# Thorium Energy



## Dr Jon (Mar 13, 2012)

I see that the government have at last got round to setting up a study group on Thorium energy.

A nuclear technology which is inherently stable, has abundant fuel supply, can burn existing long-lived nuclear wastes and is proliferation-proof is a very good move IMO.

Also see:

Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire?

A Nuclear Reactor in Every Home

Sub-critical Thorium reactors


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## Dr Jon (Mar 13, 2012)

A slight diversion:

I was looking at the ThorEA website and spotted Inside a linear particle accelerator.



This is the original LINAC at the Rutherford Appleton Lab, now used as the proton injector for the ISIS Spallation Neutron Source.

Built by Metro-Vickers in Manchester in 1956, back in the days when we used to design and make things in erstwhile _Great Britain_, this fine piece of engineering is still working at the cutting edge of high energy physics.
Brings a tear to my eye...


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## weltweit (Mar 13, 2012)

So Thorium sounds too good to be true. What is the catch?


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## Dr Jon (Mar 13, 2012)

weltweit said:


> So Thorium sounds too good to be true. What is the catch?


We've just handed our nuclear industry over to the twats who sank the Rainbow Warrior





			
				Tony Juniper said:
			
		

> "The prime minister needs to step in and make sure that energy policy is truly working in the public interest, rather than to the agenda of a massive vested interest."


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## spacemonkey (Mar 14, 2012)

weltweit said:


> So Thorium sounds too good to be true. What is the catch?



I don't think there's a catch, it's just that we don't have a material strong enough to contain the corrosive molten salt cooling fluid. To contain it safely you'd have to replace the containment vessel every couple of years which makes it uneconomical. 

Like most advanced nuclear technologies we're a couple of nobel prize winning discoveries away from it working properly.


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## Dr Jon (Mar 14, 2012)

spacemonkey said:


> I don't think there's a catch, it's just that we don't have a material strong enough to contain the corrosive molten salt cooling fluid. To contain it safely you'd have to replace the containment vessel every couple of years which makes it uneconomical.


Not the case with Rubbia's Energy Amplifier design, which uses Lead as coolant.

With molten salt reactors, Fluorine-Lithium-Beryllium ("FLiBe") can be used with beryllium additions to lower the electrochemical potential and almost eliminate corrosion.

China bets on thorium


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## Meltingpot (Mar 14, 2012)

This is a great thread. I heard about thorium reactors on Radio 4's "Costing the Earth" recently and thought the idea sounded promising.


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## spacemonkey (Mar 14, 2012)

Good post on reddit from a nuclear engineer - 

There are a lot of misconceptions flying around the internet about Thorium-fueled reactors. They are not some magical energy cure-all that will make all our problems disappear. When you add it up, do all the math and compare all the pros and cons, they wind up being comparable to conventional breeder reactors.

Yes, Thorium is far more abundant that Uranium and thus cheaper to mine. Because it is non-fissile, much like U-238 is in a conventional reactor, it requires an initial seed reaction from U-235 or Pu-239 to create neutrons. These are then absorbed by a Thorium (Th-232) blanket to eventually make U-233. Just like in a regular breeder reactor, you have to reprocess the irradiated Thorium to extract the U-233 to make into fresh fuel to continue the cycle. In a Molten Fluoride reactor, this can technically be done on-line by diverting the flowing fuel. While it's easy to draw this on-line refueling scheme in a block diagram on paper, a prototype of such a system has yet to be developed.

The catch in all this is that U-232 is also produced during the U-233 breeding process as a byproduct. This is nasty shit whose daughter products emit a highly penetrating 2.6 MeV gamma ray during its decay, and it has a relatively long half life of 60 years or so. This intense gamma radiation is what makes it proliferation resistant (by virtue of the fact you'd cook yourself trying to build a bomb), but it also makes fuel reprocessing much more difficult (re: expensive) than that in conventional breeders. Any reprocessing scheme would have to be done by robots in a heavily shielded hot cell.

