China builds world’s first working thorium reactor using declassified US documents

[Mushroom]

You want to use flammable liquids as a nuclear reactor coolant

Where did I say that?

I have absolutely no idea where you are even going with that.

 

[ReinyDays]

Where did I say that?

I have absolutely no idea where you are even going with that.

Your memory giving out?:

That would be as large of an ecological disaster as an oil spill. Possibly even larger as salts would be much more likely to enter the aquifer, spread downstream, and soak deeper into the ground. Oil is a very viscous fluid and actually resists flowing or being absorbed (which is why it makes an excellent lubricant). A property that molten salts do not share, they love being absorbed in water. And once absorbed, are pretty much impossible to get out of the water.

With oil and water, it just sits on top and you just have to absorb it off of the water. I believe that a 10,000 gallon oil spill would be far less destructive to the environment than a 5,000 gallon molten salt spill.

Yeah ... salt isn't toxic ... it's a nutrient ... and oil burns in case you didn't know it ... albeit the most expensive option, molten sodium is a safer approach to nuclear energy ... Fukushima wouldn't have melted down with salt instead of water coolant ...

 

[Mushroom]

Yeah ... salt isn't toxic ... it's a nutrient

Right. That's why ancient armies were known for "salting the soil" after they defeated an enemy. So their crops would grow better after they left.

And why Lake Peigneur, once famous for recreation and fishing is now a dead lake. And why Bonneville in Utah is such an amazing area for agriculture.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Now I understand why you are so excited. Once again, China exploits technology America created.

How facile.

The United State deserves credit for its scientific accomplishments but do not pretend that all of these developed spontaneously, in isolation.

Consider rockets for example, the US picked up where the Germans stopped.

There are huge numbers of technologies developed in the USA many of which originated elsewhere or from foreign contributors.

Nuclear engineering was developed by European scientists here in the US.

Radio, AC power transmission, computers, rockets, radar and on and on we can go...

How is China developing Thorium any different to the United States developing moon rockets?

 

[Mushroom]

Consider rockets for example, the US picked up where the Germans stopped.

And are you aware that the Germans picked it up where the Americans stopped?

The developer of the modern liquid fueled rocket was Robert Goddard. He started in aviation, but in the 1910s his interest changed from aircraft to rockets, which at the time were all solid fueled. So he started doing research and experimentation into making a liquid fueled rocket. And because the thrust in them unlike a solid fueled rocket could be varied, how to guide such rockets.

However, he also suffered from tuberculosis. Which impacted his ability to actually do hands on research. But he was a prolific writer on the subject, publishing a great many papers on the theories of liquid fueled rockets and how they were the technology that would take man to the stars.

And one of his "converts" who read all of his papers was Wernher von Braun. Who at the very start of his research concentrated on liquid fueled rockets. And his first tests were conducted with replicas of Goddard rockets. Which he then started improving, at the time where Goddard was already largely bedridden and dying.

Doctor von Braun openly spoke on how everything he did was an extension of Goddard's work, and how much he wished he could have met him before he died.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

And are you aware that the Germans picked it up where the Americans stopped?

The developer of the modern liquid fueled rocket was Robert Goddard. He started in aviation, but in the 1910s his interest changed from aircraft to rockets, which at the time were all solid fueled. So he started doing research and experimentation into making a liquid fueled rocket. And because the thrust in them unlike a solid fueled rocket could be varied, how to guide such rockets.

However, he also suffered from tuberculosis. Which impacted his ability to actually do hands on research. But he was a prolific writer on the subject, publishing a great many papers on the theories of liquid fueled rockets and how they were the technology that would take man to the stars.

And one of his "converts" who read all of his papers was Wernher von Braun. Who at the very start of his research concentrated on liquid fueled rockets. And his first tests were conducted with replicas of Goddard rockets. Which he then started improving, at the time where Goddard was already largely bedridden and dying.

Doctor von Braun openly spoke on how everything he did was an extension of Goddard's work, and how much he wished he could have met him before he died.

Radio? radar? digital computers? steam engines? jet engines? etc, etc, etc

 

[Mushroom]

Radio? radar? digital computers? steam engines? jet engines? etc, etc, etc

What exactly is your point here?

Most of those were the work of multiple nations. It was a German that first proved that radio wavs would be detected after bouncing off objects back in 1886. And another German that patented a basic system to be installed on ships to prevent collisions in the fog.

