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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-28/china-thorium-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor-energy/100351932
Scientists in China are about to turn on for the first time an experimental reactor that's believed by some to be the Holy Grail of nuclear energy — safer, cheaper and with less potential for weaponisation.
Construction on the thorium-based molten salt reactor was expected to be finished this month with the first tests to begin as early as September, according to a statement from the Gansu provincial government.
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China Set to Begin First Trials of Thorium Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor
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There is no act of treachery or mean-ness of which a political party
is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
-- Benjamin Disraeli, "Vivian Grey"
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Sunday August 29 2021, @02:30PM (4 children)
U232 has a half life of 69 years, not 160,000. Technetium-99 is "so dangerous" that we routinely inject people with technetium-99m for medical imaging which then quickly becomes technetium-99.
Further, the U232 easily absorbs a neutron in a thorium reactor and becomes U233 which then fissions. In other words, it gets burned up rather than decaying. It also means that if terrorists try to extract the uranium from a thorium reactor to make a bomb, they're gonna have a bad time.
With a half life of 15 million years, the I-129 is stable for most practical purposes. A fair amount of it will likely be burned up by the reactor operation.
So, in addition to a couple important errors of fact in your linked article, there are also a few omissions where the author failed to consider the entire lifecycle of the elements in the reactor. Also a bit of panic over "the R word" by someone who apparently isn't aware of naturally occurring radiation that has existed in the environment since before life evolved on Earth.
So we can either sit around with our thumbs up our butts waiting for the fusion that has been "right around the corner" for my entire life (literally) or we can move forward now with a good technology that would actually help us cut CO2 emissions (which have actually had a notable effect during my lifetime).
As a side note, even if the friendly space aliens appear tomorrow with a gift of cheap easy to operate fusion technology (NOTE: I'm not holding my breath for that one), we will STILL need a few fission reactors of some sort to produce the valuable radioactive isotopes we use in industry and medicine.
(Score: 1) by arcade on Sunday August 29 2021, @05:35PM (2 children)
Fusion has been right around the corner your entire life? It's been "50 years away" my entire life .. :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @07:39PM
Think of it like a guiding star. Plus velcro and biro pens! Or am I getting mixed up with Mars missions...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday August 31 2021, @12:11AM
Where do you live? It's been only 20 years away for all of *my* life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 29 2021, @11:42PM
Even then, fusion will have scary-dangerous radiation. We can't win playing from this deck.