It's a misconception that this system produces "less waste" than conventional reactor. The fission product distribution isn't that different than U-235 or U-238, so you'll still get many of the same product nuclides. What is true is that the need for reprocessing in a Thorium reactor isolates the fission products right away, making the waste easier to deal with than the spent fuel we have on our hands today. With the exception of I-129, Tc-99 and a few others, most of the fission products are gone after 1000 years or so, a much more manageable timespan than unreprocessed fuel.

While there were a few lab-scale tests a long time ago, to this day there exists no full-scale prototype of a Thorium reactor. Getting the necessary licensing for a new reactor takes years, sometimes decades, and requires reams of lab data in order to conduct a proper safety analysis. With no modern operational examples, how can we get the necessary data needed for licensing? It's a tricky problem.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. It's an interesting technology, but there are a lot of obstacles to overcome in order to implement it. Economics will be the driving factor in any decision to pursue Thorium reactors both in the US and internationally.

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qvfr0/if_thorium_is_safe_efficient_abundant_and_in/


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## Dr Jon (Mar 14, 2012)

India, with years of experience running Thorium Power Reactors, are going ahead with a hybrid project:
*India will start 300-MW thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor project in next 18 months*

Good summary of Accelerator-driven systems


Good TED talk:


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## Dr Jon (Mar 14, 2012)

More from Kirk Sorensen


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## MikeMcc (Mar 15, 2012)

One of the other big pluses of MSRs is that the system operates pretty much at atmospheric pressure.  While the anti-corrosion issues are a pain the system is far less likely to suffer catastrophic failure and is easier to contain any leakages because there is no pressure loss.


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## Colin Megson (Mar 16, 2012)

The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) under the Directorship of Alvin Weinberg. It was funded in 1960, went critical in 1965 and ran for many thousands of equivalent full-power hours until 1969. This was two thirds of what today's Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) will be and all this was done in the days of slide-rules, tee squares and compasses and all manual machining and planning systems. In these days of CAD/CAM, 3D computer modelling and project planning, switching the first-of-a-kind LFTR on in 5 years from go-ahead is not an unreasonable target. The 'Program Plan for Development of Molten Salt Breeder Reactors' (MSBR) was published by ORNL in 1974; in its 687 pages, it contains over 90% of what any interested organisation needs to know about building a LFTR, which is now the recognised name for the best configuration of MSBR for power generation. See this for a snapshot of the potential of wide scale LFTR deployment:  http://lftrsuk.blogspot.com/p/benefits-of-lftrs.html     In particular, if you are a UK reader, please have a look at the links to the '38Degrees' and 'E-Petition' campaigns and consider voting.


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## Dr Jon (Mar 16, 2012)

Thanks for the info Colin and welcome to Urban75!


Here are links to e-petition and 38Degrees

ETA
Just spotted:
Why Not Thorium?


> Had it not been for mankind's seemingly insatiable desire to fight, thorium would have been the world's nuclear fuel of choice. Unfortunately, the Cold War pushed nuclear research toward uranium; and the momentum gained in those years has kept uranium far ahead of its lighter, more controllable, more abundant brother to date. History is replete with examples of an inferior technology beating out a superior competitor for market share, whether because of marketing or geopolitics, and once that stage is set it is near impossible for the runner-up to make a comeback. Remember Beta VCRs, anyone?


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## Colin Megson (Mar 17, 2012)

Could I also please link you to a some other profound arguments in favour of the widespread deployment of LFTRs? The provision of more potable water is as important as less CO2:  http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/more-potable-water-as-important-as-less.html

And, UK _New Nuclear _will happen so we need all Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth supporters to thoroughly consider LFTR technology as an alternative to PWR technology, to allay their safety, waste and affordability fears:  http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/greenpeace-like-it-or-not-uk-nuclear.html

Finally, if you're in an argument about the hold that renewable energy technologies have over AGW activists, the media and politicians, try the 'greenness' of wind turbines as a counter:  http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-green-is-wind-turbine-in-my-valley.html


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## Dr Jon (Mar 17, 2012)

Colin Megson said:


> ... The provision of more potable water is as important as less CO2:


Indeed


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## Dr Jon (Mar 20, 2012)




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## elbows (Mar 21, 2012)

Nothing I've heard about Thorium suggests that it is a dream that is truly separate from the much older nuclear dream.

