The mighty thorium : The nearly perfect energy source nobody has heard of

COLUMBUS DISPATCH ^ | March 7, 2010 | Doug Caruso

[george76]

Craving reliable energy that doesn't come with a big side order of carbon, the United States is taking a new look at nuclear power.

some engineers also are urging a new look at an alternative to the uranium fuel those plants will inevitably use.

Thorium, they say, provides all the carbon-free energy of uranium - about 300 times more, actually - with almost none of the guilt.

Thorium plants cooled with molten fluoride salt would leave a fraction of the nuclear waste compared to the uranium-fueled, water-cooled plants in use today. In addition, thorium plants can't melt down and don't produce reliable fuel for bombs.

"What's not to love?" asked Kirk Sorensen, a NASA rocket scientist in Huntsville, Ala., who is earning his doctorate in nuclear engineering.

Sorensen has taken up the cause of thorium reactors, an idea conceived in the 1950s and last researched in the United States in the early 1970s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

And compared to coal?

So why aren't there thorium reactors all over the country?

[ak267]

any stocks connected to this type of power source?

[Mmogamer]

How hot is molten fluoride salt?

[Talisker]

I never heard of this. That it hasn’t been pursued is, as usual, criminal.

[palmer]

I wouldn’t take a bath in it.

[Grut]

How hot is molten fluoride salt?

And how corrosive?

[JRandomFreeper]

I watched a 1.5 hour GoogleTalks video on this. Don't remember if it was Sorensen though. It does make a lot of sense.

Jimmy Carter really, really screwed up this country's power generation capability. And no one has fixed his stupid rules.

At the very least we should be reprocessing fuel like the French do, so that there is a fraction of the waste now generated.

/johnny

[Windcatcher]

Cobalt-Thorium “G”? ;^)

[CapnJack]

This wouldn’t happen to be the revered Cobalt thorium G ... would it?

[george76]

India leading research on Thorium

[bigbob]

Thanks for posting this.

I have to suspect that the co-product of Plutonium had a lot to do with the selection of Uranium as a fuel.

[I see my hands]

They used thorium back in the '20s as a cure for the croup and to remove warts.

[george76]

Thorium is actually more prevalent in the crust than uranium is worldwide.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-leading-research-on-thorium-us-official/621383/

[70times7]

I like the idea!

[willgolfforfood]

According to this internet thingy, about 600-700 degrees Centigrade.

[Frank Sheed]

“Gentlemen, there will be no more fighting in the War Room!”
~President Merkin Muffley

[Cheetahcat]

I have been saying this for a while,Thorium Breeders are what we need, they also clean up hot Waste.

The reactors can be built modular in a factory quickly and they are fail safe.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The molten salts are tricky, difficult to work with.

It CAN be done, but they are harder to work with.

(So at least, why don’t START by making a pilot plant to work out the technology? Gee. I wonder.)

[Domangart]

If it wasn't because of that scum Carter we would have reprocessed all the rods and there would be no need for mass storage. All the product could be put in a container the size of a small box. In 60 years it could be placed in any trash.

[puppypusher]

The Russians Ran a couple of those liqid sodium reactors and I thought they had a meltdown or two because they went out of control.This was reported during the coldwar and the Soviets were not open to proving the info.

Can someone verifye that?