Instead of using fuel rods, molten-salt reactors work by dissolving thorium into liquid fluoride salt before sending it into the reactor chamber at temperatures above 1,112 Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). (Image credit: Que Hure/VCG via Getty Images) Taklamakan desert, nicknamed the "The Sea of Death", is the second largest shifting sand desert in the world, and a potential site for the waterless reactors. It is expected that small-scale reactors will be widely deployed in the next few years." "They can play a key role in the future transition to clean energy. "Small-scale reactors have significant advantages in terms of efficiency, flexibility and economy," Yan Rui, a physics professor at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, and colleagues wrote in a paper about the project published July 15 in the journal Nuclear Techniques. China currently contributes 27% towards total global carbon emissions, the largest amount from any individual country and more than the entire developed world combined, according to a 2019 report by the US-based Rhodium Group. The new reactor is a part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's drive to make China carbon-neutral by 2060, according to the team at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics that developed the prototype. Thorium - a silvery, radioactive metal named after the Norse god of thunder - is much cheaper and more abundant than uranium, and cannot easily be used to create nuclear weapons.
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"'Going out' with nuclear power has already become a state strategy, and nuclear exports will help optimize our export trade and free up domestic high-end manufacturing capacity," Wang Shoujun, a standing committee member of the China People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) - a political advisory body which acts as a link between the Chinese government and business interests, said in a report on the CPPCC's website. Chinese government officials view nuclear energy exports to be a key part of the Belt and Road program.
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