Even the Economist is not afraid to point out that while nuclear power is not going to suddenly disappear, the dream has failed. Sorry that this article is not specifically aligned to the thread topic, but since Thorium has such a dreamy reputation on parts of the net it seemed appropriate somehow, plus there is the giggle about the chocolate factory, oops!

A year after Fukushima, the future for nuclear power is not bright—for reasons of cost as much as safety


http://www.economist.com/node/21549936



> Looking at nuclear power 26 years ago, this newspaper observed that the way forward for a somewhat moribund nuclear industry was “to get plenty of nuclear plants built, and then to accumulate, year after year, a record of no deaths, no serious accidents—and no dispute that the result is cheaper energy.” It was a fair assessment; but our conclusion that the industry was “safe as a chocolate factory” proved something of a hostage to fortune. Less than a month later one of the reactors at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine ran out of control and exploded, killing the workers there at the time and some of those sent in to clean up afterwards, spreading contamination far and wide, leaving a swathe of countryside uninhabitable and tens of thousands banished from their homes. The harm done by radiation remains unknown to this day; the stress and anguish of the displaced has been plain to see.
> *Et tu, Japan*
> Then, 25 years later, when enough time had passed for some to be talking of a “nuclear renaissance”, it happened again (see article). The bureaucrats, politicians and industrialists of what has been called Japan’s “nuclear village” were not unaccountable apparatchiks in a decaying authoritarian state like those that bore the guilt of Chernobyl; they had responsibilities to voters, to shareholders, to society. And still they allowed their enthusiasm for nuclear power to shelter weak regulation, safety systems that failed to work and a culpable ignorance of the tectonic risks the reactors faced, all the while blithely promulgating a myth of nuclear safety.


 
Yeah the pseudo-democracy and shareholders didn't save people from a disaster, surprise surprise. Although there was that one shareholder who ranted at a meeting that TEPCO senior management should 'go inside the reactor and die'. Bit late by that point though eh.


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## Dr Jon (Mar 21, 2012)

The dream failed because we have a uranium-fuelled nuclear industry, originally set up to produce feedstock for the weapons program.

If Thorium technology had been chosen instead, we'd be living that dream now.


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## elbows (Mar 21, 2012)

I've never understood what makes some people so sure of that, its hardly a flawless and perfect idea on paper, and in practice who knows what issues may be discovered. This in itself is not a reason not to try, but ought to temper any cheerleading.


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## Dr Jon (Mar 23, 2012)

I hear what you're saying: it's nuclear - and nuclear is dangerous!
I have been very anti-nuclear until just recently, but I think the benefits offered by Thorium are worth pursuing.

The only _unproven_ Thorium technology is the accelerator-driven design proposed by Rubbia.
LFTRs were proven by Weinberg et al. at Oak Ridge Laboratory in the 1960s. That project was closed down because it could not produce the plutonium required for the weapons program.

I now see Thorium as the only _realistic_ chance we have to both cut CO2 emissions and keep the lights on when oil runs out. Because Thorium is useless for making weapons, we can share this technology with "rogue states" - Thorium offers a world security bonus too.

Some more links:

Thorium advocates launch pressure group

The Weinberg Foundation


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## elbows (Mar 26, 2012)

No thats not what Im saying. My head scratching about Thorium are actually nothing to do with nuclear technology or risks per se, its simply to do with why some people put so much faith in any particular technology before its been done on a large scale and demonstrated that there are no downsides that can scupper the dream.

Personally Id rather we did dabble with alternatives more as you have to start somewhere, but thats not the same as hyping up such tech as being a very broad solution to our requirements. Maybe it will help, but as one of the drawbacks on nuclear power is the cost, I don't actually know if the numbers add up.


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## Dr Jon (Mar 26, 2012)

Ah right, I see what you mean.

Thorium energy is still at the _faith_ stage: more demonstration/evaluation is required before progression to _trust_.

My objections to nuclear energy in the past were basically on grounds of safety and cost. Proponents reckon that Thorium energy is cheaper than coal, but as you say, this needs to be _demonstrated_ before we can _trust_ this technology to deliver.

