Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.

After reading the article and comments I find myself even more intrigued. Could this be a game changer concerning energy production and usage?

It's not totally safe obviously but it seem to have less drawbacks from current nuclear methods. Supposedly it even eats older nuke warheads.

www.forbes.com...

If it's feasible though, will the energy companies even go this route? If it's cheaper, there is less profit after all.

Thorium indeed seems to be as good as it gets. It can provide all our energy needs for thousands of years. Used in Liquid fluoride thorium reactors, it is much safer and cheaper than even conventional nuclear power, and produces only very small amounts of shortlived waste.

It is our energy silverbullet, one that will replace fossil fuels after peak oil hits, IMHO.

en.wikipedia.org...

you relise thorium reactors have been around since the 50s right? they were just supressed in favour weapons grade plutonium reactors for making nukes.

tons of great info here about it:

energyfromthorium.com...

reply to post by TDawgRex


it's very strange to see how abundant this stuff is from country to country...how is this stuff created naturally and why is it so little of it in Russia and Canada when you think how large the countries are could they have just not scowered enough of their land looking for it?

It is amazing how much thorium is produced as a mining bi-product, but the stuff will probably never be used because it does not make weapons grade plutonium. There was an experimental thorium reactor right here in midland michigan at dow chemical but the technology was put on the back burner. What a shame....

If done right even better is a mix of 70% thorium with depleted uranium.

The US and Russian both have very large stockpile of depleted uranium left over from making fuel rods for conventional nuclear reactors and weapons.

By mixing in the depleted uranium you get rid of it plus there is a slower destruction of land from mining thorium.

Since the thorium and depleted uranium in the reactor is in a fluid it can be adjusted as the thorium and depleted uranium are burned in the reactor.

The depleted uranium acts as a radiation absorber and by adjusting the amount you can keep the reactor running at a 100% rate without having to shut down and remove fuel and replace it like you have to in the reactors today. You just pump out small amounts at a time and make the adjustment then return it to the running reactor.

Thorium reactors and sub-critical reactors driven by a nuclear fusion machine or a particle accelerator can be use to burn up all the spent reactor fuel setting in cooling ponds and that would also give us 100ed of years of power and leave a lot less long lived spent fuel to have to store forever.
en.wikipedia.org...

With both the us has around 500+ years of fuel to power reactors.

Well, seems like after 40 years, thorium molten salt reactors are again getting increased attention they deserve. Japanese, with partners from Czech Republic, are developing 200 MW TMSR (Fuji MSR), Chinese are also pursuing the development of a LFTR, and Flibe Energy, company founded by thorium advocate Kirk Sorensen, is developing small modular 50 MW LFTR reactors.

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by TDawgRex


Usually if something is cheap, it makes it easier to make more margin for profit.

They may have to refine it someway or something first.

They will figure out how to exploit it for a lot of money like always.

There's even thorium on the moon! It's probably the only way to provide power for a future moon base, as there's no wind and no water on the moon. There's an old thread on thorium here: Thorium Power Plants Could Solve The World's Energy Problems

reply to post by Hellmutt


Yes, that was actually how Kirk Sorensen found out about LFTR - while at NASA, he researched reactor concepts suitable to power spaceships and Moon/Mars base. LFTR is highly scalable and does not require pressure vessel and large cooling towers, so its exceptionally well suited for this role. But I would not say its the only way, since solar energy can also be used on the Moon, and better than on the Earth since it has no atmosphere. But it wont give as much juice as LFTR of course.

reply to post by Maslo


A spot on the moon has 2 weeks of daylight and 2 weeks of night.

I'm a strong supporter of Thorium as a much better alternative to uranium. I accept more work is needed. I think the biggest problem in the past is that it doesn't result in weapons grade plutonium ......

www.world-nuclear.org...

They create dangerous waste byproducts.
Sure, it's LESS dangerous than most current in-service reactors.

I think people are spreading somewhat misleading propaganda without realizing it, because the nuclear industry is looking for a way to stay in business and this is their backup plan apparently.

Please review this Wiki

They want you to think this process is safe and clean. It's Not!

This is just a fancy way to dress up playing with radioactive material, creating dangerous waste products, all just to boil a vat of water...

Don't buy the hype, look into this yourself.

Link 1
link 2

Fact : This is using Thorium as a nuclear fuel, and although it is less dangerous than Uranium it still poses a significant hazard if not contained properly.

It is claimed that the waste byproducts of these types of reactions will be 'less radioactive than thorium ore in 300 years", but no one has proven that, because 300 years hasn't passed yet.

Yes it is TRUE that almost every aspect of the thorium based nuclear reactor is better and safer than current reactors (lower pressures, etc).

One major drawback for example LFTR's is that the salts are highly corrosive and this forces us to make the machinery from materials capable of withstanding this corrosion, which is very difficult but not impossible.

Thorium 232

Thorium-232 is now classified as carcinogenic.

Fun trivia here :

In the form of Thorotrast, a thorium dioxide suspension, it was used as contrast medium in early X-ray diagnostics.

Thorotrast

Oh and you can use U^233 to create nuclear bombs as well.

