The alarmist version of China’s next-gen nuclear strategy come down to this: If you like foreign-oil dependency, you’re going to love foreign-nuclear dependency.
“When I heard this, I thought, ‘Oboy, now it’s happened,’” said Kirk Sorensen, chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering and creator of the Energy From Thorium blog. “Maybe this will get some people’s attention in Washington.”
While the international “Generation IV” nuclear R&D initiative includes a working group on thorium MSRs, China has made clear its intention to go it alone.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences announcement explicitly states that the PRC plans to develop and control intellectual property around thorium for its own benefit.
“This will enable China to firmly grasp the lifeline of energy in its own hands,” stated the Wen Hui Bao report.
Wait so let me get this straight. China is going to patent / control thorium / MSR fission reactors while at the same time stealing everyone else's IP / designs?
I think putting thorium fueled stations into reality would involve a good deal of specialist IP, and if they are doing it and the US or someone in the west isn't, who is more likely to end up with control of the IP first?
There are currently some commercialised attempts at it. If it were that easy, why haven't they started building power stations yet?
The key part of the MSR technology is the fluoride salt. Using it, the MSR can burn any nuclear fuel including U235, plutonium, thorium, and nuclear waste or all at the same time. It is a flex fueled reactor that could be 99.99% fuel efficient with a thermal-electric efficiency of up to 60%. This self sustaining breeder reactor can be air cooled; it does not need water to operate; it is fail-safe self temperature controlling by negative void fuel response; and it can’t melt down because it is already melted.
The engineer who now heads the Chinese Molten Salt Reactor Project is none other than Jiang Mianheng, a son of Retired Chinese President, Jiang Zemin.
In addition to being President of People's China, Jiang was the chairmanship of the powerful Central Military Commission, suggesting the likelihood that Jiang Mianheng has military ties.
This PhD EE is the American educated cofounder of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, and a former lead researcher in the Chinese Space Program, as well as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The presence of such a well connected Chinese science leader suggests that the Chinese MSR project is regarded as important by the Chinese leadership. Thus the Chinese leadership, unlike the American Political and scientific leadership has grasped the potential of molten salt nuclear technology.
The Helion reactor that I have posted on regularly here on this site is also a MSR thorium fusion approach. In addition, the LIFE fusion laser reactor is also a MSR fluoride salt based thorium fusion reactor.
The Chinese could get royalties form just about any future reactor technology “even fusion” that might get fielded all except those big ugly inefficient water guzzling nuclear waste producing light water reactors that the US likes so much.
After a recent snowstorm and power outage, I went to my hardware store to look for a spare mantle for my Aladdin kerosene lamp. For those of you not familiar with this century-old design, it uses a thoria mantle similar to those on propane and gasoline lanterns made popular by Coleman.
It turns out these are now out of production, and they are looking for a substitute for thorium. I presumed this was due to some new restriction due to the nuclear properties of thorium. Could it just be the Chinese are cornering the market?
Thoriated tungsten welding rods are affected too, I suppose. Thoriated electron emitters might be as well.
Interestingly our Ambassador to China (Huntsman) dropped his resignation letter to Obama on Monday. Ironically for me, I had a seminar with him on Friday last week, and he did not even drop a hint.
It would have been good to ask him about this, and get his thoughts.
Tom Ligon wrote:After a recent snowstorm and power outage, I went to my hardware store to look for a spare mantle for my Aladdin kerosene lamp. For those of you not familiar with this century-old design, it uses a thoria mantle similar to those on propane and gasoline lanterns made popular by Coleman.
It turns out these are now out of production, and they are looking for a substitute for thorium. I presumed this was due to some new restriction due to the nuclear properties of thorium. Could it just be the Chinese are cornering the market?
Thoriated tungsten welding rods are affected too, I suppose. Thoriated electron emitters might be as well.
Thorium is not rare. The US government has 3,200,000 kgs of thorium buried in the Nevada desert.
Tom Ligon wrote:After a recent snowstorm and power outage, I went to my hardware store to look for a spare mantle for my Aladdin kerosene lamp. For those of you not familiar with this century-old design, it uses a thoria mantle similar to those on propane and gasoline lanterns made popular by Coleman.
It turns out these are now out of production, and they are looking for a substitute for thorium. I presumed this was due to some new restriction due to the nuclear properties of thorium. Could it just be the Chinese are cornering the market?
Thoriated tungsten welding rods are affected too, I suppose. Thoriated electron emitters might be as well.
More likely its due to some government regulation that was recently passed.
That was my original guess, and it may be the right one.
I did a little more homework. It turns out Aladdin had to move their production of mantles overseas (Malta), but the reason was a bit murky. The old plant's equipment ranged from poorly documented to no documentation at all, so they needed to reverse engineer it. This turned out to take way longer than they had expected. There website is now showing limited quantities of the new mantles available. I expect it will take them a while to get the quality consistent, too.
This might turn out to be some issue of OSHA or NRC making life difficult for a company turning out a fairly small number of mantles using century-old equipment. Likely the feds shut them down over either radioactive dust or else some issue with the quantity of what could be classified as "special nuclear material" they handled.