• ownsauce@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The article mentions Kairos Power but doesn’t mention that their reactors in development are molten-salt cooled. While they’ll still use Uranium, its a great step in the right direction for safer nuclear power.

    If development continues on this path with thorium molten-salt fueled and cooled reactors, we could see safe and commercially viable nuclear (thorium) energy within our lifetimes.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium-nuclear-power-station-gobi/104304468

    To my layman’s knowledge, using thorium molten-salt instead of uranium means the reactor can be designed in a way where it can’t melt down like Chernobyl or Fukushima.

    Edit: The other implication of not using uranium is that the leftover material is harder to make in to bombs, so the technology around molten-salt thorium reactors could be spread to current non-nuclear states to meet their energy needs and reduce reliance on coal plants around the planet.

    • xavier666@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      The meltdown that happened in Chernobyl happened because of mismanagement. Yes, there were design flaws in the system, but lots of rules had to be broken before the design flaws were triggered.

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Nah, mismagement happened yes, but any other nuclear plant wouldn’t have exploded, they used a old technology even for that age, for cust cutting or faster to build idk that’s why it exploded

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      If development continues on this path

      If we continue down the path of wasting energy and polluting to produce useless shit humanity is screwed.

      • Cypher@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        There is a whole universe of resources and our needs for them will never be fully satisfied. Every step towards cleaner, more sustainable energy is a good one.