The prospects for civilisation without a "magic energy bullet" like Thorium add to reasons to try this ASAP, IMO.


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## Dr Jon (Apr 11, 2012)

2012 Global New Energy Summit

Nuclear Waste Problem - What Nuclear Waste Problem?


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## Dr Jon (Apr 30, 2012)

> 2012 sees the turn of Shanghai to host the IThEO Conference, which is entirely appropriate, because China is taking the lead in exploring fresh approaches to nuclear fission in its quest for sustainable, environment-responsible energy that can be delivered reliably and in quantity.
> 
> The Chinese initiated action to find viable energy sources significant enough to wean the country off its dependence on carbon-based energy. The large amounts of Thorium being produced as a by-product of its rare earth mining operations, is a further incentive. ThEC12 is being partnered by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) - a senior academic institution of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), which has been given specific responsibility for the Thorium Energy utilization programme in China.
> 
> Although ThEC12 is the leading forum for ongoing debate on Thorium Energy, this year we believes there will be positive signs that the Thorium Energy implementation door against which we've been pushing, may finally be starting to open.


 
ThEC12 in Shanghai


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## Dr Jon (May 8, 2012)

I see that Jeffrey Sachs has said that nuclear is the only way we might avoid carbon catastrophe.

He is right.  I just pray that the world chooses Thorium when the penny finally drops.


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## Sunray (May 9, 2012)

I have an issue with the fact that its still a fission technology with a lot of the issues of fission.  1000 year fuel cycles is still quite a long time, think about the last 1000 years of human history, its not very stable.

Carbon is going to run out so its self limiting as far as the impact of that goes.  Fission plants exploding is also unsustainable in the long term, so rather than cover the planet in them, perhaps come up with something that isn't quite so hazardous to health?


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## Dr Jon (May 9, 2012)

> According to some toxicity studies,[13] the thorium cycle can fully recycle actinide wastes and only emit fission product wastes, and after *a few hundred years*, the waste from a thorium reactor can be less toxic than the uranium ore that would have been used to produce low enriched uranium fuel for a light water reactor of the same power.


 
link


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## HAL9000 (May 24, 2012)

I've not watched the videos, but there's a summary of the technology in this week's newscientist  (26 May 2012).  'Nuclear alchemy'


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## editor (May 24, 2012)

I'd rather us use Helium-3 from the Moon via some cool space technology.


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## Dr Jon (May 24, 2012)

HAL9000 said:


> I've not watched the videos, but there's a summary of the technology in this week's newscientist (26 May 2012). 'Nuclear alchemy'


Seems to be a piece on accelerator-driven systems, but it's hidden behind the paywall:-


> Nuclear alchemy: Thorium promises power from waste
> Reactors driven by particle accelerators could eat nuclear waste – and generate power at the same time. Does this mean thorium's time has come at last?


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## stuff_it (May 24, 2012)

Dr Jon said:


> A slight diversion:
> 
> I was looking at the ThorEA website and spotted Inside a linear particle accelerator.
> 
> ...



That's just beautiful. 

*sob*


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## Dr Jon (May 25, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> That's just beautiful.
> 
> *sob*


All the more so when you think that the calculations were all done with braincells and log-tables and that the design was done in a similar fashion, without computer simulations and CAD systems, drawn up by draughtsmen on paper...


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## Dr Jon (Jun 5, 2012)

Just spotted _LFTR in 5 minutes_ which is a bit of an underestimate. Very good way to spend 2-hours though:



http://thoriumremix.com

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com


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## Dr Jon (Jun 22, 2012)

Recent radio interview with Kirk Sorensen and Baroness Worthington:



Presentations are from the Fourth Thorium Energy Alliance Conference here.

Sign the e-petition to develop LFTRs in UK.


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## Dr Jon (Jul 12, 2012)

Presentations from the 4th Thorium Energy Alliance Conference now available on the TEA website.


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## Dr Jon (Jul 24, 2012)

Preview of Richard Martin's new book: SuperFuel Thorium: the Green Energy Source for the Future.

Some good info here: Thorium One / 101.


