A long-abandoned US nuclear technology is making a comeback in China

You can basically copy and paste that line in countless stories of today’s advanced reactor technology. Cooling systems from molten salts? Invented in the mid -20th century, but never commercialized. It is the same for several alternative fuels, such as tris. And, of course, there is Torij.

This one research reactor in China running with alternative fuel says a lot about this moment for nuclear energy technology: Many groups seek past technologies, with a new appetite for their construction.

First, it is important to note that China and A hot place for nuclear energy right now. While now they still have the most operational reactors in the world, China is quickly compensated. The country builds reactors in an extraordinary clip and currently has more reactors in construction than any other country. Only this week, China has approved 10 new reactorsin the total amount of $ 27 billion.

China also leads the way to some advanced reactor technologies (this category includes basically everything that deviates from the standard draft what is on the network today: large reactors using enriched Uranus for fuel and high pressure water to make the reactor cold). Reactors with high temperatures using gas as a refrigerant are one China’s main area– Little reactors that use this technology have recently started, and more are in the planning phase or construction.

Now, the Chinese state media report that scientists in the country have reached a turning point with the reactor based on Toria. The reactor came online in June 2024, but researchers say he recently went through charging without exclusion. (Conventional reactors generally need to be stopped in order to charge the fuel supply.) divided the results During a closed meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I will emphasize here that this is not some massive power plant: this reactor is small. Creates only two megawwats of heat – less than Research Research in MIT Campuswhich rings in six megawatts. (To be fair, Mit’s is one of the biggest university research reactors in the US, but still … it’s a small one.)

Nonetheless, progress is progress with Tori’s reactor, because the world has been completely focused on Uranus for the last 50 years.

A large part of the original research on Toria came out of the US, which in the 1950s and 1960s inserted resources into all kinds of different reactor technologies. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which led in the 1960s, used the Urana-233 fuel (which can be created when Torij bombarded by radiation).