Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a Smear

On Sun, 29 Sep 2024, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 9/28/2024 11:53 PM, Peter Fairbrother wrote:

On 28/09/2024 17:06, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

In article <vd7m9n$uguu$1@dont-email.me>,
Peter Fairbrother  <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote:

On 28/09/2024 01:50, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 9/27/2024 3:55 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

I'd love to see more work done on thorium reactors.
 

That _sounds_ like an obvious answer to I have to ask what the catch is.

 No great catch, except that thorium reactors have been massively
over-hyped.

...

Less radioactive waste? Long-term waste is pretty much the same. Claims
for less short-term waste are ... disputable.

It's actually the opposite.

 Ah yes, my mistake here, got that the wrong way round. Too late at night, can't sleep. My apologies.
 I think we'd both agree that the short-term fission product waste is pretty much the same.
 

In general, short term waste (the really hot stuff) is fission products; the long term
waste (weakly radioactive)** is mostly transuranics.

 For the uranium cycle, yes: but for the thorium cycle the worst of the long-term waste are the actinides Pa-231 and Th-229. There are others.
 Not technically transuranics, but equally nasty heavier-than-lead non- fission-product long-term wastes.
 Sure thorium produces less transuranics - though not none - but the heavier transuranics/actinides produced by uranium tend to have short half-lives and get consumed while still in the reactor. The lighter actinides produced from thorium tend to have longer half-lives and once the fuel is removed from the reactor and left for a few years there are more of them left.
 While the results of simulations vary depending on details of the reactor conditions, for similar conditions long-term (10^3-10^4 years) radiotoxicities generally do not vary much between uranium and thorium fuels. Sometimes uranium wins, sometimes thorium,
 If the actinides are reintroduced into the reactor they can in general be destroyed. This is true for both uranium and thorium.
   I have nothing against thorium vs uranium - except idiots who plan trailer-sized molten salt reactors which can't cope with a post-SCRAM meltdown and which are a huge proliferation risk and claim because it's thorium it's somehow safer, and the like, and the like, and people who go on and on about the supposed benefits of thorium.

>
[...]
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You must be thrilled by Project Pele
>
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3915633/dod-breaks-ground-on-project-pele-a-mobile-nuclear-reactor-for-energy-resiliency/
>
pt
>

Speaking of thorium reactors, I just saw this:
China to build first thorium molten salt NPP in Gobi Desert
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/china-to-build-worlds-first-thorium-molten-salt-npp-in-gobi-desert/
China has announced the construction of a nuclear power plant that will be fuelled by liquid fuel based on molten thorium salt. The Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) has been engaged in research in this area since 2011 focusing on liquid fluoride-thorium reactors (LFTRs). The construction of a prototype of a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) with a capacity of 2 MW began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. China is seeking to get full intellectual property rights to this technology.
Now China plans to build the world’s first NPP based on molten salt in the Gobi desert. Construction will begin in 2025 with the aim of developing safer and more environmentally friendly nuclear energy. The reactor does not need water for cooling, since it uses liquid salt and carbon dioxide to transfer heat and generate electricity.
In 2022, SINAP received permission from the Ministry of Ecology and Environmental Protection to commission an experimental MTSR. This is the first nuclear molten salt reactor since the United States stopped its molten salt test reactor in 1969. The application for the operation of the experimental reactor was considered in China in June 2023, it was considered to be fully compliant with safety requirements.
The reactor will use fuel enriched in less than 20% U-235, with a thorium reserve of about 50 kg and a conversion factor of about 0.1. FLiBe – a eutectic mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride containing 99.95% lithium-7 will be used, and the fuel will consist of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4).
It is expected that the implementation of the project will begin with some refuelling online and removal of gaseous fission products. However, after 5-8 years, all fuel salts will be disposed of for processing and separation of fission products and secondary actinides for storage. The reactor will launch an ongoing process of processing uranium and thorium salts with the operational separation of fission products and secondary actinoids. If this project is successful, China plans to fully commission a 373 MW reactor by 2030.