China will spend 22 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) on two prototype molten salt nuclear reactors.
Two molten salt nuclear reactors will be built in the Gobi Desert in northern China.
* Molten salt reactors can produce one thousandth of the radioactive waste of existing nuclear reactors because of deep burn. More complete conversion of the nuclear fuel.
* Molten salt reactors can have designs that are proof against nuclear meltdowns
* The chinese reactors could use thorium. China has some of the world’s largest reserves of the thorium metal.
The Chinese project has been funded by the central government and the two reactors are to be built at Wuwei in Gansu province, according to a statement on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The lead scientist on the project is Jiang Mianheng – the son of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin – and it is hoped the reactors will be up and running by 2020.
The US air force built a 2.5-megawatt molten salt reactor in the 1950s as part of a program to develop nuclear-powered aircraft engines.
The reactors use molten salt rather than water as a coolant, allowing them to create temperatures of over 800 degrees Celsius, nearly three times the temperature of a commercial pressure water nuclear plant. The superhot air had the potential to drive turbines and jet engines and in theory keep a bomber flying at supersonic speed for days.
Yan Long, a researcher involved in the Chinese project at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, said the Gansu facility might eventually help China develop a thorium-powered warship or aircraft.
He said it was now possible to build a very small molten salt reactor and that after years of research and government funding, scientists had developed special alloy and coating materials to prevent chemical corrosion.
The reactors in Gansu were designed to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology.
Both reactors will be underground and the heat they generate will reach 12 megawatts. The heat will be channelled to a power generation plant, several factories and a desalination plant by the lake to produce electricity, hydrogen, industrial chemicals, drinking water and minerals.
After the experiment, China may move on to commercial or military use of the technology on a larger scale, Yan said.
“We are now developing new materials for warships. The materials must come with relatively low cost for mass production and they must be compact and light, otherwise the reactor won’t fit in a ship.
Chen Fu, a thermal physicist at the Harbin Institute of Technology involved in the development of new power generation systems for China’s navy, said the heat generated by a thorium molten salt reactor could be perfect to help generate power on a warship.
“It should be able to generate enough electricity for propulsion and electric equipment on an aircraft carrier,” he said.
Chen said the higher the temperature, the higher the power generation efficiency – a thorium-powered carrier could operate faster and longer than existing carriers using uranium as fuel.
A military drone researcher in Beijing said a molten salt reactor could be used on a new generation of large, endurance drones operating at very high altitudes because it could be made very small and its operation did not require water.
“These drones would stay aloft over the oceans such as the Pacific. They would serve as a platform for surveillance, communication or weapon delivery to deter nuclear and other threats from hostile countries,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named.
“A nuclear-powered drone may be technically more feasible than manned aircraft because it does not require building a cockpit with lead to protect the human crew from radiation. It will also have more public acceptance. If an accident happens, it crashes into the sea,” the person said.
Molten Salt reactors can become more powerful and smaller than current submarine nuclear reactors
Nuclear submarines have compact reactors that use higher enrichment than land based reactors. The reactros have a high power density in a small volume and run either on low-enriched uranium (as do some French and Chinese submarines) or on highly enriched uranium (over 20% U-235), current U.S. submarines use fuel enriched to at least 93%, compared to between 21–45% in current Russian models, although Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker reactors are enriched up to 90%),
Naval nuclear reactors do not use uranium oxide but a metal-zirconium alloy (c.15% U with 93% enrichment, or more U with lower enrichment),
The reactors have long core lives, so that refueling is needed only after 10 or more years. New naval nuclear cores are designed to last 25 years in carriers and 10–33 years in submarines,
The designs enable a compact pressure vessel while maintaining safety.
Terrestrial Energy (of Canada) is trying to develop integral molten salt nuclear fission reactors. These nuclear reactors would have about 20-200 times less volume than conventional nuclear fission reactors.
The US, Europe and China are trying to develop supercritical carbon dioxide turbines that would have 100 times less volume than regular steam turbines.