Fusion Reaction

[Reality Check]

I think we will see commercially viable thorium molten salt reactors well before fusion. China was supposed to start up a 2 MW pilot reactor last year. Other countries are going forward with various designs.

[keith]

I think we will see commercially viable thorium molten salt reactors well before fusion. China was supposed to start up a 2 MW pilot reactor last year. Other countries are going forward with various designs.

Yeah. That goes without saying.

Thorium reactors have been around since the 1960's.

Fusion reactors are still 10 years away (and have been so for the last 70 years and will probably be so for the next 50 years),

[neeneko]

Eh, I actually kinda see thorium reactors in a similar way to fusion reactors. Both have been around for a long time, and both are the big hope to finally create cheap limitless energy, and a viable design is always right around the corner. Both, on paper, are great ideas and should work, but neither has sorted out the engineering challenges.

[Reality Check]

Yeah. That goes without saying.

Thorium reactors have been around since the 1960's. Yes and no. In the 1960's Oak Ridge ran a molten salt reactor successfully for 4 years fueled with uranium-233. The project was closed and the technology was abandoned. Most accounts say the AEC wanted to pursue the fast breeder reactor instead largely because a by product was weapons grade uranium. The fast breeder reactor never panned out. Thorium was only revived as a technology in the 2000's by NASA scientist Kirk Sorensen who was looking at how a moon base could be powered and rediscovered thorium.

Fusion reactors are still 10 years away (and have been so for the last 70 years and will probably be so for the next 50 years), No argument from me there.

Eh, I actually kinda see thorium reactors in a similar way to fusion reactors. Both have been around for a long time, and both are the big hope to finally create cheap limitless energy, and a viable design is always right around the corner. Both, on paper, are great ideas and should work, but neither has sorted out the engineering challenges. I don't think Thorium MSR's and fusion are as comparable as you make them out to be. As I mentioned above thorium research was abandoned in 1969 for almost 40 years. Meanwhile something like $30 to $50 billion has been spent on fusion with reactors barely reaching the break even point. I could not find the amount spent on thorium reactors but it has to be orders of magnitude less than fusion.

The development on thorium and MSR's is mostly being done by for profit companies with little funding from the government at least in the US.

Commercially viable thorium reactors are probably less than a decade out. I doubt anyone would predict that for fusion.

[neeneko]

Commercially viable thorium reactors are probably less than a decade out. I doubt anyone would predict that for fusion.

It would actually not surprise me if commercially viable thorium reactors do get developed, and I agree the comparison is rather differnt in scale. But I've been kinda rubbernecking the thorium-evangalist community ever since that first google talk that popularized them and it reminds me a lot of the strong AI and fusion communities in its rather 'eveyone knows it is right around the corner' optimism. It has become a repository for people's hopes and dreams, a fix all solution that will end the whole 'energy' and 'environment' problem being pioneered by the next generation of Musks, and the only reason it might fail is 'the government' or 'environmentalists'. I generally do not see nukees singing its praises, but it is another tech-bro darling... though to its credit, it is at least one that is a solution that has a solid problem it addresses,... so a bit more bleed into the wider culture.