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

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>
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.

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?

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.

So, this sounds to me like a breeder reactor and not a power reactor at
all.  So if it works they're going to build a 373MW power reactor afterward?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."