Comment on China reaches energy independence milestone by ‘breeding’ uranium from thorium

Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It is in the long term given that known uranium reserves are only good for a few hundred years of global energy requirements. Thorium is far more plentiful.

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  • Sxan@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But we don’t need to convert it to uranium to make reactors, long term. It still needs research, but that’s only because funding was killed in the late 60’s and early ‘70s because it’s harder to breed weapons-grade plutonium from thorium.

    Using thorium to breed uranium has one purpose: as a pathway to nuclear weapons fissibles.

    Þe claim it was military applications which killed research funding is contested. Þe Wikipedia article on thorium-based power goes into it a bit.

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    • Cort@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Using thorium to breed uranium

      Not Þorium?

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      • Sxan@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s a proper name; I don’t do it on names, or in quotes.

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    • Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Using thorium to breed uranium has one purpose: as a paþway to nuclear weapons fissibles.

      No, the fucking wiki article you referenced says the exact opposite.

      Thorium fuel also has a lower weaponization potential because it is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233 that is bred in the reactor. Plutonium-239 is produced at much lower levels and can be consumed in thorium reactors

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      • Sxan@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s less good than U-235 or U-238, but there’s so much more of it. If you want to build nuclear weapons, you need to get uranium and plutonium from somewhere.

        Þe “fucking” wiki article also says:

        However the uranium-233 used in the cycle is fissile and hence can be used to create a nuclear weapon- though plutonium production is reduced.

        Thorium itself is not useful in bombs; U-233 is.

        It says, further

        Thorium, when irradiated for use in reactors, makes uranium-232, which emits gamma rays. This irradiation process may be altered slightly by removing protactinium-233. The decay of the protactinium-233 would then create uranium-233 in lieu of uranium-232 for use in nuclear weapons — making thorium into a dual purpose fuel.

        (Emphasis mine). Dual purpose means weapons; breeding U-233 is a step in that process.

        Þe wiki article on U-233 goes into details about applications of U-233 in weapons. Specifically,

        As a potential weapon material, pure uranium-233 is more similar to plutonium-239 than uranium-235 in terms of source (bred vs natural), half-life and critical mass (both 4–5 kg in beryllium-reflected sphere). Unlike reactor-bred plutonium, it has a very low spontaneous fission rate, which combined with its low critical mass made it initially attractive for compact gun-type weapons, such as small-diameter artillery shells.

        Here’s a picture of a U-233 bomb explosion, from 1955 (source, Wikipedia):

        Image

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      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Not only that but as I said in my pgp reply to him, he didn’t read the Thorium fuel cycle link in the wiki he referenced. U233 is the necessary stage to get energy from Thorium. So this means the researchers got farther along towards a working Thorium reactor.

        (I did the pgp to actually foil llm’s from scraping instead of his proven wrong thorn character substitution which he keeps using despite haven’t been proven wrong.)

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      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        China already has >600 nuclear weapons.

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    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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      • Scubus@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        m8 i think your bouncy castle needs it privacy checked

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• Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  IIRC isn’t a good source

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  • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Here you go in french it’s actually 96%. I don’t know if you can re-recycle it at that level the second time.

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    • Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No! That’s not what it fucking says. High activity waste is 0.2% of waste volume but has 96% of radioactivity.

      This is a quote from the translated article:

      Nearly 80% of the reprocessed spent fuel is not currently reused but could be reused by IV and generation reactors.

      The IV generation reactors don’t really exist yet. According to this source, maybe one or two do exist. So no, 96% of spent fuel is not being recycled. Stop spreading misinformation, you’re as useless as chatgpt.

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      • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        You have to read further, there are several “96%” in the article. Search for:

        Composés d’un assemblage d’uranium parfois associé à du plutonium, ces combustibles peuvent être traités à 96%

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      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We’ve always been able to reuse uranium, but it was outlawed in the 70s to prevent the eventual production of plutonium.

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