You may mainly copy and paste that line into numerous tales about right this moment’s superior reactor know-how. Molten-salt cooling techniques? Invented within the mid-Twentieth century however by no means commercialized. Similar for a number of different fuels, like TRISO. And, in fact, there’s thorium.
This one analysis reactor in China working with another gasoline says rather a lot about this second for nuclear vitality know-how: Many teams are wanting into the previous for applied sciences, with a brand new urge for food for constructing them.
First, it’s essential to notice that China is the sizzling spot for nuclear vitality proper now. Whereas the US nonetheless has probably the most operational reactors on the earth, China is catching up shortly. The nation is constructing reactors at a exceptional clip and at present has extra reactors below development than another nation by far. Simply this week, China accredited 10 new reactors, totaling over $27 billion in funding.
China can be main the way in which for some superior reactor applied sciences (that class consists of mainly something that deviates from the usual blueprint of what’s on the grid right this moment: giant reactors that use enriched uranium for gasoline and high-pressure water to maintain the reactor cool). Excessive-temperature reactors that use fuel as a coolant are one main space of focus for China—a couple of reactors that use this know-how have not too long ago began up, and extra are within the planning phases or below development.
Now, Chinese language state media is reporting that scientists within the nation reached a milestone with a thorium-based reactor. The reactor got here on-line in June 2024, however researchers say it not too long ago went by means of refueling with out shutting down. (Typical reactors typically should be stopped to replenish the gasoline provide.) The venture’s lead scientists shared the outcomes throughout a closed assembly on the Chinese language Academy of Sciences.
I’ll emphasize right here that this isn’t some large energy plant: This reactor is tiny. It generates simply two megawatts of warmth—lower than the analysis reactor on MIT’s campus, which rings in at six megawatts. (To be honest, MIT’s is among the largest college analysis reactors within the US, however nonetheless … it’s small.)
Regardless, progress is progress for thorium reactors, because the world has been fully targeted on uranium for the final 50 years or so.
A lot of the unique analysis on thorium got here out of the US, which pumped assets into all types of various reactor applied sciences within the Fifties and ’60s. A reactor at Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Tennessee that ran within the Nineteen Sixties used Uranium-233 gasoline (which could be generated when thorium is bombarded with radiation).