Current Affairs, Physics
Thorium- At Last!
In the first novel of the Circles trilogy, Allen van Beld (with the help of some historical characters) sets up a business making small, safe nuclear reactors that are incapable of producing material for the arms industry.
Today, the ABC reported a Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics and Chinese Academy of Sciences announcement that they are ready to go live with an experimental reactor based on the same technology.
Set in the years when the world was in (completely justified) fear of nuclear Armageddon, Saucers holds a mirror to our current universal fear of destruction through global warming. In both cases, self interest from the most powerful continue to make the risk higher and the potential damage more devastating for all.
We may look back with disbelief at the mid 20th century, when a few national “leaders” were threatening to destroy the entire world if they weren’t given what they wanted. But as they say, “those who don’t learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them”. My own country (Australia) is now one of the modern rogue states. We have a failed PR man (and successful fraud) occupying our highest office; one who believes The Rapture is coming – probably in the form of floods and fire and plague and war. So far, his greatest success has been in enabling those Four Horsemen.
Whatever you think of Chinese politics and human rights, there is no doubt that their meritocracy gets far more useful work done than the kleptocracies of Australia, the UK and US. I’ve worked extensively in all four countries, and it’s only in China that I can say that most people succeed through their abilities and efforts rather than who they went to school with. So it’s no surprise that investment in this research has found fruit in China, rather than places with a vested interest in war.
The irony of our current situation is that a major part of the solution is the same as it was in the 1940s. Countries who want to be industrial powerhouses of the current century are already ditching the technology of the 18th century and building renewable and sustainable infrastructure and businesses. However, my own state of Victoria is stuck in the 16th century, still burning peat as our main source of power. No, that’s not an exaggeration; the PR people call it “brown coal” here, but any Irish potato farmer of those bygone years would recognise it immediately. Thorium (or even Uranium) molten salt reactors should be part of our base load electricity generation instead of the Chernobyls and Fukushimas we are so keen to accept.
If only we could put a price on human rights in the same way we are with our upcoming carbon-priced global economy, China might even be a country I could fully support.
Ref: Radioactive product analysis of a small molten-salt reactor in primary loop
ZHOU Weilong, YAN Rui, ZHOU Bo. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China & University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Nuclear Techniques: Vol.44，No.7 July 2021.
