China Discovers 60,000-Year Supply of Thorium

中国发现可供使用6万年的钍资源

Last week, the media reported that China had discovered 1 million tons of thorium – enough of the nuclear fuel to power the country for 60,000 years. How big is this news really?

上周，媒体报道称中国已发现100万吨钍——这种核燃料的储量足够为中国提供长达6万年的能源。这则消息的意义究竟有多么重大呢？

以下是各国网友的评论：

williamlloyd3769
Thorium based energy is a worthy goal for China that could benefit the entire world. Hope it’s successful

钍基能源对中国而言是有价值的，有望造福全世界。希望能成功。

archstanton_live
Yes. Thorium nuclear energy is a worthy goal for all of us and thorium is a fairly well distributed element that many countries have potential economically viable sources of. Besides operating safety benefits, thorium also decreased nuclear proliferation (think plutonium) potential. Hopefully, China, or India (who also is doing research and has an operating reactor) can help the US with their research to overcome the difficulties with molten salt.

没错。钍核能对大家来说都是有价值的。钍是一种分布相当广泛的元素，许多国家都可能有在经济上可行的钍资源。

除了具备运行安全方面的优势，钍还降低了核扩散的可能性。希望中国或者印度（印度也在开展研究，且有一座正在运行的反应堆）能助力美国的研究，帮其攻克熔盐方面的难题。

marpleka
Its the weakest one, no sense in it. Thorium at best 1000 mwatt, other nuclear 1 million mwatt

这是最不靠谱的一个了，毫无道理。钍最多也就1000兆瓦，而其他核能能达到100万兆瓦。

balbirgrewal2653
Bet DEI environmentalists go nuts anyway

敢打赌，无论如何，主张多元化、公平与包容（DEI）的环保主义者会抓狂的。

LaughingOrange
@marpleka Make sure you capitalize mega, which is one million, if you're shortening it to M. Lower case m is milli, which is 1000th. 1 million milliwatt is just 1 kilowatt, which is enough to power a single space heater.

如果你要把“兆”（mega）缩写成“M”，一定要大写，“兆”是一百万的意思。小写的“m”是“毫”（milli），是千分之一。100万毫瓦其实就只有1千瓦，也就够给一台电暖器供电而已。

Doctored_Oak
China wants to dominate the world so try not to put too much expectation on what they'll share with the world

中国想要主宰世界，所以别以为中国会与世界分享，别抱太大期望

stevechance150
"Thorium is bad" said every Uranium mine owner. Then they said, "Let's have our lobbyist payoff some Congressmen to block Thorium in the US".

每个铀矿主都说“钍不好”。然后他们还说，“让我们的游说者贿赂一些国会议员，好阻止美国发展钍能源”。

AthosRac
The argument is not economical, it is geopolitical. Thorium reactors do not produce fuel to atomic weapons.

这争论无关经济，而是地缘政治问题。钍反应堆不会产生用于制造核武器的燃料。

crawkn
Thus a conspiracy theory is born.

于是，一个阴谋论就这样诞生了。

NeovanGoth
@crawkn Admittedly, capitalism - particularly in the US - doesn't do a lot to counter such conspiracy theories. And it goes in both directions. There also was a quite obvious pro thorium campaign going on for some time, with a lot of "science" influencers on YouTube and other platforms praising thorium to the sky, even though not a single successful implementation of the technology exsted. That's how it works. Any guess why anti-nuclear campaigns were so successful, particularly in Europe? The oil industry might know a bit about that. Do I have any evidence? No, because no investigative journalist on the whole world seems to be interested in why people seriously believe that nuclear power plants can explode like bombs. Because half of them probably believe the bullshit too. Bloody hell, we even have scientists spreading disinformation about nuclear energy. It's absurd.

不得不承认，资 本主义——尤其是美国的资 本主义——在抵制这类阴谋论方面没什么作为。而且这种情况是双向的。

曾有一段时间，有一场很明显的支持钍能源的运动，很多YouTube和其他平台上的“科学”网红把钍吹上了天，尽管这项技术还没有一个成功应用的案例。事情就是这样。

猜猜为什么反核运动如此成功，尤其是在欧洲？石油行业对此可能略知一二。我有证据吗？没有，似乎全世界没有一个记者对人们为何坚信核电站会像炸弹一样爆炸感兴趣。他们当中一半的人可能也相信这种无稽之谈。真是见鬼，我们甚至还有科学家在传播有关核能的虚假信息。太荒谬了。