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## Dr Jon (Aug 4, 2012)

Westinghouse enters U.S.-China nuclear collaboration


> As I reported last week, DOE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have been quietly working together on a reactor design that uses a molten salt _coolant_ auguring safer, more efficient and lower cost reactors that operate at higher temperatures than conventional water-cooled reactors.
> The Chinese also intend to use liquid thorium molten salt _fuel_ in a molten salt cooled reactor.


Looks like Thorium is starting to be taken seriously by big players.


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## Dr Jon (Aug 6, 2012)

Podcast:
Kirk Sorensen: A Detailed Exploration of Thorium's Potential as an Energy Source


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## Dr Jon (Aug 31, 2012)

An opportunity ???


> An article in the Telegraph *Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for Thorium* written two years ago is even more relevant now that Obama needs a decisive election win to make real change.


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## free spirit (Sep 1, 2012)

There are some serious teams working on this at the moment. I predict a new generation of thorium fueled molten salt reactors being built by mid 2020s, with a pilot plant operational before 2020, probably more than one.

We've actually been doing some work in this area over the last few weeks via our consultancy, not sure if anything will come of it or not, but I've looked into it enough to understand that this is a technology that could well be producing a significant proportion of our energy requirements by 2040 if we invest in it now, and it's very very different in safety terms to the existing solid fueled water cooled uranium fueled reactors.


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 1, 2012)

According to that article the Thorium reaction depends upon either Plutonium of Uranium as an additional element to make it work. It refers to clearing up spent fuel from existing reactors. Once these reactors are all de-commissioned, from where will the Thorium process get its co-processing elements?:

Another question: When will I be able to go to my local filling station and fill up my moped with Thorium?


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## Dr Jon (Sep 1, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> According to that article the Thorium reaction depends upon either Plutonium of Uranium as an additional element to make it work. It refers to clearing up spent fuel from existing reactors. Once these reactors are all de-commissioned, from where will the Thorium process get its co-processing elements?


 
In LFTRs, all that is actually needed is enough fissile material - such as U or Pu - to kick-start the reaction:



			
				Kirk Sorensen said:
			
		

> ... you need some fissile material with which to start the reaction. But what happens is that the neutrons bombard thorium, and the thorium nucleus absorbs the neutron and turns into Uranium 233, which is fissile – it is a fissile material. And that is really where the magic happens. When Uranium 233 fissions, it gives off enough neutrons to continue the conversion of new thorium into fuel and existing U233 into energy through fission. I know that probably sounds like a mouthful. But this is really where the magic is. It's the only nuclear isotope that does this, in what is called a thermal spectrum reactor. That’s what different about thorium and uranium. It gives off enough neutrons to continue its consumption. The analogy that I have heard used before – it's kind of like when you go camping and there is wet wood and there is dry wood. You can start the fire with dry wood, and if you get the fire hot enough, you can even burn the wet wood. Thorium and Uranium 238 are both like the wet wood – if you dry them out to the form of turning them into fission material, then you can burn them for energy


 



 

An accelerator-driven system would produce its neutrons by spallation.



Hocus Eye. said:


> Another question: When will I be able to go to my local filling station and fill up my moped with Thorium?


Not Thorium, but the technology is here now.


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## Dr Jon (Jan 10, 2013)

Thorium Energy Conference, ThEC13
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, from October 27 to 31, 2013.


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## Fez909 (Jan 10, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> Just spotted _LFTR in 5 minutes_ which is a bit of an underestimate. Very good way to spend 2-hours though:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Here's the genuine 5 minute version


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## 8ball (Jan 10, 2013)

Someone page Crispy to tell him he can stop worrying about that 'peak oil' business.


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## Fez909 (Jan 10, 2013)

I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?


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## 8ball (Jan 10, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?


 
You might not be - I've just bought a crate off eBay.


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## Crispy (Jan 10, 2013)

Bring it on with all haste.


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## Dr Jon (Jan 10, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?


Norway ringing in thorium nuclear New Year with Westinghouse at the party


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## rover07 (Jan 10, 2013)

So what's the catch?

Why aren't all governments and private energy firms piling into this?


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## Fez909 (Jan 10, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> Norway ringing in thorium nuclear New Year with Westinghouse at the party


 
Nice one. Good to see NNL involved.


