Disagree with this completely…. Solid fuel reactors use highly pressurized water as a moderator to maintain fission.. Often thorium is suggested to be best used in a molten salt reactors, and the calculus completely changes with liquid fuel reactors. Graphite is the proposed moderator, so if you remove the liquid fuel from the graphite, fissioning eventually ends. It’s wayyyyyyy easier to remove a liquid fuel from a solid moderator. Plus this liquid fuel doesn’t need to be pressurized to maintain its liquid phase. All LWR use pressurized water which inherently creates the “boom” when mistakes happen. So it’s bananas to even try and compare the safety of these two designs as LWRs are wayyyyy more problematic because of their pressurized water.
I suspect that what the person in the original post refers to is exactly that there is no water in the molten salt thorium reactor typically favoured by thorium proponents. No water under some hundred atmospheres of pressure and a reaction that tends towards a temperature several hundred degrees lower than what is needed for a phase shift for the molten salt. No kaboom from water is what I suspect is referred to. Since that is the only kind of kaboom that has ever happened in a nuclear power plant. Just a guess of course.
I suspect you are right, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, thorium is mostly hype, the same molten salt reactor is simpler and cheaper using uranium 235. Even ThorCon Power is redesigning its thorium MSR over to uranium only. Terrestrial Energy figured that out from the beginning and is using only uranium and they are 2/3rd the way through a joint licensing process with Canada/US.
Having an alloy plug that melts at a precise temperature, and thus allows gravity to drain out the liquid reactant, is inherently safer than relying on mechanical control rods to try and prevent a runaway reactor. For this reason alone I believe that the liquid fuel type reactor should be given every chance to prove itself.
![THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U434Sy9BGf8/mqdefault.jpg)
Disagree with this completely…. Solid fuel reactors use highly pressurized water as a moderator to maintain fission.. Often thorium is suggested to be best used in a molten salt reactors, and the calculus completely changes with liquid fuel reactors. Graphite is the proposed moderator, so if you remove the liquid fuel from the graphite, fissioning eventually ends. It’s wayyyyyyy easier to remove a liquid fuel from a solid moderator. Plus this liquid fuel doesn’t need to be pressurized to maintain its liquid phase.
All LWR use pressurized water which inherently creates the “boom” when mistakes happen.
So it’s bananas to even try and compare the safety of these two designs as LWRs are wayyyyy more problematic because of their pressurized water.
molten salt doesnt need thorium
I suspect that what the person in the original post refers to is exactly that there is no water in the molten salt thorium reactor typically favoured by thorium proponents. No water under some hundred atmospheres of pressure and a reaction that tends towards a temperature several hundred degrees lower than what is needed for a phase shift for the molten salt. No kaboom from water is what I suspect is referred to. Since that is the only kind of kaboom that has ever happened in a nuclear power plant. Just a guess of course.
I suspect you are right, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, thorium is mostly hype, the same molten salt reactor is simpler and cheaper using uranium 235. Even ThorCon Power is redesigning its thorium MSR over to uranium only. Terrestrial Energy figured that out from the beginning and is using only uranium and they are 2/3rd the way through a joint licensing process with Canada/US.
It all comes down to the potential for operator error
Having an alloy plug that melts at a precise temperature, and thus allows gravity to drain out the liquid reactant, is inherently safer than relying on mechanical control rods to try and prevent a runaway reactor. For this reason alone I believe that the liquid fuel type reactor should be given every chance to prove itself.
You are welcome to invest in it or lobby for it yourself to be sure