“Chinese researchers are currently testing a prototype molten salt reactor, an innovative type of nuclear reactor that significantly reduces the risk of meltdown and allows for continuous refueling without shutdown. Even better, the reactor is fueled by thorium, which is both more abundant and less easily-weaponized than uranium,” reports The Doomslayer.
Popular Mechanics explains:
In the remote expanse of the Gobi desert stands the first thorium (Th) reactor ever built. Last year, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that this two-megawatt reactor could power up and operate without a glitch, and they have now achieved another first—successfully reloading it while it was still running. Thorium-232 (the isotope of thorium that most commonly occurs on its own) is not capable of undergoing fission by itself. By capturing an extra neutron, however, it can morph into protactinium, which decays into U-233. This can be achieved by exposing the thorium to extreme radiation, which bombards it with enough neutrons for the transmutation to happen. Protactinium is then extracted from the reactor’s active zone before too many neutrons can be lost.
Thorium is not only more abundant than uranium, but has the upside of not being as easy to weaponize. While the fission of Th-232 produces protinactium, which decays into U-233 and can be used in nuclear weapons, U-233 isn’t nearly as explosive as other isotopes (the isotope most commonly used in uranium explosives is U-235). There wouldn’t be much of a point in dealing it to create an illicit nuclear bomb.
This also has safety benefits: “Molten salt reactors can can also use molten salt in the fuel, which makes it prone to freezing in case of a breach (a very good thing). The fuel in those vessels or pipes will spread and cool until it finally freezes in place. China’s reactor uses salt both as coolant and in its fuel.”
Nuclear power is already “the safest form of energy we have, if you consider deaths per megawatt of energy produced,” notes Yale University’s Steven Novella. “Wind turbines, surprisingly, kill more people than nuclear plants,” notes an environmentalist. And “solar panels require 17 times more materials in the form of cement, glass, concrete, and steel than do nuclear plants, and create over 200 times more waste,” such as “dust from toxic heavy metals including lead, cadmium, and chromium.”
Nuclear plants emit no air pollution, only harmless steam. Unlike wind farms, nuclear power plants don’t kill birds. The biggest utility that generates wind power pleaded guilty to federal crimes for killing 150 eagles.
Many years ago, France and Sweden replaced most of their fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power, and as a result, ended up emitting less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. The air in Germany got dirtier because of its hostility to nuclear power. Coal-fired power plants were turned back on to replace nuclear plants that generated no air pollution, but have been closed down. Nuclear power is best for the environment, notes Reason Magazine’s Ronald Bailey. Yet as he observes, “Germany idiotically shut down its last three nuclear power plants” in April 2023. “Until 2011, the country obtained one-quarter of its electricity from 17 nuclear power plants. Shutting down nuclear plants results in more mining of coal, making it harder to protect “natural landscapes.”