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## Fez909 (Jan 10, 2013)

rover07 said:


> So what's the catch?


 
The catch is it's unproven, and conventional nuclear technology has a 60 year head start.  That's it, I think.


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## Crispy (Jan 10, 2013)

rover07 said:


> Why aren't all governments and private energy firms piling into this?


 
Vested interests.


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## rover07 (Jan 10, 2013)

So no one has tested these theories yet.

And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.


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## Crispy (Jan 10, 2013)

rover07 said:


> So no one has tested these theories yet.
> 
> And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.


No, the technology's been built and tested, 50 years ago. It just couldn't make plutonium for nuclear weapons, so was sidelined.
Much less waste. Orders of magnitude less.


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## rover07 (Jan 10, 2013)

So that's climate change and peak oil sorted.

I best get back to work.


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## Dr Jon (Jan 29, 2013)

Just noticed that
China blazes trail for 'clean' nuclear power from thorium

Meanwhile, in UK, I reckon Robert Cywinksi's ADSR project is worth a punt.


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## free spirit (Jan 29, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> The catch is it's unproven, and conventional nuclear technology has a 60 year head start. That's it, I think.





rover07 said:


> So no one has tested these theories yet.
> 
> And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.


sorry, but this is bollocks.

I did a bit of work last year trying to work up a grant application with a retired university lecturer who worked as part of the team in the late 60's, early 70's who had a pilot MW scale thorium fueled molten salt reactor runnning for several years at Oak Ridge national labs in the States. The technology has been proven for 40 years, and all the minor issues that were flagged up during this pilot have been solved in the intervening time anyway and are in regular use in other fields in a transferable form.

The programme was shut down because the US opted to stop funding 2 streams of nuclear research, and the other stream was about a decade ahead of the thorium stream, and coincidentally also produced the material needed for the nuclear weapons programme.

Now the chinese are going to pwn this technology as well.


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## Fez909 (Jan 30, 2013)

free spirit said:


> sorry, but this is bollocks.
> 
> I did a bit of work last year trying to work up a grant application with a retired university lecturer who worked as part of the team in the late 60's, early 70's who had a pilot MW scale thorium fueled molten salt reactor runnning for several years at Oak Ridge national labs in the States. The technology has been proven for 40 years, and all the minor issues that were flagged up during this pilot have been solved in the intervening time anyway and are in regular use in other fields in a transferable form.
> 
> ...


 
If it is proven, why are they not building proper plants now, rather than research plants?


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## Dr Jon (Jan 30, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> If it is proven, why are they not building proper plants now, rather than research plants?


Practice makes perfect.


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## Fez909 (Jan 30, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> Practice makes perfect.


 
Yes but why not practice with useful sized reactors, so we can enjoy the benefits now, as well as looking forward to even greater benefits in the future?


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## free spirit (Jan 30, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> If it is proven, why are they not building proper plants now, rather than research plants?


because it was last done 40 years ago and everyone who worked on that plant is now either retired or dead, so a lot of engineering and design lessons have to be relearned by a new generation, plus I said it was proven not that the exact process had been perfected ready for a full commercial roll out.

It's proven to work, and the key issues that were highlighted in the original pilot plant have all been addressed in the intervening period, but in other fields (eg high temperature materials, miniturisation of heat exchangers etc) so that work needs to be translated into the MSR plants and the whole lot needs to be proven to work together, and refined, then proven again prior to commercial roll out, by which time hopefully this generation will have developed the engineering and chemistry knowledge and skills needed to make this into a commercial reality.

We really dropped the ball on this, had it been developed in the 70's we'd probably now have 10-30% of world electricity supply coming from this source, and the US, UK, Europe would have been able to safely export the technology around the world and be clear market leaders in it. Now, we're back to first base, no worse, we're still on the bench, and the Chinese are going to have it developed and commercialised before we've even stopped scratching our heads about whether we maybe ought to be taking another look at this.

