China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration has issued an operational permit for the nation’s first thorium reactor, marking a significant milestone in the country’s pursuit of advanced nuclear technologies. The reactor, a two-megawatt liquid-fueled thorium molten salt reactor (MSR), is located in the Gobi desert city of Wuwei in Gansu province and is operated by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The permit allows the Shanghai Institute to operate the reactor for 10 years, starting with testing operations. The test includes the first approach to criticality, the point at which a nuclear reaction becomes self-sustaining. This is a crucial step in the reactor’s start-up process and involves carefully controlled conditions to ensure a safe progression towards a self-sustaining state.
Thorium MSRs are a type of advanced nuclear technology that use liquid fuels, typically molten salts, as both a fuel and a coolant. They offer several potential advantages over traditional uranium reactors, including increased safety, reduced waste and improved fuel efficiency. Thorium is also a more abundant resource compared with uranium, and China has significant thorium reserves., estimated to be able to meet the country’s total energy needs for more than 20,000 years.
The reactor is a significant achievement for China’s nuclear energy sector. It showed the country’s progress in developing and deploying advanced nuclear technologies and positioned China as a potential leader in thorium reactor technology. The Shanghai Institute has also launched a follow-up project – a small-scale modular thorium molten salt reactor research facility – at the same desert site to advance the technology and address technical challenges. Small-scale modular reactors offer several benefits, including flexibility, enhanced safety features and cost-effectiveness.
The large-scale use of thorium reactor technology has the potential to enhance China’s global competitiveness in the energy sector. It could strengthen China’s energy security, position the country as a leader in advanced nuclear technologies, and contribute to environmental sustainability. However, a number of technical, regulatory and economic challenges will have to be overcome if the reactors are to be deployed successfully on a large scale. The project was launched in 2011, but construction did not start until 2018. The reactor was expected to take six years to build, but scientists and engineers completed the work in about three years. It took environmental authorities more than two years to confirm that the facility met the highest safety standards.
China is not the first country to build a thorium reactor, but no previous attempts went beyond the experimental stage. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States conducted the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment from 1965 to 1969, successfully showing the feasibility of a thorium MSR. However, it did not progress to commercial use because of a combination of factors, including limited funding and shifting priorities. Another early thorium MSR project, also conducted by the ORNL in the 1950s, was the Aircraft Reactor Experiment, which aimed to develop a compact, portable reactor for potential use in aircraft. But the project faced technical challenges, including issues with fuel containment and corrosion, which ultimately led to its discontinuation, the South China Morning Post reports.
