Comment on China has world’s first operational thorium nuclear reactor thanks to ‘strategic stamina’
fullsquare@awful.systems 3 weeks agoThese are fast reactors and operate on different principles. The coolant there is sodium and while hard to design and run, it’s doable. French had similar reactor but only one and it was shut down. Nice thing about fast reactors is that these can burn even-numbered isotopes of plutonium, useless in water moderated reactor, and give fresh mostly 239Pu plutonium of good quality. weapons grade even, and IAEA doesn’t like it. But who cares since nonproliferation is dead anyway?
eleitl@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
The new generation of Russian fast neutron reactors use lead and lead-bismuth as coolant, not sodium anymore. They are not proper breeders, as I understood it.
fullsquare@awful.systems 2 weeks ago
These were not supposed to be breeders, but this is only due to agreements that are ignored ny now. Technical capability is there