Even Falcon ought to like this technology, as it really is a massive simplification compared to current generation nuclear that's also far more efficient, far safer, and far more abundant than any other nuclear technology. It's so simple that we had 2 professors with combined 90 years experience in power generation scratching their heads and asking where the rest of the diagram was, prior to having a look at all the previous issues that had been highlighted in the 70's and working out that all of them had already been solved, mostly in the gas turbine sector in which they happened to be experts.

This is kinda making me realise that I ought to devote some time this year to actually pulling them all together on this before that huge amount of knowledge and experience get's lost. It's just finding the time, and persuading everyone to work for on it for free for long enough to pull it all together to the stage where we actually might be in a position to apply for the funding needed to actually put some of that knowledge to use in this field. I nearly killed my solar business by devoting most of a month to trying to pull together a fundable feasibility study for this last summer.


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## free spirit (Jan 30, 2013)

hmm. Maybe if I devoted half the time I spent on urban to this project.......


ps I'm in no way implying that I'm a thorium expert myself, I just happen to have been introduced to one of the only people in the UK who is, and possibly could help connect the dots to make something useful happen with it, as he's mainly just bimbling about being retired while wondering in the back of his head if anyone's actually ever going to ask him to pass on his knowledge of this potentially world changing technology before he shuffles off to another place.


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## ferrelhadley (Jan 30, 2013)

I was under the impression that the corrosive nature of the fluoride salts was a huge draw back to thorium. Also as a waste product there is a build up of fluorine gas that has to be handled.


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## free spirit (Jan 30, 2013)

erm erm, IIRC both those problems were mentioned as being known issues but ones that had already been addressed / he knew how they should be solved.

I'm not sure on the details though, but as he was a chemical engineer of 50 years standing in the field, I'd tend to believe him.


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## Dr Jon (Jan 30, 2013)

> Because LFTRs use liquid fuel, it is easy to control the chemical state of this fuel so that it becomes non-corrosive to reactor components. Today's solid fuelled reactors confine their fuel in small fully contained metal rods, which does not allow full control of the chemical state of the fuel. The fission process produces various corrosive elements, which can damage the metal fuel rods over time


link


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## coley (Feb 20, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> I see that Jeffrey Sachs has said that nuclear is the only way we might avoid carbon catastrophe.
> 
> He is right.  I just pray that the world chooses Thorium when the penny finally drops.



If it so good, and I have seen very little to say otherwise why is there not an almighty dash
to get the first PSs up and running, also if the technology was initially developed in the west how is there a danger of China copyrighting the process?


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## Dr Jon (Mar 14, 2013)

The 500MW molten salt nuclear reactor: Safe, half the price of light water, and shipped to order


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## rover07 (Mar 14, 2013)

coley said:


> If it so good, and I have seen very little to say otherwise why is there not an almighty dash
> to get the first PSs up and running, also if the technology was initially developed in the west how is there a danger of China copyrighting the process?



Too expensive.

Solar PV is already cheaper and produces more electricity per square metre when you include the typical 10km exclusion zone round a nuclear reactor.


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## coley (Mar 14, 2013)

rover07 said:


> Too expensive.
> 
> Solar PV is already cheaper and produces more electricity per square metre when you include the typical 10km exclusion zone round a nuclear reactor.


Bit dodgy in the UK though? and why not more solar PSs, though that one in Saudi is impressive


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## rover07 (Mar 14, 2013)

It will be 20-30 years before any new nuclear reactors are built by which time renewables will be well established.

UK gets about half the sunshine of Saudi Arabia per square metre. Plenty to make solar PV viable.

At the moment it's still more expensive than Coal and Natural Gas but the price is falling while fossil fuels are rising.


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## slainte (Mar 26, 2013)

Does anyone know how the polywell fusion reactor is coming along it seems to be better than the ridiculous other methods of fusion wasting  cash projects


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## Dr Jon (Mar 26, 2013)

ask Crispy


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## Crispy (Mar 26, 2013)

Radio silence I'm afraid. Now that the stimulus money has been spent, there's not even any Kremlinology to be done with the quarterly reports. No news is..... No news. At this point, we either hear about the scientists involved working somewhere else (no sign of that yet) or the Navy calls a press briefing.