MattBuild4
Not really. For thorium to be an effective market competitor you have to rebuild the entire nuclear fuel supply chain. Believe it or not - thats gonna cost a pretty penny. And at the end of the day were comparing the neutron cross section of U-233 vs U-235. 2 neutrons of difference, believe it or not in most circumstances the yield does not justify the higher cost for rebuilding the entire supply chain.
Typically the thorium train will point out that "if you use Th-232 bred into U-233 in a LFTR its way better". Yes..... if youre comparing a LFTR vs a PWR, but those people are also comparing a Generation IV reactor type vs a Generation II - so duh.... Compare apples to apples of a LFTR (U-233) vs MCFR (Pu-239) or MSSR (U-235)- all molten salt reactor variants again theres not that much difference in energy production.

并非如此。要让钍成为有效的市场竞争者，就得重建整个核燃料供应链。信不信由你，这可要花一大笔钱。归根结底，我们是在比较铀-233和铀-235的中子截面。相差两个中子，信不信由你，在大多数情况下，其产出并不足以证明重建整个供应链所花费的高昂成本是合理的。

通常，支持钍能源的人会指出“如果你在钍基熔盐堆（LFTR）中使用由钍-232增殖成的铀-233，那就好得多”。没错。如果你是在比较钍基熔盐堆和压水堆（PWR），但这些人也是在拿第四代反应堆类型和第二代作比较——所以，这不明摆着嘛。要是把钍基熔盐堆（使用铀-233）、熔盐快堆（MCFR，使用钚-239）或熔盐增殖堆（MSSR，使用铀-235）这些同属熔盐堆的类型放在一起比较，在能源产出方面并没有太大差异。

KNIGHT-F3
China just keeps wng!
Good job China!

中国不断取得成功！

中国干得好！

danielbuckman2727
I think that with the technological breakthroughs we've had since the 1960s it's highly probable they can build dependable molten salt reactors. The plausibility of a molten salt reactor is much higher than the possibility of a fusion reactor. If they pull this off I will be impressed.

我认为，自上世纪60年代以来我们已经取得了不少技术突破，他们很有可能建造出可靠的熔盐反应堆。熔盐反应堆实现的可能性比核聚变反应堆要高得

多。要是他们能成功做到，我会大为赞叹。

artsmith103
Even if Fusion could be a future certainty, who cares. Thorium and Uranium are so capable, who cares about possible Fusion benefits, let's take the certain wng path!

即便核聚变在未来肯定能实现又怎样。钍和铀的潜力如此巨大，谁还在乎核聚变可能带来的好处，我们就选这条稳赢的路吧！

MrKittyGyat
The thorium research was abruptly ended in the US because of politics and stupidity. Not because there were difficulties in achieving an engineering solution for it.

美国的钍研究突然终止，原因是政治因素和愚蠢，并非因为在工程解决方案上遇到了困难。

caldodge
The amount of usable Thorium available is around 300 times as great as the Uranium isotope used for nuclear power

可用的钍储量大约是用于核能的铀同位素储量的300倍。

adeemuff
10-ish years ago, a Russian nuclear physicist Igor Ostretsov gave multiple interviews about thorium and its potential in nuclear energy.
He deplored the exstence of lobbyists for uranium-only who prevented research of thorium capabilities.
Also, according to him, thorium can't be weaponized, so the interest from state military is low.

大约10年前，俄罗斯核物理学家伊戈尔·奥斯特列佐夫多次接受采访，谈及钍及其在核能领域的潜力。

他对那些只为铀能源游说的人表示谴责，正是这些人阻碍了对钍潜力的研究。

而且，据他所说，钍无法被用于制造武器，所以各国军方对其兴趣不高。

unxu3110
China is building the world's first-ever nuclear power station using molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium as a fuel source. The thorium-based reactors are much safer than traditional nuclear reactors and have other advantages. The Chinese are finishing the facility this year with expected operation in 2030, followed by full-scale production.

中国正在建造世界上首座以熔盐作为燃料载体和冷却剂、以钍作为燃料来源的核电站。钍基反应堆比传统核反应堆安全得多，而且还有其他优势。中国今年将完成该设施的建设，预计2030年投入运行，随后实现全面投产。

Toe_Merchant
Saying a large deposit of Thorium is an infinite source of energy, is like saying sunlight in the Sahara is an infinite source of energy. I mean I guess that's correct technically, but there are obvious limits in harvesting that energy.

