THTR reactors have lots of issues. Many things can go wrong, particularly with the high pressure He (helium) coolant system, pebble loading processes and the fragility of the fuel pebbles themselves. There was a German THTR that was taken offline from a disaster that didn't involve melting down. The incident was the trigger for Germany to stop using these reactor designs and largely abandon nuclear power across the nation. Nuclear isn't safe and even less safe now that DEI and diversity hires would be running these plants. China can't be trusted eaither.
Video about German THTR disaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gskQJE6lxU
Nuclear isn't safe
I disagree. When in use by India or China, yes, I WILL agree. But solid western gen 3 designs, as well as the newer Korean designs, are REALLY fucking safe. The Canadian design uses rods loaded horizontally rather than vertically. By design, should the reactor begin to melt down, the rods will bow, and when they bow, it causes the fission reaction to slow down dramatically or stop entirely. French designs use a similar loading mechanism. Korean designs use smaller rods which have less to melt down and will end the fission process quicker. We've made huge leaps since the gen 2 days of shit like 3 Mile or Fukushima. But I do 100% agree that subhuman street shitters and bugmen need to stay WELL away from the magic rocks.
I disagree. When in use by India or China, yes, I WILL agree. But solid western gen 3 designs, as well as the newer Korean designs, are REALLY fucking safe. The Canadian design uses rods loaded horizontally rather than vertically. By design, should the reactor begin to melt down, the rods will bow, and when they bow, it causes the fission reaction to slow down dramatically or stop entirely. French designs use a similar loading mechanism. Korean designs use smaller rods which have less to melt down and will end the fission process quicker. We've made huge leaps since the gen 2 days of shit like 3 Mile or Fukushima. But I do 100% agree that subhuman street shitters and bugmen need to stay WELL away from the magic rocks.
Safety of nuclear does not end when the fuel is "spent". Safety is an issue for the lifetime of the fuel, the low-level waste and the facility itself are all at extremely low-level activity. The very fact that spent fuel storage facilities need to be built the way they are shows that nuclear is not safe. Kicking the nuclear can down the road for our children and grand children and beyond to deal with is not a good idea. The impact of power generation from coal and oil/gas is negligible compared to nuclear and is therefore much safer overall.
I've never met a nuclear reactor proponent who wanted to store the nuclear energy waste products in their own backyards. That says a lot about their actual trust in the safety of the concept. It's even worse of the fuel mining and refining parts of the system. Ground water contamination from uranium mining/extraction is something nuclear fans never want to talk about. It's very much happening but everyone ignores it because "magic rocks good".
Have you looked into some of the experimental gen 4 liftr designs? They use the waste products in the liquid fuel/coolant to enrich Thorium and U238. It is feasible that we can have a closed loop on it within our life time. There's also fast reactors, like the one being built in Wyoming, that use 100% of the fuel, including the byproducts. I'm not a fan of fast reactors for a lot of reasons, but it is tech that can be used now rather in years/decades.
The point is, just because it's a problem now doesn't mean it always will be. Early on, Gasoline was an unwanted and dangerous byproduct of Diesel production. Now it's used to power cars.