'World-first accelerator-driven nuclear reactor' nears as China eyes '1000-year' energy source

[OKIsItJustMe]

The technology could slash the hazardous lifespan of nuclear waste by over 99.9 percent.
By Aman Tripathi | Mar 06, 2026 07:21 AM EST

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have begun the final installation of superconducting particle accelerators at a groundbreaking nuclear site in Guangdong province.

This could be considered a massive development towards “limitless” clean energy.

The system, known as the Accelerator-driven subcritical systems (ADS), is on track to become the world’s first megawatt-level waste-burning reactor when it goes online in 2027.

The 1,000-year energy solution

The project promises to solve the two biggest hurdles facing nuclear power: safety and long-term waste.

…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor

[NNadir]

1. Um...the claimed "hurdles" are non-issues, except in the minds of people who don't understand very much about energy.

The project promises to solve the two biggest hurdles facing nuclear power: safety and long-term waste.

There are no forms of primary energy as "safe" as nuclear energy, since all other forms of energy depend on the combustion of fossil fuels.

There is no evidence anywhere at any time in this country (or for that matter any country) that the storage of used nuclear fuel has lead to any deaths. It is, actually, the only form of primary energy that contain its products on the site where it is generated for a long term.

Superconducting magnets require helium, and the world supply of helium is threatened, since it is obtained from geological sources from the decay products of uranium and thorium.

By consideration of the Maxwell-Boltzman distribution one can show that helium, while the second most common element in the universe as a whole, cannot be retained by the Earth's gravity since a significant portion of the helium atoms are above the escape velocity of Earth. Hence it boils off into space, and that's why it's in Jupiter and Saturn's atmosphere but not found on Earth except when confined in geological structures having accumulated over billions of years of uranium and thorium decay.

This is why any technology relying on superconducting magnets is ultimately doomed; this would include fusion reactors.

Accelerator subcritical reactors are cute toys, and they might work for a while, but they are unnecessary. (These systems for academic studies, already exist are utilized for certain types of materials science investigations - my son has been sporadically involved with their use going back to his undergraduate days and through his graduate program - but they cannot be said to be commercially viable systems for producing clean energy. They are research tools.) It will be a fun toy to play with, but will almost certainly have no real meaning on an industrial scale.

Critical fast reactors can easily extract the full worth of used nuclear fuel without the excess machinery. In fact thermal reactors of the CANDU (heavy water) type can achieve full utilization of used nuclear fuels.

All this said, China is the world's most advanced nation now in nuclear energy commercial and experimental/developmental systems. Their system is highly creative. Their leadership evolved because the US abandoned this in service to functional morons who claimed that nuclear energy is "too dangerous" (and fossil fuels aren't) and "too expensive" even when we observed that Germany's electricity prices surged and grew dirtier after the stupid idea shutting its fission reactors was put in practice.

Accelerator driven reactors, which have been under consideration for many decades are now, are tools to "solve" problems which actually don't exist, the idiot knee jerk rhetoric about so called "nuclear waste" and the highly selective nonsense that nuclear energy is "too dangerous." The latter was obviated to be nonsensical by considering the outcome of the Chernobyl and Fukushima events that have all the world's antinukes (and "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes) in a tizzy, because they just don't give a shit when the normal operations of fossil fuel plants kill people in vast numbers. These events, Chernobyl and Fukushima, demonstrate that the worst case for nuclear energy is trivial compared to the best case for fossil fuels. In terms of danger, risk, and considerations of the products of operations, nuclear energy is actually vastly superior to any and all other options in the world energy supply. The fact that used nuclear fuel can be easily contained on the site where it is generated, and stored until the world comes to its senses and puts it to use, is an indication of its environmental superiority.

[70sEraVet]

2. I know next to nothing about this technology

But I know that I have a 50 year-old coal-burning power plant near me, that was scheduled to be retired soon (1/2 the plant this year, other half in 2018). It was announced last month that the retirement has been cancelled due to the energy demands of data centers.
Coal never was 'beautiful' nor 'clean'. It wasn't back is Charles Dickens' day, and it isn't now.
China is moving forward. We are regressing. At what point will we go back to burning whale oil?