1st Meltdown-Free Nuclear Power Plant In China 2017
https://www.rt.com/news/332254-china...-free-reactor/
hmm.... we know they are also pouring major research into Thorium Reactors... I wonder if this is a stepping stone technology?
China says it is planning to bring a safe nuclear power plant that will not suffer from meltdowns online in November 2017. It would be the world’s first high-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear plant built on an industrial scale.
China’s Nuclear Engineering Construction Corporation wants to introduce a high temperature, pebble-bed, gas-cooled nuclear reactor, in the Shandong Province, south of the capital, Beijing. The company is planning to bring twin 105-megawatt reactors online that would be immune to meltdown. It is hoped that the power station will start working by November 2017.
The Chinese are using a design developed in Germany, though the nuclear reactor which is being built in Shandong will be the first commercial-scale atomic power plant of its kind to be constructed.
“This technology is going to be on the world market within the next five years,” said Zhang Zuoyi, director of the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Technology Review reported. “We are developing these reactors to belong to the world.”
There's two angles on this that come to my mind just off the top...
1) There may be some technological hurdle that hasn't been properly addressed in "Large Scale" Thorium Reactors that needs to be perfected, I remember there was an issue with the caustic nature of liquid thorium.... but the main gist, according to Kirk Sorenson, is that they would be way cheaper to build... since like this reactor, what they both have in common is the high temperature aspect and I am assuming lower pressure as well, although that wasn't mentioned... and it does sort of remind of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor... i.e. there may be some a material science technological issue that needs to solved to build long term stable reactors... (Although one would think, in this day and age, that would be a no brainer...)
The other is: (Something like 1)
2) The basic premise that if the technology is sophisticated enough and the cost is prohibitive enough, then China would gain a technological edge in the market place... as the first in the market of what is essentially a new and unique design, the safetly aspect, if accurate, will guarantee untold billions in guaranteed sales... And... ALL the PTB always want to maintain... "CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION"...
i.e. Perhaps the technology (on Thorium Reactors) isn't the issue and Sorenson is 100% transparent (as he seems) ...and they did have a perfectly working prototype running in the late 60's after all... and on a relative shoestring budget at that!... In that case, it could be argued that if Thorium Reactor technology was TOO easy, and became TOO commonplace... then EVERYONE would eventually be able to get around the patents and start building their own... and that might be too much freedom.... High technology and High Cost equals the "necessity" of "Government Intervention" and controls entry into the market from competition and keeps the CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION .... centralized in the hands of Government...
So the question remains... what happened to the LFTR Thorium Reactors? Where do they fit in?