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America, Japan and China are racing to be the first nation to make nuclear energy completely renewable. The hurdle is making it economic to extract uranium from seawater, because the amount of uranium in seawater is truly inexhaustible. And it seems America is in the lead. New technological breakthroughs from DOE’s Pacific Northwest (PNNL) and Oak Ridge (ORNL) national laboratories have made removing uranium from seawater within economic reach and the only question is – when will the source of uranium for our nuclear power plants change from mined ore to seawater extraction? Nuclear fuel made with uranium extracted from...

The ITER fusion reactor will fire up for the first time in December 2025, the €18-billion project’s governing council confirmed today. The date for “first plasma” is 5 years later than under the old schedule, and to get there the council is asking the project partners—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—to cough up an extra €4 billion ($4.5 billion). “It is expected, if there are no objections, that we can approve [the schedule] by November and then we can move forward,” says ITER director general Bernard Bigot. ITER aims to show that it...

Nearing affordable extraction of uranium from seawater, which would unlock over 800 times current reserves and with breeder reactors provide resources for billion years of current world power The oceans hold more than four billion tons of uranium—enough to meet global energy needs for the next 10,000 years if only we could capture the element from seawater to fuel nuclear power plants. For half a century, researchers worldwide have tried to mine uranium from the oceans with limited success. In the 1990s, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) scientists pioneered materials that hold uranium as it is stuck or adsorbed onto...

With the production of 50 grams of plutonium-238, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have restored a U.S. capability dormant for nearly 30 years and set the course to provide power for NASA and other missions. ... Researchers will analyze the sample for chemical purity and plutonium-238 content, then verify production efficiency models and determine whether adjustments need to be made before scaling up the process. ... There are currently only 35 kilograms, or about 77 pounds, of plutonium-238 set aside for NASA missions, and only about half of this supply meets power specifications. This is...

Future aircraft could be powered by lasers and nuclear explosions if Boeing has its way. The aerospace firm claims a new-type of engine could produce energy-efficient thrust by firing lasers at radioactive material, such as deuterium and tritium. The technology could mean that planes and spaceships will require only a fraction of the power to operate, according to a recent patent filed by the company.

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook Transatomic Power (TAP) is developing an advanced molten salt reactor that generates clean, passively safe, proliferation-resistant, and low-cost nuclear power. This reactor can consume the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) generated by commercial light water reactors or use freshly mined uranium at enrichment levels as low as 1.8% U-235. It achieves actinide burnups as high as 96%, and can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor. Transatomic Power has greatly improved the molten salt concept, while retaining its significant safety benefits. The main technical change we...

The Front-Runners In Fusion Energy Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/12/2015 15:14 -0400 Reality     inShare1   Submitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com,Fusion power has been something of a holy grail in the energy field for decades. The idea of harnessing the same energy that powers the sun naturally excites many. At the same time, despite decades of research, fusion energy has yet to come close to being a reality. The only significant practical advance in fusion reactions has been the development of thermonuclear weapons like the hydrogen bomb which, for all intents and purposes, serve the same purpose...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Vermont just replaced its only only nuclear reactor (which had accounted for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production) with fossil fuels obtained from fracking For the past 42 years, Vermont’s only nuclear power plant was responsible for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production. This huge amount of electricity was generated by a single nuclear reactor.Vermont has just shut down this reactor.The replacement energy source for this shut down reactor is shale gas, a fossil fuel whose combustion causes global warming, and which is obtained from fracking.And all this time, I had thought that liberals in Vermont...

Recent news that Lockheed Martin has made a nuclear fusion breakthrough has come with its fair share of sensational headlines. Claims have been made that it could change the world and forever alter the future of humanity. And for once, those headlines could be accurate, assuming that Lockheed Martin's claims are viable. A compact nuclear fusion reactor, especially one as small as Lockheed Martin is claiming, could change the world as we know it. But before we can get a handle on what such a breakthrough could mean, let's first get a hold of what exactly is being claimed. In...

he Department of Energy said Thursday it expects to get underground next week to begin investigating the cause and extent of a mysterious radiation leak from the government's nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico. Officials said the inspections of the shafts that workers will use to access the half-mile-deep repository are complete and they are preparing to send an initial crew of eight into the mine early next week. The dump has been shuttered since mid-February, when radiation was released above ground and into the air around Carlsbad, contaminating at least 17 workers with low doses of radiation. Four...

