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

On 29/09/2024 22:00, Scott Dorsey wrote:

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>
Now China plans to build the world’s first NPP based on molten salt in the
Gobi desert. [..]

 Okay, I am missing something somewhere.  In order to make a heat engine
work (and generating power from nuclear reactions traditionally employs
a heat engine), you need a hot thing and a cold thing and a way to move
heat from one to the other.  The hot thing is the reactor, but where is
the cold thing in the middle of the Gobi desert.  CO2 is fine for transferring
heat (at low temperatures) but where do we put it?

It's a molten salt reactor, so the working fluid and the hot end of the CO2 cycle is at at least 800C. Even Gobi air is way cool enough for that.
[...] >

So, this sounds to me like a breeder reactor and not a power reactor at

All thorium reactors (or at least all those I have heard of) are breeder reactors. Natural thorium-232 is not fissile, it needs to be converted (bred) into uranium-233 in a reactor before it becomes fuel.

all.  So if it works they're going to build a 373MW power reactor afterward?

The first is an experimental reactor, the second a power reactor. The first produces knowledge, the second electricity as it's main product.
Peter Fairbrother