Posted on 10/22/2010 4:29:26 PM PDT by decimon
Talk of a large-scale U.S. nuclear renaissance in the post-Three Mile Island era has long been stalled by the high cost of new nuclear power plants, the challenges of safeguarding weapons-grade nuclear material, and the radioactive lifespan of much nuclear waste, which can extend far beyond 10,000 years. But a growing contingent of scientists believe an alternative nuclear reactor fuel—the radioactive metal called thorium—could help address these problems, paving the way for cheaper, safer nuclear power generation.
Three to four times more plentiful than uranium, today's most common nuclear fuel, thorium packs a serious energetic punch: A single ton of it can generate as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, according to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carlo Rubbia. In the mid-twentieth century, some U.S. physicists considered building the nuclear power landscape around thorium. But uranium-fueled reactors produced plutonium as a byproduct, a necessary ingredient for nuclear weapons production, and uranium ended up dominating through the Cold War and beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
No Pu ping.
Sounds like the way to go. Get Thorium nuke plants, Ford Fusion plug-in hybrids and we can fire Obama’s bosses and our overlords the Saudis.
bflr
I like the idea of plug-in hybrids. I probably wouldn't plug in unless gasoline became difficult to obtain or difficult to afford but I would at least have the option. If I could get a good thirty miles on battery power then local driving would be covered.
I'm just not sure that they are yet a good choice.
“as much energy as 200 tons of uranium”
Does anyone know how they come up with this comparison. I don’t doubt it, I am just curious what the physics are.
Does anyone know how they come up with this comparison.
I don't know. But it's a pleasant surprise, to me, to read that.
Interesting figures. I always wondered about effluents from coal burning (and coal mining, for that matter) due to radioisotope contamination of coal. First time I ever saw those figures. Can you get me a link? Just something short for the non-technical layperson. I’d like to learn more.
(We’re far, far better off having nuclear plants and reprocessing the wastes for other uses.)
Now all we have to do is get rid of green scam DC and state politicians who continue to stand in the way of cheap energy for all Americans.
Our worst enemies are within and only conservatives know it.
"Thorium is a great fuel in light water reactors, but it really excels in molten salt reactors," says David LeBlanc, a nuclear physicist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The fuel rods used in light water reactors tend to succumb to radiation damage within a few years.
In proposed molten salt reactors, by contrast, thorium is dissolved in a mixture of damage-resistant liquid salts, allowing for more plant uptime.
Radioactive fission products generated in a thorium-fueled molten salt reactor can also be re-added to the reactor for many successive rounds of power generation, enabling utilities to extract more power from small amounts of fuel.
Japanese company IThEMS, which is working on a thorium-fueled molten salt reactor, estimates power generated by such a reactor would cost at least 30 percent less than power from today's light water reactors.
In addition, molten salt reactors could potentially burn through hazardous waste stockpiles produced by previous generations of nuclear reactors.
I too suspect apples are being compared to oranges. The efficiency cited in the article of a thorium reactor is roughly comparable to that of a breeder reactor versus conventional water reactor.
That thorium can be bred suggests the article is taking a highly efficient thorium based breeder reactor and comparing it to a conventional (inherently inefficient) water reactor. I don't have a problem with such comparison if that's what it takes to get beyond public phobias against uranium based nuclear power.
I think India is most advanced in building a thorium reactor but I don't know if it's a light water type. Every government has visions of thorium plums dancing in their heads.
Only the U-235 isotope of uranium is used for power. U235 is a tiny percentage of the total. Thorium's most common isotope is usable for fuel.
This has been well understood for many decades, but our government and "environmentalists" have blocked the technology since the 1960s.
I suspect that is tons of ore they are talking about.
As I understand it, energy values would actually be quite similar if reprocessing of uranium were allowed....
Yes, it must have something to do with the breeder aspect of a thorium based reactor. I have seen this:
The ADTR™ power station uses thorium as its main fuel. As a nuclear material, thorium is not fissile; it is described as “fertile” which means by capturing nuclear particles or neutrons it “breeds” or converts to a type of uranium which is able to react in a fission process and produce energy.
http://www.akersolutions.com/Internet/IndustriesAndServices/Nuclear+Services/NovelThoriumReactor.htm
So, I am just guessing, that thorium will convert to (all?) fissile uranium, as opposed to natural uranium which is only partly U-235?
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