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Chinese shipyard unveils plans for world’s first nuclear container powered by cutting-edge molten salt reactor
- The technology used to power the giant container could prove safer and more efficient than the uranium reactors currently used to power warships
- China has released little information about its first thorium-powered reactor, completed earlier this year, possibly because of its military applications
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Stephen Chenin Beijing
A Chinese shipyard has unveiled a design for an innovative new giant container ship powered by a reactor that one industry journal said may offer a true “zero-emissions” alternative.
If built it will be one of the largest ocean-going container ships the world has ever seen – with a load capacity starting at 24,000 standard containers – and the first powered by a molten-salt nuclear reactor.
Unlike the nuclear reactors found on warships powered by uranium, this new reactor is likely to use a radioactive metal called thorium, which is abundant and inexpensive in China.
The reactor will not need large amounts of water to cool down, making it safer and more efficient.
However, the technology is complex, and most countries have given up on trying to develop it after decades of fruitless efforts, including the United States which looked into the possibility of using it to power a long-range bomber.
But China has carried on and, earlier this year, got the first thorium-based molten salt reactor up and running in the Gobi desert.
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