> The real win is that thorium MSRs can eat the existing mountain of "spent" fuel rods from regular reactors
That's not true.
The spent fuel can burn in fast reactors. There are hundreds of molten salt reactor designs (see for example [1]), and some of them are fast reactors.
But thorium MSR are not fast. That's the attraction of thorium, it can undergo transmutation (into protactinium, which then decays into fissile uranium-233) using thermal neutrons. Nobody is proposing thorium MSR as a solution to burn spent nuclear fuel.
> So...Three decades? Maybe if the West keeps sitting on its hands.
The West does not keep sitting on its hands. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of nuclear startups in the West, and they are actually making progress.
However, thorium is hard. Very hard. Breeding plutonium from uranium is much easier than breeding uranium-233 from thorium.
Here's a good post [2] about the thorium myths written by a former active HN forum member, Nick Touran. It's a good read. But, now, for an even better understanding, you can just ask ChatGPT, or any other LLM, how thorium breeder reactors compare to plutonium breeder reactors, and which technology is closer to reality.
That's not true.
The spent fuel can burn in fast reactors. There are hundreds of molten salt reactor designs (see for example [1]), and some of them are fast reactors.
But thorium MSR are not fast. That's the attraction of thorium, it can undergo transmutation (into protactinium, which then decays into fissile uranium-233) using thermal neutrons. Nobody is proposing thorium MSR as a solution to burn spent nuclear fuel.
> So...Three decades? Maybe if the West keeps sitting on its hands.
The West does not keep sitting on its hands. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of nuclear startups in the West, and they are actually making progress.
However, thorium is hard. Very hard. Breeding plutonium from uranium is much easier than breeding uranium-233 from thorium.
Here's a good post [2] about the thorium myths written by a former active HN forum member, Nick Touran. It's a good read. But, now, for an even better understanding, you can just ask ChatGPT, or any other LLM, how thorium breeder reactors compare to plutonium breeder reactors, and which technology is closer to reality.
[1] https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/STI-DOC-010-4...
[2] https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html