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| From Lunar Pioneer Online |
Posted on 03/20/2011 7:38:49 AM PDT by Sancho1984
India's development of thorium for nuclear power generation caught world interest in the light of the blasts at Japan's nuclear power stations. CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri and Anup Gomen report.
India is considered as the world leader in thorium. The Kakrapar-1 reactor located near Surat in Gujarat is the world's first reactor which uses thorium than depleted uranium for vital power generation. Compated to uranium, thorium has less fissile. The nuclear physicists are now looking at thorium as the safer model.
Ian Hore-Lacy from World Nuclear Association said, "India is the only country in the world that develops thorium fuel cycle. The expertise in India is world class and it is applied very rigorously to the safety of nuclear plants in India."
India has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves and is keen to tap thorium for the growing needs of its population," Hore-Lacy added.
Paddy Regan, Professor of Nuclear Physics from University of Surrey said, “India has a population of a billion people and has massive reserves of thorium. India's nuclear programme, based on the thorium cycle, is slightly different. Indian model thorium based reactors seem to be a very sensible way to go."
Pioneering Indian technology using thorium rather than uranium generated new interest around the world. Thorium is considered less efficient but certainly is much safer. In the light of what has happened in Japan, critics are less inclined to dismiss thorium than they were before.
Edward Teller started pushing the idea of Thorium reactors in the late 1950's. He supported and promoted the idea until his death in 2003. These boys are a little late to the party.....
“...-Because nearly all of the thorium is used up in an LFTR (versus only about 0.7% of uranium mined for an LWR), the reactor achieves high energy production per metric ton of fuel ore, on the order of 300 times the output of a typical uranium LWR. The LFTR allows much higher operating temperatures than does a typical LWR therefore a higher thermodynamic efficiency. The turbine system believed best suited for its operation is a triple-reheat closed-cycle helium turbine system, which should convert 50% of the reactor heat into electricity compared to today’s steam cycle (~25% to 33%). This efficiency gain translates to about 4.11 million barrels of crude oil equivalent per year more than that generated by a steam system. Capital costs are lower due to smaller reactor & turbo-machinery size, low reactor pressures and minimal redundant safety systems. The greater energy production capability of LFTRs means we estimate the cost for electricity from a LFTR plant could be 25% to over 50% less than that from a LWR.
Waste—In theory, LFTRs would produce far less waste along their entire process chain, from ore extraction to nuclear waste storage, than LWRs. A LFTR power plant would generate 4,000 times less mining waste (solids and liquids of similar character to those in uranium mining) and would generate 1,000 to 10,000 times less nuclear waste than an LWR. Additionally, because LFTR burns all of its nuclear fuel, the majority of the waste products (83%) are safe within 10 years, and the remaining waste products (17%) need to be stored in geological isolation for only about 300 years (compared to 10,000 years or more for LWR waste). ...”
from: http://www.thoriumenergy.org/lftradsrisks.html
>India is considered as the world leader in thorium. The Kakrapar-1 reactor located near Surat in Gujarat is the world’s first reactor which uses thorium than depleted uranium for vital power generation.
I remember a day when that sentence was routinely applied to American achievements...
Now?
Looks like the reporter has established his or her knowledge level.
If they are late to the party then when did we build such reactors?
Now, ideas are fine.
Scientists are fine, of course but as my uncle Nickolaus Gabriel, who was a NASA aerospace engineer designing re entry capsules told me, I am not a scientist.
I am an engineer.
We actually build the things that scientists think about.
My thanks to uncle Nick.
never forgot that. Or him.
But they're at the party. We, on the other hand....
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| From Lunar Pioneer Online |
Yup, it's all enriched from the naturally available ore, it's only depleted compared to weapons grade uranium.
Provided the research scientists can convince the people with money that the "thing" is worth building.
I'm an engineer (MSEE, BSAE). I cannot tell you how many times over the course of my career I've been frustrated by bean counters stopping projects or never even considering worthy projects, not because they lacked merit, but rather because the bean counter didn't have the foggiest idea what they were looking at.....
Bfl
That was before we had fully ceded the American educational system to the libs.
It's still possibly to get an excellent education here but you have to be very motivated and work hard. Lots of foreign students here have both, less so the American students who've accepted the "feel-good" line.
And knowledge of English with this statement:
Compated to uranium, thorium has less fissile.
Compated? That's a new one.
Also, where can I get some of this "fissile?" I always thought fissile was an adverb rather than a noun.
Doh! I mean ADJECTIVE!
I also like the fact that "thorium has less fissile."
And the thing worth building to the people with the money (government) in 1950's-70's America was a reactor that would produce Pu-239 to top ICBMs with.
The uranium cycle does that, the thorium cycle does not.
Don’t blame the bean counter. Blame the ones who put him/her in that position with that authority. Or perhaps it was the policies which were decided by committees. That is just one of the beauties of bureaucracy.
Maybe the sentence was supposed to read "then depleted uranium". A thorium reactor could burn depleted uranium by breeding it to plutonium-239, the same way it burns thorium by breeding it to U-233.
Cool, we should get good at it here, and then build a moon base and use it. No, wait, the Muslims and Obama worship the moon and have prohibited us from returning to it. sigh.
www.energyfromthorium.com
We developed them at Oak Ridge a long time ago...
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