China copied this technology from notes & data about the Oak Ridge Tennessee reactor from the 1950’s.
The NRC Czar killed that project and all the documentation was stored in a closet at an Oak Ridge Elementary school.
It was located by Kirk Sorensen, digitized and put on-line. The US is enraptured by solar & wind and ignored it, for the most part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor: Why Didn’t This Happen (and why is now the right time?)
Meanwhile, China put 700 TEAMS of engineers working on that information.
The USS Seawolf Sodium-Cooled Reactor Submarine https://ans.org/about/officers/docs/seawolf_sfr_sea_story_051712.pdf
SEAWOLF also has a history, and a unique part of that history is the sodium cooled reactor that originally powered her. The Liquid Metal Reactor (LMR) uses a molten metal for the reactor coolant and, because of very little moderation, the neutrons maintain their energy. We call those neutrons “fast.” The molten metal coolant circulates through heat exchangers to generate steam to drive a power turbine. The most common LMR coolants are sodium, sodium-potassium, and lead-bismuth. Most LMRs are “fast reactors” – “fast” because most fission occurs at energies above 100keV. The SEAWOLF core, however, used carbon to thermalize the neutrons to improve the cross sections, so it cannot be called a “fast reactor.” The use of carbon reduces the amount of uranium needed to operate.
I wonder what they are going to do about the buildup of U232 daughter products.
Probably ignore it until they have a real problem about 5 years down the road.
Salt will rain down on us over here ,LOL
I believe that they have a prototype that might be ready to start up.
I do not believe that they can be anywhere close to being ready to start building commercial LFTR’s any time soon.
Exactly. Good on China. Hate to say it, but good for them.
17 Y.O. Boy Scout Built A Nuclear Reactor In His Mom’s Backyard 20 Years Ago That Made The Neighborhood Radioactive.
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