To be clear its a thorium AND salt reactor not Thorium salt. The reactant is Thorium which is cooled by molten salt. As for renewable, or finite. Everything is finite technically i suppose. Even the sun eventually burns out. But China has enough thorium to power their nation for 30,000 years. So id say it should be plenty. lol.
The advantages are how common it is. Vs something like Uranium, and how stable it is. You dont need big steam towers to prevent run away criticality and can make rather small reactors. Portable ones even. No need for water the molten salt is a self contained cooling system.
Its the stepping stone to fusion. Thorium is everything we ever hoped fission nuclear power could be, and will tide us over until we figure fusion out. Or find something else better. A few dozen millenia should be plenty of time for that unless we really manage to fuck it up.
China already has a few working prototypes. 😋 Give them another 20 years, and theyll be launching space exploration drones powered by small portable thorium reactors imo.
Is Thorium-Salt something that is renewable, or just a relatively untapped finite resource?
To be clear its a thorium AND salt reactor not Thorium salt. The reactant is Thorium which is cooled by molten salt. As for renewable, or finite. Everything is finite technically i suppose. Even the sun eventually burns out. But China has enough thorium to power their nation for 30,000 years. So id say it should be plenty. lol.
The advantages are how common it is. Vs something like Uranium, and how stable it is. You dont need big steam towers to prevent run away criticality and can make rather small reactors. Portable ones even. No need for water the molten salt is a self contained cooling system.
Its the stepping stone to fusion. Thorium is everything we ever hoped fission nuclear power could be, and will tide us over until we figure fusion out. Or find something else better. A few dozen millenia should be plenty of time for that unless we really manage to fuck it up.
China already has a few working prototypes. 😋 Give them another 20 years, and theyll be launching space exploration drones powered by small portable thorium reactors imo.