But what we know of today as RADAR was independently invented by multiple countries, each of them doing it in secret. The Germans, UK, US, USSR, Japanese, French, and Italians were all about equal in RADAR development at the start of WWII.

Digital computers, now there is a fascinating subject. The first was actually by Konrad Zuse, a German. But all but one of his computers were prototypes, and none actually entered into any kind of production until 1950. And even then, it was "barely digital", and was still primarily electromechanical. And ultimately, a dead end in computer technology.

And at before Colossus was built to help English code breakers, the Atanasoff-Berry computer was functioning. But when the US entered WWII the project was cancelled as John Atanasoff left academia to work for the Navy Ordinance Lab on building computers for creating gunnery tables.

Now you are bringing things up that were invented in multiple nations at about the same time. Steam engines actually date to the 15th century in both England and Spain, primarily for pumping water out of mines. But it was Watt that improved the design and put them on a ship.

For jet engines, once again that was like RADAR. Most research done in secret, but it was developed independently in Spain, England, Germany, France, Italy, the US, and USSR. One of the most interesting was France, as they were trying to develop what we now know as the ramjet. But at the time there was simply no way to gain sufficient speeds to make one work.

What, you think that discoveries like those are created in a vacuum? Hell, anybody who follows aircraft technology will admit the F-117 was designed thanks to a paper published by a Soviet mathematician in 1962. And that was just an extension of work by a German physicist a decade earlier. But it was not until the mid-1970s that computers became powerful enough to actually put the theories and formulas to the test by being able to actually design something with the crazy angles they required that could actually fly. As well as computers small enough to put into the aircraft to allow it to fly in the first place.

 

[fncceo]

It's fully funding the important stuff.

Are you claiming that transgender mice studies AREN’T important?!

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

What exactly is your point here?

That accusing the Chinese of this is baseless.

Most of those were the work of multiple nations. It was a German that first proved that radio wavs would be detected after bouncing off objects back in 1886. And another German that patented a basic system to be installed on ships to prevent collisions in the fog.

But what we know of today as RADAR was independently invented by multiple countries, each of them doing it in secret. The Germans, UK, US, USSR, Japanese, French, and Italians were all about equal in RADAR development at the start of WWII.

Digital computers, now there is a fascinating subject. The first was actually by Konrad Zuse, a German. But all but one of his computers were prototypes, and none actually entered into any kind of production until 1950. And even then, it was "barely digital", and was still primarily electromechanical. And ultimately, a dead end in computer technology.

And at before Colossus was built to help English code breakers, the Atanasoff-Berry computer was functioning. But when the US entered WWII the project was cancelled as John Atanasoff left academia to work for the Navy Ordinance Lab on building computers for creating gunnery tables.

Now you are bringing things up that were invented in multiple nations at about the same time. Steam engines actually date to the 15th century in both England and Spain, primarily for pumping water out of mines. But it was Watt that improved the design and put them on a ship.

For jet engines, once again that was like RADAR. Most research done in secret, but it was developed independently in Spain, England, Germany, France, Italy, the US, and USSR. One of the most interesting was France, as they were trying to develop what we now know as the ramjet. But at the time there was simply no way to gain sufficient speeds to make one work.

What, you think that discoveries like those are created in a vacuum? Hell, anybody who follows aircraft technology will admit the F-117 was designed thanks to a paper published by a Soviet mathematician in 1962. And that was just an extension of work by a German physicist a decade earlier. But it was not until the mid-1970s that computers became powerful enough to actually put the theories and formulas to the test by being able to actually design something with the crazy angles they required that could actually fly. As well as computers small enough to put into the aircraft to allow it to fly in the first place.

I never claimed these breakthroughs were created in a vacuum. I was showing how attacking China for their recent work is baseless. The US can take credit for their exploitation of the ideas of other nations but the Chinese can't? That's racism, nationalism and is ridiculous.

 

[Mushroom]

That accusing the Chinese of this is baseless.

I never accused the Chinese of anything.

In fact, I see it as about as much of a waste as the attempts in Nuclear Fusion. Dead end technologies that are more for bragging than anything actually productive.

You seem to simply be one of those here that simply has to argue with anybody no matter what.

 

[22lcidw]

Its ik. The MAGA admn is cutting research.

The tens of trillions of dollars of legislation the first two years of Joe should have gotten us clean energy for all at a cheap price. What happened? From my understanding we are building a small nuclear reactor that can come online fast and is modern compared to the older models. The first of many. We have technology we do not use. For many reasons.