this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
837 points (97.1% liked)

Technology

69110 readers
2323 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
837
China has world’s first operational thorium nuclear reactor thanks to ‘strategic stamina’ (www.scmp.com)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why can't we spend $20 billion on a full-scale reactor that may very well not work? Why is science so slow?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Science doesn't have to be slow. Politics and funding are usually the bottleneck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Yes, but if you increase the funding, they will say "Why is science so expensive?"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

yeah either that or sometimes that one biologist illegally gene-editing embryos shows up