China connected its first small modular nuclear reactor to its power grid, making it the first country in the world to draw power from such a machine. Its small size allows for greater scalability as well as reduced operations and deployment costs.
The new modular nuclear reactor is the world's first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Instead of heating up water, it heats helium to produce energy. The machine is designed to quickly shut down if an error occurs.
fun fact china has the highest nuclear budget of any country :some-controversy:
they also plan to have 100 more reactors by 2030. usa will have like 95 total and france has like 70 total (theyre almost all nuclear powered in france). china will be at something like 150 with plans to keep scaling
meanwhile the UK is getting fucking rolls royce to do their nuclear research
:bloomer:
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:gold-communist: :yes-hahaha-yes-l:
A nuclear engineer Mark Nelson claims almost reactor designs even including Soviet RBMKs can be maintained indefinitely through good management and retrofits EXCEPT British reactor designs. Hope Rolls Royce don't repeat that fuck up.
Imagine building hundreds of nuclear plants that your descendants will probably run on thorium and plutonium.
What is so important about these high temperature reactors is that they will be replacing coal and gas boilers in all sorts of manufacturing processes and to produce hydrogen for ammonia fertilizer and fuel.