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China has world’s first operational thorium nuclear reactor thanks to ‘strategic stamina’ (www.scmp.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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https://archive.is/2nQSh

It marks the first long-term, stable operation of the technology, putting China at the forefront of a global race to harness thorium – considered a safer and more abundant alternative to uranium – for nuclear power.

The experimental reactor, located in the Gobi Desert in China’s west, uses molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium – a radioactive element abundant in the Earth’s crust – as the fuel source. The reactor is reportedly designed to sustainably generate 2 megawatts of thermal power.

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[–] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

US experiments were broken off because it gives no excuse to attain materials for nuclear weapons. Same excuse everyone else use.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    This excuse doesn't make any sense. This myth also needs to die. You can't get weapons grade materials from fission reactors, and you certainly aren't converting spent fuel into weapons. The process of refining weapons grade uranium or synthesizing plutonium have nothing to do with energy producing reactors

    Uranium was endorsed because it was easier to create a reactor with and didn't have to deal with the corrosive issue that metallurgy of the early nuclear age into the 50s couldn't really handle economically.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It gives you a reason to access the materials you need for nuclear weapons.

    Who is saying they're using the fuel for reactors to make the weapons? Just you.

    And not that I count it. But they do infact make weapons from spent uranium. They make artillery shells from it. Buy like I said. I don't even count that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    There is no correlation between nuclear weapons production and nuclear power generation. If anything they compete for the same raw materials. They were developed in the same era because that's when we discovered how to harness fission.

    Also depleted uranium is not spent fuel. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of enriching uranium to weapons grade. Given the natural ratios of u238 to u235, there's an abundance of it from refining nuclear weapons hence why some weapons and armor utilize it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yes. They compete for the same raw material. That's the whole point. Gives you a perfectly good reason to excavate it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    That's not a point in favor of why they coexist. The military is going to fund uranium mining one way or the other, given the potency of nuclear weapons as a deterrence, as well as their own militarized applications of nuclear reactors powering aircraft carriers.

    The only valid argument for why military planning influenced civilian nuclear power because the military also tested and decided on nuclear power for various applications because it was efficient, reliable and had long term viability with minimal space investment. But even the military came to the conclusion it wanted nuclear power where it could get independent of wanting nuclear weapons.

    Edit: And as a bonus, just because this myth is so dumb, Chicago-1 predated the Manhattan project and is directly cited as being an inspiration for the Manhattan project, not the other way around as people keep trying to claim. Even without nuclear weapons we would still have uranium powered nuclear reactors, and they'd probably be more prevalent without all the fearmongers hopping on the big oil bandwagon and spewing propaganda that couldn't be further from the truth.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    It is a point for them to coexist. It's called plausible deniability.

    What exactly are you trying to argue? That it's not a good reason for a country to get a bunch of uranium without raising questions?

    There was absolutely no incentive to research more about alternative fuels, uranium and plutonium were materials the nuclear powers wanted. For more than just 1 reason...

    If countries REALLY wanted nuclear power without Uranium. They would have researched it. Like China have. But no one else has. Well some have, but they all gave up a long time ago.

    Sweden was researching it, but decided to go with Uranium, coincidentally, they just happened to also research nuclear weapons... very strange coincidence that... (Sweden was later encouraged to halt all nuclear weapons research)

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