Thorium in the news
I am a big fan of Thorium Fluoride reactors - inherently safe and we have bucketloads of Thorium fuel in the Earth's crust. It is a very common element.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a nice column at the
UK Telegraph:
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium
A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima�s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.
That was on January 30th, I noticed it and posted here:"
Thorium reactors are coming soon"
More:
This passed unnoticed � except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts � but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.
If China�s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia�s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West�s entrenched consumption.
China�s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a �thorium-based molten salt reactor system�. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack Obama�s �Sputnik moment�, you could say.
Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.
And the lead scientist on this program is Dr. Jiang Mianheng -- a graduate of Drexel University. We are training people in this technology but not using our homegrown talent... The reason the reactor is "less prone to disaster" is a clever one.
More:
�The reactor has an amazing safety feature,� said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.
�If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,� he said.
�They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don�t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we�ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.�
The quantities in question:
The earth�s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country�s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilization for thousands of years.
And the reason we have not done more work with Thorium:
US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.
The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner
No Earth Shattering Ka-Boom!
In a wonderful alternate universe, the Greens would embrace Thorium and everyone would have the power they needed at dirt cheap prices...
Posted by DaveH at March 23, 2011 12:08 PM