China completes work on world's first thorium nuclear reactor
In the Celestial Empire, the development of nuclear energy is simply by leaps and bounds. So, according to local media, this year it is planned to complete the construction of a prototype of a molten salt nuclear reactor.
This installation will be erected in the desert city of Wuwei, and after successful experiments it is planned to erect similar, but larger installations.
Nuclear energy and its prospects
As you know, nuclear reactors fit perfectly into the new concept of decarbonization. After all, they are capable of generating large amounts of electricity with minimal carbon emissions.
But, despite the obvious advantages, there are also quite serious disadvantages, and the main one is the possible radioactive contamination of vast territories. in the event of an accident at the facility, as well as the receipt as a result of the operation of an element such as plutonium - an element that can be used in a nuclear weapons.
So scientists, since the 1940s, have been looking for alternative solutions and, in particular, have studied molten salt reactors, which inherently can be much safer in all parameters.
In new reactors, instead of rare and expensive uranium, it is planned to use a fairly widespread silver metallic thorium, which, by the way, is extremely difficult to use as components for production of bombs. In addition, their safety will be significantly higher than reactors operating on conventional fuel cells.
The increase in safety is primarily due to the fact that in such salt reactors there are no classical rods, and thorium is dissolved in the molten salt, which flows through the reactor at increased temperature.
In this form, liquid salt acts as a coolant, which means that there is no need for complex and expensive water cooling systems under high pressure.
And in the event of an abnormal situation, when the fuel is in the open air, it cools very quickly and becomes solid. As a result of this process, the radius of contamination is significantly reduced.
So, despite the fact that molten salt reactors look quite promising, the development of such technologies went with great difficulties.
Experiments with similar reactors were carried out in the United States in the 1960s. Subsequent experiments were carried out in the 1970s in the Soviet Union and Europe.
Recently, engineers from China have been actively working in this direction. And in 2011, the local government approved a plan to build a molten thorium salt reactor.
And now, according to South China Morning, the construction of a prototype reactor with an installed capacity of 2 MW may be officially completed as early as August 2021, and trials and tests will begin in September launches.
So, if everything goes according to plan, then China will have the world's first operating reactor operating on molten thorium.
The engineers also plan to use this installation as a test run for the further construction of more powerful reactors that will be capable of delivering power up to 100 MW.
And according to the plan, the first such industrial reactor should be built by 2030.
Why such reactors have not yet been created in large numbers, or what is their main drawback
Of course, the plans of Chinese engineers are simply grandiose, but it is very interesting how scientists managed to solve a couple of very serious problems associated with this type of reactor.
After all, as you know, salt is a rather aggressive material and when it comes into contact with metal, it starts the process of corrosion of pipelines and other components of the installation.
Besides, thorium does not contain enough fissionable material to sustain a chain reaction. This means that you still need to mix uranium or any other radioactive material with thorium in order to facilitate the process of starting the necessary reactions.
Because of these drawbacks, a thorium nuclear reactor has not yet been tested on an industrial scale before, and to this day day many scientists generally doubt the possibility of a real industrial reactor on molten salts thorium.
It remains only to wait for the Chinese engineers to complete all construction work and move on to real tests of new reactors.
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