So in an emergency it can be air cooled, assuming they set up an intake for that.
Comment on China has world’s first operational thorium nuclear reactor thanks to ‘strategic stamina’
yogurt@lemm.ee 1 day agoThey put a plug in the bottom that melts if the salt gets too hot and it drains out into a tank that stops the reaction. After it cools down they can remelt it and put it back in.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Is this real? Pretty cool if they can actually stop the reaction with such
SwordandArt@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes I remember reading about this a while back. It’s one of the main reasons Thoreum rectors are so much safer.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I remember reading about this one, able to fit in a small area and be moved, but never knew if it was thorium
interestingengineering.com/…/safe-micro-nuclear-r…
Zink@programming.dev 1 day ago
From what I’ve watched & read, it’s usually depicted as the freeze plug melts and the liquid salt flows into multiple small holding tanks below it. That way the fuel mass will be physically separated, which helps stop fission on top of any other mitigations like lining the containers with neutron absorbers, etc.
Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s that thorium is not fissile it’s fertile so separating the thorium from the uranium core prevents more thorium from absorbing neutrons.