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Comment by lenkite | Hacker News Reader

Good news. China will likely prove thorium reactors work and then sell them to other nations. US&EU will give lectures to the world on renewables and how terrible nuclear power is, yet will keep using their coal plants. Plans on shutting coal will keep moving indefinitely into the future - 2020, 2030, 2040, yadda

https://www.power-eng.com/coal/eia-u-s-coal-fired-generation...

https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/coal-ov...

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I hope they have acquired all the intellectual property for this like 5G. It's hilarious to see USA and UK deny access to chinese technology while trying to get around their intellectual property

It's worth mentioning IP law is applied on a per-territory basis (i.e. you have to register your IP in every territory you would like it enforced, and that territory's courts are solely responsible for its enforcement in that territory). Many countries government have laws which restrict IP in national security concerns [0], which nuclear reactors may come under. Furthermore, patents require the innovation used is published publicly, which may not be desirable for sensitive technologies like nuclear reactors. Trade secrets and the like are more likely to be used in this particular case.

[0] - https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/texts/nat_sec.html

US and EU already have poured tens of billions into Thorium reactors in the hope to make nuclear power less horribly expensive. It didn't work out.

Meh I dunno about that! The US poured a few tens of millions into the molten salt breeder reactor program and a few more on the indian point 1 initial thorium breeder core. That's about it in the USA. In Europe, ok there was the THTR-300 which was a pretty big project. This is fluid fuel thorium though, which is quite a lot different from solid fuel. We have spent nearly nothing on fluid fuel so far.

Now if you want to talk about breeder reactors in general (namely on the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle), then yeah that's in the many billions range. That was more for infinite world-scale sustainability rather than cost specifically. LWR converter reactors have always been known to be cheaper than breeders.

In such a case smart other nations may only buy with a complete technology transfer, just like China did and does.

More likely: China will pollute much of their countryside and waste billions on corruption and inefficiency. Also, China is polluting their air to a much higher degree than any western nation, and can't keep up with rising demand. Radioactive waste spilling into ground water would be a catastrophe.

Meanwhile, actual democracies can't place nuclear reactors and other facilities wherever they please. Citizens would object.

Corruption is indeed still a problem in China.

But to call them inefficient? I think you're wrong. They are extremely efficient when the government has an idea, it's executed quickly with minimal regulation and red tape getting in the way.

They also don't make as many mistakes as they use to as a developing nation. Credit where it's due, they recently got a space probe orbiting Mars and that's no easy feat [1]

You sound like you don't know much about thorium reactors and i suggest some basic reading like [2]. They are much safer than conventional reactors. Your concerns about waste leaking is uninformed as the reactors themselves require much less design safety considerations.

Before anyone accuses me of being pro-china government, their human rights and transparency are extremely sketchy and i can see why it's hard to trust them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-1 [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/02/16/the-thi...

I think you have an inflated opinion of the Chinese government. Inefficiency is the very definition of corruption. Look at the real estate sector. Look at the high speed rail sector. Look at food security scandals. Their inability to contain animal diseases like African Swine Fever.

I shudder at the thought of this kind of government (and civilian extensions thereof) handling radioactive material at an unprecedented scale.

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