Germany, 1980s
The German THTR-300 was a prototype commercial power station using thorium as fertile and highly enriched U-235 as fissile fuel. Though named thorium high temperature reactor, mostly U-235 was fissioned. The THTR-300 was a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor with a pebble-bed reactor core consisting of approximately 670,000 spherical fuel compacts each 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in diameter with particles of uranium-235 and thorium-232 fuel embedded in a graphite matrix. It fed power to Germany's grid for 432 days in the late 1980s, before it was shut down for cost, mechanical and other reasons.
“My title describes the thing the flee market was in Berlin. The screw in the lid can be turned which moves a piece of metal backwards and forwards but only by a few millimetres, not enough for it to stick out on the opposite side”