While it is possible to use uranium-233 as the fission fuel of a nuclear weapon, this has been done only occasionally. The United States first tested U-233 as part of a bomb core (with plutonium) in Operation Teapot in 1955.[6] Uranium-233 compares roughly to plutonium-239: its radioactivity is only one seventh (159,200 years half-life versus 24,100 years), but its bare critical mass is 60% higher (16 kg versus 10 kg), and its spontaneous fission rate is twenty times higher (6×10E−9 versus 3×10E−10) — but since the radioactivity is lower, the neutron density is only three times higher. A nuclear explosive device based on uranium-233 is therefore more of a technical challenge than with plutonium, but the technological level involved is roughly the same. The main difference is the co-presence of uranium-232 which makes uranium-233 very dangerous to work on, and quite easy to detect.

u233


Pro's which make MSR better than current reactors:
1) Limited air pollution. (Most material remains in the salt rather than becoming airborne)
2) No pressure explosions
3) Rather than melting down, leaks are possible but easier to manage.
4) Can use other nuclear waste byproducts.

Molten Salt Reactors

Sure replace all the current reactors with this.
But I will still be here to point out that we are going to have issues with radioactive waste byproducts that will remain hazardous for hundreds of years. Hundreds of Years!

If you want my assessment - I am still promoting Solar, Geothermal, Wind, etc as sources of electric generation. I just cannot entertain the idea of continuing nuclear reactors even if they are 10,000 times less dangerous, because that's still a few thousand times more dangerous than what I would be happy with.

Sorry for the nay saying but since virtually everyone is gung-ho about this, someone has to stand up and criticize it.

Originally posted by Essan
I'm a strong supporter of Thorium as a much better alternative to uranium. I accept more work is needed. I think the biggest problem in the past is that it doesn't result in weapons grade plutonium ......

www.world-nuclear.org...

Why?

You where there to tell us Fukushima is safe and isn't a big deal.

So why would you want thorium? Doesn't make any sense since as you said prior many times, modern nuclear reactors are safe and clean. Right?

Why would you consider an alternative when in your own mind, the current technology is just fine?

Did you change your mind or something?

Thorium does create some nuclear waste, noone is denying that. Yet we simply cannot choose to abandon nuclear until the world is powered by renewables completely. It is not a matter of safety for me, but a matter of civilisation as we know it surviving peak oil. So forgive me for your safety arguments having little impacts on my opinion about thorium power and nuclear in general. We CANNOT bet our future on one card only. And thorium seems to be the best nuclear around.

I also do believe that you are vastly overstating the danger of nuclear power, tough. It could easily be possible for such advanced nuclear to be safer than renewables (measured by deaths per TWh produced), IMHO.

the comments, in the article are very good. and also debunk this. so while, it may be cool, and maybe somewhat better than what we have...

its not a game changer

GhostInShell

Originally posted by muzzleflash

If you want my assessment - I am still promoting Solar, Geothermal, Wind, etc as sources of electric generation. I just cannot entertain the idea of continuing nuclear reactors even if they are 10,000 times less dangerous,

Most people that do not understand how the power system works think solar. wind and geothermal can replace nuclear.

Its imposable unless you want to build a lot of new dams and burn even more fossil fuel.

You have what is called base load. This is the minimum load that has to be supplied by the grid 24/7/365.

Wind and solar can not supply this base load at all. because the wind does not always blow.
and you don't have solar all the time.

The number of geothermal fields are Limited and you can not use geothermal where there is none like the northeastern US but they are a base load generator.

There is a limit on how far you can transmit power for every mile of power grid line you have a set loss. So power generated in the western US can not be used in large amounts in the northeastern US unless you build very expensive super conductor grid tie line across the US.

Many western states are already putting limits on sending power to other power poor states.

They know if they don.t sent power the industries that need the power will have to relocate to there states.

Other states like Calif have this not in my back yard attitude and are never going to build power plants to send power to other states. they will not even build power plants in Calif to supply Calif so power is expensive because its being brought in from other states.

Hydro is a base load supplyer unless you have a drought.
geothermal is if you have it
Nuclear is and can be placed almost anywhere if it can be made safe.

The other type load is peaking load.
Solar can be used for that in that when its gets hot its on sunny days. and cold you have wind from the cold storms. Plus you have many days that these can supplement but not replace base load.

Just because something is cheaper doesn't mean somebody doesn't want to sell it, just look at walmart. Cheap energy would be highly profitable. However the anti-nuclear people will never let this happen. When I first heard about thorium I was very excited, but because its nuclear the U.S will never allow it.

reply to post by ANNED


Not sure how things work in the US but that is not quite how it goes in the UK/Ireland.

Baseload is the must runs - normally hydro and wind - and the thermal stations that have long run-ups, i.e. coal powered stations and nuclear. Of course we rarely have a problem with no water in Ireland!!

Then you have what we call mid-merit (there are other names for it). This is to a lesser degree oil and mainly CCGT - Gas powered - stations. Mid merit takes the diurnal swings and deals with them because of the relatively fast spin up.

Finally you have peaking plant which is pumped storage and diesel generators (which can be quite large!!) These can be on line is a matter of seconds. Watching 292 MW of power come on line in under 6 seconds is something to behold. They are peakers however because whilst fast they are limited. Turlough Hill in Ireland is a pumped storage plant but it's capacity is just under 2 GWHrs. After that you have to pump the water back up again with a 74Mw pump. Peaking plant deals with everyone switching on during the break in the big match, or sometimes for homecoming time after work on a cold day.

Whilst wind is considered must run and thus base load it has to be backed by mid merit since other baseload cannot come on line fast enough to compensate for a sudden drop.

Personally I believe if we have to have baseload, as we do, then of the many alternatives, in the nuclear arena Thorium is far superior to uranium.

reply to post by TDawgRex


no, if it's cheaper, they can charge the same and keep more of the profits.


It doesn't matter though. It's the upgrade cost. Companies don't care if they would make trillions. If the short term cost to upgrade is millions, they won't do it until the source material runs out.


We need an American "Werkbund"