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China has world’s first operational thorium nuclear reactor thanks to ‘strategic stamina’ (www.scmp.com)

submitted 4 days ago by schizoidman@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

245 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://archive.is/2nQSh

It marks the first long-term, stable operation of the technology, putting China at the forefront of a global race to harness thorium – considered a safer and more abundant alternative to uranium – for nuclear power.

The experimental reactor, located in the Gobi Desert in China’s west, uses molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium – a radioactive element abundant in the Earth’s crust – as the fuel source. The reactor is reportedly designed to sustainably generate 2 megawatts of thermal power.

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[–] EstonianGuy@lemm.ee -3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Norway has a thorium reactor since 1959

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I can't find a clear source on this. Could you help? This one says 2013 http://thorenergy.no/

[+] xia@lemmy.sdf.org -11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

According to GPT-4.1:

In 1959, Norway achieved a notable milestone by starting up its first nuclear reactor, the JEEP I (Joint Establishment Experimental Pile), located at Kjeller. This reactor was primarily used for research purposes, including early experiments with alternative nuclear fuels such as thorium. While JEEP I itself was not a thorium reactor per se, it laid the groundwork for subsequent Norwegian research into thorium as a nuclear fuel. This early phase demonstrated Norway's scientific interest in thorium, leveraging its domestic thorium resources and contributing to later thorium reactor experiments.

[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 27 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So....

Not a Thorium reactor
Didn't produce any power

So China still has a win here.

[–] Frostbeard@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

Norway has one of the worlds largest deposits of thorium, but I have ot heard that we had a working reactor, just the principle of one.

If the chinese has indeed made it work I think we need to prepare for USA wanting to annex Norway as well

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Worse than useless. None of this is shown to be true without a source.

[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I hope it's not "worse than useless" (which would mean "misleading"), as my goal was simply to find more identifiers for discussion or research beyond those provided: norway, thorium, 1959...

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'm sorry to come on so strong -- I don't think it's worse than useless as a tool to approach the right answers -- but as I saw people upvoting this 'answer' without doing any checking, it occurs to me that this is how misinformation spreads. I hope my comment makes more sense in that context.