Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

On 12/14/24 13:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 14/12/2024 11:37, Pancho wrote:

On 12/14/24 10:31, D wrote:
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Just saw this:
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"China to build first-ever thorium molten salt nuclear power station in Gobi Desert"
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium- nuclear- power-station-gobi/104304468
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Will be interesting to see if they will succeed!

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If you are interested, there is a thorium startup, Copenhagen Atomics, that have put out a couple of good promo videos.
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The first describes the worlds general energy problem:
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<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVue7cgmM00>
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The second details Copenhagen Atomics "Onion Core" thorium molten salt reactor.
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<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxvBAJn_vc>
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Obviously it is typical startup hype, but the guy touches on most of the issues. In particular he addresses the fact we need cheap energy, which a lot of the renewable discussions try to cover up. Secondly he discusses non electrical energy use, which many renewable discussions also skip over.
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As I understand it, molten salt reactors have two main tech problems, corrosion and continuously separating out unwanted fission products.

 No fission reactor is perfect. It's engineering, not religion.
 

But, if we are to adopt nuclear for the bulk of our global energy it is clear that fuel price/availability will be affected, and hence breeder reactors with their massively improved fuel efficiency will be more significant.

Currently the best bet are modern straightforward PWR designs that are well understood, shrunk to a size that makes mass factory production possible.
 

If we understand the design we might just as well build big ones. Small mass production is more to get around research and regulation problems of new systems.

Once we have avoided the renewable energy catastrophe, *then* its time to look at thorium.
 

We should do both. People are scared of building big reactors with long payback times because it seems likely cheaper systems will be developed to undercut them. However, I think energy security should be viewed like military security, the government should pay to give us that security, just in case.