Posted on 06/05/2017 4:43:10 AM PDT by RC one
Lemhi Pass is a high mountain pass in the Beaverhead Mountains, part of the Bitterroot Range in the Rocky Mountains and within Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Wikipedia
“Why is India pursuing this and we aren’t?”
Because it threatens the oil economy. Thorium can be extracted from coal. The heat generated by the reaction process can be used to transform the coal into fuel oil. You get electricity and fuel as a byproduct.
Total win win.
There is much more to "proof of viability" than a mere 6000 hours of operation. Beryllium is hugely toxic on a chemical basis, and the fluodide salts are highly corrosive.
"Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?"
Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.
The above said, the US "should" have continuing research going on such plants....but until the public's attitude about fission power changes, there is no chance of funding bills passing Congress, and no company will invest in it without such assurances.
What is sad about it??? Exports are exports, and engender American jobs. You would prefer that a company in France do it??
I thought Hillery sold that area to the Russians ...
Corruption is the way of the gov-co.
Anything for the equivalent of a few pieces of silver I guess.
Yes. That is indeed George Lucas :-)
Now you know that money wasn't pissed away, well not as far as the demonrats are concerned, the majority went directly into the accounts of the DNC and obamanation. Plus after sticking we taxpayers with the defaulted loan we also got to pay for the hazmat cleanup at the site.
It’s sad that they aren’t building molten salt reactors here in America. IMO.
Bingo.
Well, that would be "better", I agree...but I can't use the word "bad" for something that provides jobs for US citizens, and especially the highly technical sorts needed for this technology.
Curious tidbit...one my my professors in my grad school minor in nuclear science had worked on NERVA (nuclear rocket propulsion system). Heh....and then there was Heinlein's "Rocket Ship Galileo", a thorium-fueled nuclear rocket.
Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?" Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.
I was actually reading about India's large thorium deposits when I typed that. I meant to say Indonesia, not India. I read China is pursuing thorium reactors because they have large stockpiles of Thorium from refining rare earth metals for the battery market. I'm pretty sure we're sitting on a LOT of thorium ourselves however.
I think the day is coming soon when more Americans will be asking their government, why the hell aren't we building thorium reactors?
Self am chemist with academic nuke background. Also worked in the chemical industry for twenty-plus years for a producer of chlorine and chlorinated organic products, which come "close" to being systems as corrosive as fluorides, though not toxic per beryllium, so I understand that it can be done, and am glad to hear that Thorcom has a suitable appreciation for the difficulties.....many companies would not.
"I think the day is coming soon when more Americans will be asking their government, why the hell aren't we building thorium reactors?
Why?? Because the Soviet-funded anti-nuke propaganda machine has outlived its masters, and its zombie self lives on in the environmental movement, poisoning the water (and land and air) against fission power production.
Probably because of their continued failure to produce usable power, the fusion power boys have largely stayed out of the cross-hairs of the zombies. This activity is not harmless, as they suck down a lot of funding that could go to more practical things like thorium reactors.
Wasn’t Chernobyl a salt reactor?
I just think that once it takes off in Indonesia, India, China and elsewhere people are going to become increasingly interested in it here in America. I don't profess to be a nuclear physicist but I can read just fine and from what I have read, Thorium MSRs seems like an idea whose time is about to come.
No. It was a carbon-moderated light-water reactor or "light water graphite reactor" (LWGR), a very old reactor type with extremely dangerous characteristics. I think the Brits may have built some of these as power reactors VERY early on in the atomic age, but do not think the US ever did so.
If the temperature of the graphite gets too high, the water can react with the carbon and make carbon monoxide and hydrogen (called the "water gas reaction", and widely used in the late 1800's to produce "illuminating gas" from coal). That reaction can cause a large pressure surge inside the reactor, and if the vessel cracks and air gets inside......BOOM-ski!
I very sincerely hope you are right. I've got no real reservations about the technology. I just think the "human factors" of the "green meme" are going to be difficult to overcome.
A Thorium breeder doesn’t require isotope separation for U233. Perhaps the utilization of neutrons is less efficient than for making Pu?
Steam/gas bubbles—positive void coefficient?
Not sure how a LWGR reacts on a void coefficient basis, since the CO/H2 gas phase is a whole different chemical basis, not just a phase change of water. You're actually chemically eating away the graphite moderator itself as well. Bad things happenin' all around.
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