It’s no bigger than a bathroom. A thorium reactor is put into operation in China. Series production is expected in 2030 – the mini-reactors promise CO2-free electricity without the risk of a disaster.
Germany is pulling out of nuclear power, other countries have high hopes for the CO2-free method of generating energy. In addition to the construction of power plants, which are ultimately improved versions of old designs, future solutions such as nuclear fusion are being worked on.
Small, much safer reactors could be built much faster than the fusion reactors, which work on the same principle as the sun. China has announced that it will complete its first thorium reactor in just one month.
The Chinese timetable is ambitious. The prototype is expected to be completed next month, initial tests will begin in September, and the first commercial reactors will be built by 2030.
What is special about this type of reactor: It does not require any water to cool the nuclear fuel rods and is operated with liquid thorium instead of uranium. A salt circulates in it, which liquefies at high temperatures. This technology has no atomic disaster. Accidents or leaks would only cause minor damage, because no radioactive vapor can get into the atmosphere. The liquid salt would quickly cool and crystallize in the event of a malfunction or leak. The material would still be radioactive, but could be collected in chunks.
In addition, the reactor is very small: it should be only 3 meters high and 2.50 meters wide. However, these are the dimensions of the pure reactor. To generate electricity, it has to be connected to turbines and the power grid. But the miniature size of the nuclear part makes it possible to build the reactor under clean room conditions, you don’t have to assemble it on a construction site. Ultimately, series production like in the automotive industry would be possible. During maintenance, the reactor module could simply be replaced and brought back to the manufacturer by a normal truck.
The commercial reactor will generate 100 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 100,000 people. Because the plant uses little water, China will build the first commercial reactor in Wuwei, a desert city in the country’s Gansu province.
How does a thorium reactor work?
There are no fuel rods, the thorium is dissolved in liquid fluoride salt at a temperature of 600 degrees. This salt circulates in the reactor, apart from the fuel, no other coolant has to be radioactively contaminated. At the start, the salt is bombarded with neutrons, so that the thorium atoms are transformed into uranium-233. This isotope decays and releases energy and other neutrons. The salt mixture heats up further and enters a second chamber in which the heat is used to generate electricity. Unlike fissile uranium, thorium-232 is common and easily recovered in large quantities. The half-life of radioactive waste products is only 500 years instead of the 10,000 years of uranium reactors. In addition, the material in the reactor cannot be used to build nuclear weapons.
The concept is old. As early as 1946, IUS scientists were working on creating a mobile reactor. Although the principle is very simple, it never succeeded in taming the technical problems that the aggressive hot molten salt brings with it. And it is still unclear what solution the Chinese scientists have found so that the salt does not eat away at the system.
Export planned
China is currently the main global emitter of carbon and blows more into the atmosphere than any other industrialized country – of course, when making such a comparison, the population must also be taken into account. If you count on a per capita basis, China is in 16th place, behind Germany. But the country is to become completely carbon neutral by 2060, and mini-reactors play a key role in this context. “Small reactors have great advantages in terms of efficiency, flexibility and economy,” wrote Yan Rui, physics professor at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics in the journal Nuclear Techniques. “They can play a key role in the future transition to clean energy. Small reactors can be expected to be widespread in the next few years.”
Apparently an export to countries of the “Belt and Road” initiative is also planned. With the thorium reactors, Beijing could export a very low-threshold nuclear technology. Because the reactor itself is mobile, a country can use such climate-neutral reactors without first building its own nuclear infrastructure. In addition, Beijing can safely deliver to countries that would not receive uranium reactors, since the thorium reactors cannot incubate weapons-grade material.
A Danish start-up also wants to develop “compact Molten Salt Reactors”, but is not ready to put a prototype into operation. Bill Gates is going in a similar direction with his project of sodium-cooled mini-reactors.
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