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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...

Thorium China Is Using US Research to Take the Lead on Thorium Reactor Development   By Derek MeadA CAD render of an old Oak Ridge molten salt reactor design, via Flibe Energy In the fracking-dominated and carbon-obsessed United States, we often forget that carbon-neutral energy doesn't have to simply be solar and wind. There's also nuclear power, of which alternative, safe power cycles exist, ones that were first developed by American researchers. But after years of sitting around, that research is finally being put to use–by China.We've long discussed the thorium dream in depth here at Motherboard, largely because it's oh...

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...

Bill Gates Is Beginning to Dream the Thorium Dream By Brian Merchant Image: Wikimedia Mention thorium—an alternative fuel for nuclear power—to the right crowd, and faces will alight with the same look of spirited devotion you might see in, say, Twin Peaks and Chicago Cubs fans. People love thorium against the odds. And now Bill Gates has given them a new reason to keep rooting for the underdog element. TerraPower, the Gates-chaired nuclear power company, has garnered attention for pursuing traveling wave reactor tech, which runs entirely on spent uranium and would rarely need to be refueled. But the concern...

Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium July 23rd, 2013 Posted by Mark Halper Bill Gates TED Jurvetson Flickr Opening the nuclear Gates. TerraPower, Bill Gates’ nuclear company, is now open to reactor types other than its traveling wave design. The traveling wave remains the company’s focus, although Terra has morphed it into more of a “standing wave.” TerraPower, the Bill Gates-chaired nuclear company that is developing a fast reactor, is now investigating alternative reactor technologies, including thorium fuel and molten salt reactors. While the company’s “big bet” continues to be on a fast reactor that TerraPower calls...

Mark Halper delivers a thorium year-in-review at the Thorium Energy Alliance's 5th conference, in Chicago on May 30th 2013. The plot thickens....

The western world has within its capacity far more than enough rare earths (including heavy rare earths) to meet its own industrial demand. It is an unwillingness to process material containing thorium which is ultimately impeding our high tech manufacturing sector.

NEW YORK, July 1, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- U.S. Rare Earths, Inc., "UREE", UREE +8.00% , a rare earths exploration company with mining claims in Idaho, Montana, and Colorado, announced today the appointment of J. Robert Kerrey, former U.S. Senator and Governor of Nebraska, to the Company's Board of Directors. "We are delighted to add an independent Director with Bob's wide range of experience, and his familiarity with critical issues of national importance. It should now become clear that we are in the process at UREE of building an extremely accomplished team on the Board of Directors. Our intention...

My last article about thorium as an alternative nuclear reactor fuel drew way more readers than I expected. I intentionally glossed over the complexities of specific reactor designs for the sake of simplicity, but in this article I want to go deeper. This article explains some of the differences between traditional uranium reactors and molten salt thorium reactors (MSRs).

Learn more about Thorium reactors and the potential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY (5 minute overview) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI (36 minutes...more "techie") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8 (about 1 hour....symposium like discussion)

The only source of energy that can meet global demand while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions is nuclear power. But our perception of nuclear power is coloured by issues of safety, radiotoxic waste, and the threat of nuclear proliferation. Yet there is a safer alternative to current nuclear technology… Author Robert Cywinski Professor, Special Research Advisor at University of Huddersfield Disclosure Statement Robert Cywinski receives funding from the EPSRC and STFC The Conversation is funded by CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, JCU, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle. QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS and...

  Bill Gates' Dream for a Nuclear-Powered Future Is Almost Here By Maxx Chatsko | More Articles | Save For Later March 4, 2014 | Comments (1) Is this the future of clean energy? Source: TerraPower.Things may be different today, but in its heyday, Microsoft was a game-changing company that forever altered the way the world interacted with computers. The creative genius and foresight of Bill Gates has paid off in a significant way: He's the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $76 billion, according to Forbes. While Gates still advises Microsoft, he has turned much of his...

Normal operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have been suspended for four days as the leak is investigated. ... the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, activated air filters as a precaution and barred personnel from entering the 2,150-foot-deep repository as they investigate what caused the leak. Radiation sensors sounded alarms at 11:30 p.m. Friday, when no workers were in the underground portions of the plant. ... Any prolonged shutdown could cause a backup of waste at a dozen nuclear-weapons-related sites across the nation, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area. In 2012, those dozen sites made...

US researchers have achieved a world first in an ambitious experiment that aims to recreate the conditions at the heart of the sun and pave the way for nuclear fusion reactors. The scientists generated more energy from fusion reactions than they put into the nuclear fuel, in a small but crucial step along the road to harnessing fusion power. The ultimate goal – to produce more energy than the whole experiment consumes – remains a long way off, but the feat has nonetheless raised hopes that after decades of setbacks, firm progress is finally being made. Fusion energy has the...

Fort Calhoun Nuclear plant is restarting!! My daughter has a key role there.

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...

Experts say nuclear power needed to slow warming Associated Press By KEVIN BEGOS 1 hour ago PITTSBURGH (AP) — Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution. Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to...