this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago

Except that you don't need uranium for nuclear reactors. The reason it's used traditionally because it's also used for nuclear weapons. Thorium is a much better fuel that's more abundant. China has already started operating these types of reactors. The other advantage of this design is that they use molten salt instead of water for cooling. Molten salt reactors don't need to be built next to large bodies of water, and they are safer because salt becomes solid when it cools limiting the size of contamination in case of an accident.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Operating-permit-issued-for-Chinese-molten-salt-re