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## coley (Apr 4, 2013)

rover07 said:


> It will be 20-30 years before any new nuclear reactors are built by which time renewables will be well established.
> 
> UK gets about half the sunshine of Saudi Arabia per square metre. Plenty to make solar PV viable.
> 
> At the moment it's still more expensive than Coal and Natural Gas but the price is falling while fossil fuels are rising.


According to NN last night solar has achieved parity in Southern Europe and wind has done the same in Central Europe but what would happen if we had a prolonged period of heavy snow and little wind?


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## rover07 (Apr 5, 2013)

Back up power would be from gas power plants. Natural gas at first but as more surplus renewable electricity is available, renewable gas and hydrogen.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det...ant-enters-operation_100009491/#axzz2NE7LugXu



> The gas grid offers ample storage opportunities for solar and wind power. Solar and wind generated power is channelled into electrolysis which produces hydrogen. A further step in the methanisation chamber can additionally convert hydrogen, with the input of carbon dioxide, into methane gas. This can then be fed into the gas grid. The gas can be stored in natural gas storage caverns or chambers or used for tanking of vehicles or industries. Alternatively the gas can also be converted back into electricity when needed.


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## Crispy (Apr 5, 2013)

Any idea of the efficiency of that sort of storage? (ie. electricity -> hydrolisis -> methanisation -> storage -> combustion -> turbine -> electricity)


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## Wilson (Apr 5, 2013)

+compression^


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## rover07 (Apr 5, 2013)

This article gives a figure of 40% electricity to gas conversion. Not sure what that means in practice.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det...-round-for-solarfuel_100008735/#axzz2PaU18JBb



> SolarFuel already has an alpha plant successfully in operation connected to an electric load of 25kW with an overall power-to-gas efficiency of 40% (without optimization measures). A 6 MW demonstration plant is being planned with the goal being set to test the SolarFuel technology on a scale that is practical for the energy sector under real-life economic conditions.


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## Crispy (Apr 5, 2013)

Wilson said:


> +compression^


Good call. I was under the impression the whole gas system was relatively low pressure - a few bar, which the domestic network is, but it turns out the supply for power stations is as high as 85 bar.


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## rover07 (Apr 9, 2013)

coley said:


> According to NN last night solar has achieved parity in Southern Europe and wind has done the same in Central Europe but what would happen if we had a prolonged period of heavy snow and little wind?



Renewable gas for power back-up and fuel for transport.


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## Dr Jon (Jun 8, 2013)

Interesting Presentation by Flibe Energy here:

Energy Security through Thorium and Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) Technology


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## Dr Jon (Jul 26, 2013)

Thorium Based Nuclear Power: A Current Commentary


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## Dr Jon (Jul 30, 2013)

Provisional Program for ThEC13, CERN, Geneva, 28/10/2013.


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## free spirit (Aug 3, 2013)

rover07 said:


> This article gives a figure of 40% electricity to gas conversion. Not sure what that means in practice.
> 
> http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det...-round-for-solarfuel_100008735/#axzz2PaU18JBb


 
so back to electricity again would give an overall efficiency of 40% x 60% = 24%

vs around 80% for pumped storage IIRC, that's a hell of a loss


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## Dr Jon (Nov 3, 2013)

Good to see some serious commitment to Thorium - in China and India at least:

China eyes thorium MSRs for industrial heat, hydrogen


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## MikeMcc (Nov 4, 2013)

I can't find the article at the moment, but the UK is having a big hand in both countries projects and in Norway due to our experience with Magnox fuels.


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## Dr Jon (Nov 11, 2013)

A selection of interesting reports from the Beeb:

BBC News on Thorium


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## teqniq (Mar 20, 2014)

Thorium makes the front page of the Graun

China working on uranium-free nuclear plants in attempt to combat smog


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## Dr Jon (Mar 20, 2014)

World’s First Thorium Reactor Designed

I thought this was done at Oak Ridge in the 1960s?


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## equationgirl (Mar 26, 2014)

Dr Jon said:


> World’s First Thorium Reactor Designed
> 
> I thought this was done at Oak Ridge in the 1960s?


Oak Ridge was 7.6 MWth, the Indians are looking at a fullscale 300MW prototype.


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