[T]he report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.
“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”
Because it is actually not that simple, especially on the “cleaner” and “safer” parts.
Sorry, can’t find the stuff I read about it a while back when I was interested about it, or was it a YouTube video?
Anyway, here is what I remember: having the radioactive fuel as a liquid makes it easier to leak, and once that’s happened, the environment damage will spread faster to ground water. Also sodium salt is liquid at high temperature, at which it will spontaneously catch fire in contact with oxygen (air), so any leak will cause a catastrophic fire, and this is what caused the demise of the French prototype “Projet Phénix” in the 70s.
Wikipedia has a good discussion, if you don’t need technical detail. They’re fairly optimistic, but do note difficulties. It actually looks more positive than I expected, with the number of demonstration reactors in the last decade or so. Note: “demonstration”. I don’t think there’s anything actually blocking use of Thorium, but some unresolved issues for commercialization, plus it’s not clear the actual results are better, or that nuclear is any longer a good place to invest. It’s more of: at this point, why would you go down that road?
At least ten years ago I first read about thorium reactors on 4chan, I believe, and how it will be the next big thing. Back then someone countered that he first heard about thorium reactors several years ago that they will be the next big thing, but they are never production ready and always experimental because they are so hard to contain. And so the story continues about thorium reactors and how they are just around the corner.
Not that I’m against it, I just think it’s a little funny.
Theoretically the main advantage of the thorium is precisely because its safer and cleaner. When removed from its neutron source thorium quickly ceases fission and decay.
“Theoretically” is worth very little. It is pretty much the same for every concept NPP, that once construction starts on an actual practical plant, ugly problems start coming up all over the place that were not considered or thought of in the concept stage. Corrosion is one of the biggest ones.
See also the Rickover memo.
