Thorium Nuclear Reactors

Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Jonathan responds to your texts and tweets, is joined in studio for all the latest science stories for Newsround and speaks to one of our two guests featured on the show. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Johnathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App. You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'

Thorium Nuclear Reactors

Recently, the Chinese government has been testing a thorium nuclear reactor that uses molten salt as a coolant. Although this radioactive element has been trialed in reactors before, experts say that China is the first to have a shot at commercializing the technology. The Wuwei reactor is designed to produce just 2 megawatts of thermal energy, which is only enough to power up to 1,000 homes. But if the experiments are a success, China hopes to build a reactor that could power hundreds of thousands of homes by 2030. So could Thorium Nuclear Reactors be the answer to all of our current climate woes? Simon Middleburgh, Professor of Materials at the Nuclear Futures Institute in Bangor University joins Jonathan to discuss.

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Thorium Nuclear Reactors