Christophe wrote:Yes Superphenix was working... it was the (bad) policy that killed the project...
He continues internationally
Le forum International Generation IV is a cooperation initiative initiated by the United States Department of Energy and which today brings together fourteen partners (South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Korea, China, United States, France , Japan, United Kingdom, Russia, Switzerland as well as Euratom).
This Article, a French adaptation of a longer document published on the Energy Matters website in 2015, shows that if you want to outpace global warming with low-carbon energy, it is better to put all your eggs in the "uranium" basket.
There are many technical and physical challenges for reactors operating with molten salts. Questions of corrosion, resistance of materials, reliability of equipment controlling the flows, efficiency of heat exchangers will have to be mastered before a safety authority can give its approval to a construction. Although interesting, albeit partial, experiments were carried out in the 1960s in the United States, safety requirements have increased considerably over the past half century.
If the thorium cycle continues to appear as a promising field of research and if it is explored by certain countries such as China and especially India, it still has many technical and pre-industrial stages to validate before appearing in the park. an energy producer (electricity or heat).
For climate and energy reasons, it is urgent to decarbonize our energy. If, in this context, nuclear power is one of the options adopted, then the uranium cycle, which can be based on decades of research and feedback from national and international experience, retains a certain advantage, either in its current version or in its breeder version.