UVU develops innovative nuclear technology 10 comments, Tuesday, February 4th, 2014, by KresLynn Knouse, in News UVU’s office of Technology Commercialization is currently in the process of developing a unique model of a nuclear reactor known as the molten salt reactor, or MSR. MSRs have the ability to recycle the 270,000 metric tons of toxic waste generated from traditional light water reactors into a substantial power supply.MSR development has received increased attention from countries such as China, India, Australia, and Japan due to the efficiency, safety and ‘eco-friendly’ features of the system.MSR design innovators have boasted the potential to boost...

The nuclear race is on. China is upping the ante dramatically on thorium nuclear energy. Scientists in Shanghai have been told to accelerate plans (sorry for the pun) to build the first fully-functioning thorium reactor within ten years, instead of 25 years as originally planned. “This is definitely a race. China faces fierce competition from overseas and to get there first will not be an easy task”,” says Professor Li Zhong, a leader of the programme. He said researchers are working under “warlike” pressure to deliver. Good for them. They may do the world a big favour. They may even...

Thorium, a Safer Nuclear Alternative? Added by admin on April 3, 2011.Saved under TourismTags: Areva, Brave New Climate Blog, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Fukushima, George Monbiot, Grenoble, Jean-Marie Loiseaux, Joe Bonometti, Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie de Grenoble, LFTR- Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, Lightbridge, molten-salt nuclear reactor, Oak Ridge National Lab, Professor Barry Brook, Roger Brisso, Thorium, Thorium Energy Alliance, US Atomic Energy Commission, Wired As France, dependent on 58 reactors for 75-80% of its energy, firmly reasserts its faith in nuclear in the wake of Fukushima, China is headed towards a clean...

Chinese scientists urged to develop new thorium nuclear reactors by 2024 PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 11:42pm UPDATED : Wednesday, 19 March, 2014, 4:54am Stephen Chen \   Beijing wants to cut its reliance on coal-fired power. Photo: AP The deadline to develop a new design of nuclear power plant has been brought forward by 15 years as the central government tries to reduce the nation's reliance on smog-producing coal-fired power stations.A team of scientists in Shanghai had originally been given 25 years to try to develop the world's first nuclear plant using the radioactive element thorium as...

Atomic Car Revisited: Thorium Could Power A Vehicle for 100 Years? By George Kennedy 5 hours ago   A car that could run for 100 years on one tank of fuel? It sounds like a far-fetched idea, but it is just what a company is apparently claiming possible with the use of an atomic fuel that was abandoned during the Nixon administration. We’re talking about the sounds-too-good-to-be-true substance called “Thorium.”Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. It was discovered in 1828 by a Norwegian mineralogist and identified by a Swedish chemist, who then named it after the Norse god, Thor.ATOMIC...

Carlo Rubbia, a former director of the CERN laboratory who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics, described thorium as having “absolute pre-eminence” over all other fuels including fossil fuels and uranium, the metallic element that has driven reactors since nuclear first started powering public grids in 1956. “In order to be vigorously continued, nuclear power must be profoundly modified,” Rubbia said at the Thorium Energy Conference 2013, held on the CERN campus here last week. Rubbia pointed out that thorium leaves less long-lived waste than uranium, is far more plentiful and is resistant to weapons proliferation, as I reported...

The science, technology and economics of using Thorium in a power generating nuclear reactor and the future of energy over the next 20 to 50 years

Thorium policy in all western nations undermines the successful development of a domestic rare earth market. All of the rare earths that most western mining companies are willing to process are what they call bastnasites or carbonatites. They select these rare earths not because of the high ratios of rare earths but simply the absence of thorium. Manufacturers using rare earth elements in their products are relocating their manufacturing base inside China. The jobs in manufacturing transfer from the United States and western Europe into the Chinese mainland. This impacts consumer electronics, green technologies & military technology.

The Dual-Fluid Reactor, a MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) was entered into the Greentec contest by Berlin’s Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics. MSRs and other advanced nuclear designs auger a CO2-free energy future and represent clear improvements in nuclear safety, efficiency, and waste management when compared to conventional nuclear. The Dual-Fluid Reactor (DFR) can also be used as a source of industrial process heat to make hydrogen and synthetic fuels.

Taylor Wilson built a fusion reactor at age 14 and remains interested in nuclear technology. So, at 19, he has presented his idea for a small reactor concept that uses molten salt to make the smaller reactor both more powerful and more efficient than their cousins. Wilson's fission reactor operates at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius. And because the laws of thermodynamics say that high temperatures lead to high efficiencies, this reactor is 45 to 50 percent efficient. Traditional steam turbine systems are only 30 to 35 percent efficient because their reactors run at low temperatures of about 200 to...