https://www.livescience.com/china-creates-new-thorium-reactor.html
China is gearing up to activate the world's first 'clean' commercial nuclear
reactor
By Ben Turner July 23, 2021
Plans include building up to 30 reactors in partnered nations.
A top down view of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 1960s molten salt
reactor experiment, an early precursor to the Chinese reactor. (Image credit:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory/US Department of Energy)
Chinese government scientists have unveiled plans for a first-of-its-kind,
experimental nuclear reactor that does not need water for cooling.
The molten-salt nuclear reactor, which runs on liquid thorium rather than
uranium, is expected to be safer than traditional reactors because the molten
salt cools and solidifies quickly when exposed to the air, insulating the
thorium, so that any potential leak would spill much less radiation into the
surrounding environment compared with leaks from traditional reactors.
The prototype reactor is expected to be completed next month, with the first
tests beginning as early as September. This will pave the way for the building
of the first commercial reactor, slated for construction by 2030.
As this type of reactor doesn't require water, it will be able to operate in
desert regions. The location of the first commercial reactor will be in the
desert city of Wuwei, and the Chinese government has plans to build more across
the sparsely populated deserts and plains of western China, as well as up to 30
in countries involved in China's "Belt and Road" initiative — a global
investment program that will see China invest in the infrastructure of 70
countries.
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Chinese government officials view nuclear energy exports to be a key part of
the Belt and Road program.
"'Going out' with nuclear power has already become a state strategy, and
nuclear exports will help optimize our export trade and free up domestic
high-end manufacturing capacity," Wang Shoujun, a standing committee member of
the China People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) — a political
advisory body which acts as a link between the Chinese government and business
interests, said in a report on the CPPCC's website.
Thorium — a silvery, radioactive metal named after the Norse god of thunder —
is much cheaper and more abundant than uranium, and cannot easily be used to
create nuclear weapons. The new reactor is a part of Chinese President Xi
Jinping's drive to make China carbon-neutral by 2060, according to the team at
the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics that developed the prototype. China
currently contributes 27% towards total global carbon emissions, the largest
amount from any individual country and more than the entire developed world
combined, according to a 2019 report by the US-based Rhodium Group.
"Small-scale reactors have significant advantages in terms of efficiency,
flexibility and economy," Yan Rui, a physics professor at the Shanghai
Institute of Applied Physics, and colleagues wrote in a paper about the project
published July 15 in the journal Nuclear Techniques. "They can play a key role
in the future transition to clean energy. It is expected that small-scale
reactors will be widely deployed in the next few years."
Taklamakan desert, nicknamed the "The Sea of Death", is the second largest
shifting sand desert in the world, and a potential site for the waterless
reactors. (Image credit: Que Hure/VCG via Getty Images)
Instead of using fuel rods, molten-salt reactors work by dissolving thorium
into liquid fluoride salt before sending it into the reactor chamber at
temperatures above 1,112 Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). When bombarded with
high energy neutrons, thorium atoms transform into uranium-233, an isotope of
uranium which can then split, releasing energy and even more neutrons through a
process called nuclear fission. This starts a chain reaction, releasing heat
into the thorium-salt mixture, which is then sent through a second chamber
where the excess energy is extracted and transformed into electricity.
Thorium reactors have long held an elusive appeal for nuclear scientists.
Sitting just two positions to the left of uranium on the periodic table of
chemical elements, nearly all mined thorium is thorium-232, the isotope used in
nuclear reactions. In contrast, only 0.72% of total mined uranium is the
fissile uranium-235 used in traditional nuclear reactors. This makes thorium a
much more abundant source of energy.
Thorium’s advantages don’t stop there. The waste products of uranium-235
nuclear reactions remain highly radioactive for up to 10,000 years and include
plutonium-239, the key ingredient in nuclear weapons. Traditional nuclear waste
has to be housed in lead containers, isolated in secure facilities, and subject
to rigorous checks to ensure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. In
contrast, the main byproducts of a thorium nuclear reaction are uranium-233,
which can be recycled in other reactions, and a number of other byproducts with
an average “half-life” (the time it takes for half of a substance’s radioactive
atoms to decay to a non-radioactive state) of just 500 years.
After the 2 megawatt prototype has undergone tests in September, China plans to
build its first commercial thorium reactor. Measuring only 10 feet (3 meters)
tall and 8 feet (2.5 m) wide, the researchers claim it will be capable of
generating 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide power for 100,000
people. Still, it must be paired with other equipment, like steam turbines, to
make usable electricity.
The molten-salt reactor concept was first devised back in 1946 as part of a
plan by the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force to create a nuclear-powered
supersonic jet.
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However, the experiment and the many others which followed — including an
experimental reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee which
operated for many years — ran into problems. Corrosion caused by the hot salt
cracked pipes and the weak radioactivity of thorium makes it very difficult for
fission reactions to build up to sustainable levels without adding uranium. The
investigations into thorium stopped.
It is not yet clear how, sixty years later, Chinese researchers have solved
these technical problems.
China's effort is the furthest developed of many other fresh attempts to create
thorium reactors, including one called Natrium, which plans to build a pilot
plant in Wyoming and enjoys the financial backing of Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett.
Nuclear reactors aren't the only technology China is investing in as a part of
its effort to become carbon-neutral. The Baihetan Dam, the second-largest
hydroelectric facility in the world after China's Three Gorges Dam, went online
in June and has an energy-generating capacity of 16 gigawatts. The U.K.-based
energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates that China will add 430 gigawatts
of new solar and wind power capacity in the next five years.
Even as China positions itself as a global leader in the fight against climate
change, the country is already under acute strain from extreme weather events.
Severe flooding in the province of Henan this week displaced around 100,000
people and killed at least 33, CNN reported. The weather bureau in Zhengzhou,
the capital of the region, said the three days of rain matched levels seen only
"once in 1,000 years."
Originally published on Live Science.
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