties and ’60s. A reactor at Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Tennessee that ran within the Sixties used Uranium-233 gasoline (which might be generated when thorium is bombarded with radiation).
