Re:China prepares to test thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor
by semisober on Friday September 17, 2021 @04:26AM
(#28562705)
Just read it and it seems obviously very impressive that they managed to switch from uranium to Thorium. But I do wonder how their trials of fusion reactors are going. Not too long ago there were breakthroughs in this tech. Perhaps if more work got put into this we could finally break the needed gap and produce more power that we put into it. Thus making it a viable and clean power source of the future.
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Re:China prepares to test thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor
by tuatoru on Friday September 17, 2021 @05:42AM
(#28563189)
Fusion is still a lab experiment.
If a fusion reactor with an energy gain of 100 and stable operation in the 10_000_000 second range were announced tomorrow, we would be only 20 years away from breaking sod on the first commercial-scale plant -- if the process goes very smoothly.
From there it would be only 30 to 50 years before fusion was making a significant contribution on a global scale, if it can compete commercially.
Re:China prepares to test thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor
by Aachen on Friday September 17, 2021 @06:47AM
(#28563730)
If I remember correctly they're also paying into ITER, which afaik is the most promising thing in the works right now (not counting DEMO that's barely started planning), so that'll take a while still.