Thorium: the future of nuclear power?

[izentrop]

French progress on molten salts...

[Janic]

These nuclearists are getting crazier and crazier!

[izentrop]

Another project for a small 30 MW lead-cooled reactor, also capable of burning waste. Commissioning of the first prototypes in 2032

[Janic]

and boom! We'll be upset when these babies shit everywhere, with no place left safe

[gfgh64]

in fact the only interest of this type of reactor is that, in the event of problems, the reaction stops by itself, and the (little?) radioactive materials solidify and therefore do not disperse (less?)
thorium is present in almost all countries on the globe, so avoid dependence, moreover the thorium already extracted and present in the slag heaps is sufficient to produce for a good long time
Personally, I'm not pro-nuclear, but if it helps avoid extending "conventional" reactors, I think it could be a good alternative for the transition to "green" energy.
on the other hand, even if this recycles much more dangerous materials, I can't see Areva going to recover all the poison buried underground or at the bottom of the oceans

[Remundo]

Molten salt reactors would be a little safer than current PWRs.

But it’s still fission which produces a lot of radioactive waste.

The reactor itself contains irradiated materials to be replaced (e.g., in some designs, the graphite moderator)

[gfgh64]

Molten salt reactors would be a little safer than current PWRs.

But it’s still fission which produces a lot of radioactive waste.

The reactor itself contains irradiated materials to be replaced (e.g., in some designs, the graphite moderator)

rather than “a little safer” I would say much less dangerous
the REPs are under pressure and we need a continuous cooling system to be controlled and disaster in the event of an interruption

yes waste, but with a much, much shorter "life"

as you say, in certain conception, but it remains much less worse it seems to me,

[Remundo]

RSF (molten salt reactors) like their cousins ​​PWR (pressurized water reactors) have:
1) either a thermal neutron design (in this case a moderator is needed to slow them down)
2) either a fast neutron design (in this case the neutrons are used in fertile capture to breed from atoms like U238 or Th232)

therefore in FNRs (fast neutron reactors), we find both PWR and molten salts (although the latter are very experimental).

RSF have the advantage of not working under pressure, but they generate a very radioactive mush with a high residual thermal power, due to the disintegration of fision products, even if the fision reactions are stopped.

Concerning RNR, supporters of the sector claim that we could transmute long-lived waste into other shorter-lived nuclides... theoretically possible, in practice not really successful. The neutron balance is degraded if fast neutrons are wasted to transmute waste without fissile value.