说大量的钍储量是一种取之不尽的能源，就好比说撒哈拉沙漠的阳光是取之不尽的能源。我是说，从技术层面讲这或许没错，但在获取这种能源方面显然存在着局限。

KrystianKarbowski-kh3pd
Both thorium and uranium can use almost all fuel this is called breeding. So slight mistake. In thorium breeders you transmutate it to U233 in uranium breeders you get Pu239
And both need to start U235
Thorium might be slithly more efficient than U in breading because it has better neutron absorbtion in thermal spectrum while U238 works better with fast neutrons that are less efficient splitting U235.

钍和铀都能利用几乎所有的燃料，这被称为增殖。所以这里有点小错误。在钍增殖反应堆中，钍会嬗变成铀-233，而在铀增殖反应堆中会产生钚-239。
而且两者都需要以铀-235作为起始原料。

在增殖方面，钍可能比铀的效率略高一些，因为钍在热中子能谱下的中子吸收能力更好，而铀-238对快中子的作用更好，而快中子在使铀-235裂变时效率较低。

Rohan4711
There is an interesting alternative to molten salt. A company in Sweden called Blykalla is currently building a test reactor with lead as the coolent. Similar to salt it has a high boiling point, but is less corrosive than salt.
Blykalla translates roughly to lead coolant.

有一个有趣的熔盐替代品。瑞典一家名为Blykalla的公司目前正在建造一座以铅作为冷却剂的试验反应堆。铅和盐一样有较高的沸点，但腐蚀性比盐小。

o0alessandro0o
I mean, we knew that Thorium was abundant, the challenge is building enough reactors. Thorium is an unwanted side-product or rare earth extraction, we've been throwing it away for decades now, so the fact that China has lots isn't that important, everybody has at least some Thorium, or can get it on the cheap.

我的意思是，我们知道钍储量丰富，挑战在于建造足够多的反应堆。钍是稀土开采过程中产生的一种无用副产品，几十年来我们一直把它扔掉。所以，中国有大量钍这一事实并没有那么重要，每个人至少都有一些钍，或者能以很低的价格获取到钍。

kypowerwithKarl
Thorium is all over the place. The problem is, energy companies don’t want it to happen because it’ll greatly reduce their profits. The uranium industry killed thorium reactors back in the 70’s and right now energy companies are lobbying to fund the fusion folly because they know that it’ll always be 20 years away. If they had spent 1/4 of the fusion money on metallurgy for molten salt reactors, right now we would be living in the time plentiful cheap and safe energy.

钍到处都有。问题是，能源公司不希望钍能源发展起来，因为这会大幅削减他们的利润。

上世纪70年代，铀产业扼杀了钍反应堆的发展，而现在能源公司正在游说，为核聚变这种不靠谱的项目争取资金，因为他们知道核聚变永远还得等上20年。

要是他们当初能把核聚变项目资金的四分之一花在熔盐反应堆的冶金技术研究上，我们现在本应生活在能源丰富、廉价且安全的时代了。

johnnynephrite6147
I found a 10 million year supply of black non-hematite nephrite in Guanx China. The reason it will last so long is because no one is mining it. But it is high quality, great for carving and polished like black lacquer.

我在中国广西发现了可供开采1000万年的黑色非赤铁矿软玉。但这种软玉品质上乘，很适合雕刻，抛光后就像黑漆一样光亮。

crawkn
"Didn't go so well" isn't exactly true, the experiments / demos did what they were designed to do, which was prove the concept. But the process was useless for producing weapons-grade materials, so it received little consideration and no further development.

“进展不太顺利”这种说法不太准确。那些实验或演示达到了预期目的，也就是验证了相关概念。但这个过程对于生产武器级材料毫无用处，所以几乎没人重视，也没有进一步的发展。

vagabundood
Is this what makes china a new superpower and the USA old school as the uk ?

这就是让中国成为新兴超级大国，而美国像英国一样变得守旧的原因吗？

plumtree1846
Several online reports indicate the U.S. has over 3000 tons of thorium nitrate as part of the Defense National Stockpile. This is refined thorium ready for use (versus a theoretical reserve that has to be mined and refined). One has to wonder what has held up the development of a viable reactor for the past 50 years. A couple of the world's billionaires could easily fund the development of a reactor, and be hailed heroes, but no one has stepped forward

一些网络报道称，美国国防国家储备中有超过3000吨的硝酸钍。这是已经提炼好、可直接使用的钍（不同于那些还需要开采和提炼的理论储量）。人们不禁要问，在过去50年里，到底是什么阻碍了可行的反应堆的研发。几个世界富豪很容易就能为反应堆的研发提供资金，还可能被尊为英雄，但却没人站出来。

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