Tell me everything wrong with thorium besides thorium refinement

The entire problem with the fantasy comes down to dealing with two words.

Molten salt.

>>8702063
Shouldn't it be trivial to deal with molten salt

>>8702092
No... salt of any kind is very corrosive. Molten salt would be a nightmare to deal with from an engineering standpoint. What are you going to make all these pipes out of?

>>8702096
we can make them out of diamond, the hardest metal known to man

>>8702063
why is molten salt needed for thorium reactors but not for uranium ones?

>>8702096
Why not aluminum oxide

>>8702063
I don't see why, it's not even that great of an idea and just seems like a good way of separating the thorium from the primer material.

I imagine something more like rods surrounded by water to work. Changing the rods would be the only unfeasible thing here.

>>8702113
The idea is that when the thorium overheats it can corrode something, like a cork, that will drain the thorium away from its primer material into a reservoir elsewhere... Where it needs to be collected. This works because thorium isn't fissile on its own and needs another radioactive material, so if you get it away from its primer then it becomes safe. I don't like this idea.

It's dumb because you could probably separate the thorium better with mechanics than drains.

Thorium is simple as fuck.

Expose thorium to plutonium you bullied a weak third world country aiming for nuclear weapons for, then use it to heat water, control the distance between the thorium and plutonium, spin some turbines at a low temperature and crash electricity prices at your leisure. What could go wrong?

Seriously Thorium in nuclear countries that understand nuclear proliferation could work.

>>8702113
>why is molten salt needed for thorium reactors but not for uranium ones?
molten salt is "safest/coolest/hippest" meme essentially latched onto thorium; thorium can essentially be substituted in most reactor designs.

>>8702334
Uranium is reactive on its own. Thorium isn't. You can't apply liquid salt principles to uranium.

It's not even a good idea for thorium.

Just imagine your power plant as a nuclear powered kettle and there's no way you can fuck it up.

>>8702346
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#Oak_Ridge_National_Laboratory_denatured_molten_salt_reactor_.28DMSR.29

>>8702053
It just got BTFO by a professor at MIT:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603731/nuclear-energy-startup-transatomic-backtracks-on-key-promises/

Turns out it was just hype all along!

>>8702536

That isn't even a thorium reactor design, it's supposed to use spent uranium from conventional reactors.