Posted on 06/11/2011 9:13:24 PM PDT by SouthernBoyupNorth
Imagine a safe, clean nuclear reactor that used a fuel that was hugely abundant, produced only minute quantities of radioactive waste and was almost impossible to adapt to make weapons. It sounds too good to be true, but this isn’t science fiction. This is what lies in store if we harness the power of a silvery metal found in river sands, soil and granite rock the world over: thorium.
One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3.5 million tons of coal, and the thorium deposits that have already been identified would meet the entire world’s energy needs for at least 10,000 years. Unlike uranium, it’s easy and cheap to refine, and it’s far less toxic. Happily, it produces energy without producing any carbon dioxide: so an economy that ran on thorium power would have virtually no carbon footprint.
Better still, a thorium reactor would be incapable of having a meltdown, and would generate only 0.6 per cent of the radioactive waste of a conventional nuclear plant. It could even be adapted to ‘burn’ existing, stockpiled uranium waste in its core, thus enormously reducing its radioactive half-life and toxicity.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2001548/Electron-Model-Many-Applications-Technology-save-world.html#ixzz1P1ygL0Cg
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
As far as I'm concerned, she did! : )
“As far as I’m concerned, she did! : )”
Yep. Week after week after week. Oh yeah, she did have a little help from some guy in a funny hat.
Wonderful technology. I wonder which country is going to get their act together first, and go full tilt with this.
Man, I was addicted to those TV spy shows. Especially to Mrs. Peel and her Lotus.
FYI 80% of major inventions and technical breakthroughs originated in Great Britain but almost without exception were DEVELOPED in the USA because investment funds were available here to do so.
Brits have the brains but not the money.
We have some of both though these days I’m no longer so sure about our national brainpower - or perhaps what we do with it.
Thanks SouthernBoyupNorth. G’night all.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing your insights, dear FARS!
We'll get to it after we finish tilting at windmills.
Ouch!
Sorry, I passed out upon seeing that pic and immediately thought of the episode where she wears a spike dog collar.
Humunuh,
Humunuh,
Humunuh,
Humunuh.........
Good one!
Be nice if the US led on the adoption of this benign and beneficial technology. Perhaps we will, once we boot all of the damn Socialists out of office.
"Even with military and corporate support, the transition to a new type of nuclear power generation is likely to be slow, at least in the U.S. Light-water reactors are already established, and no regulations exist to govern other reactor designs."
Thorium reactors can be built small and be numerous. They can have power capabilities as little as 50 megawatts and can be safely built close to the end user. With Thorium reactors closer to the user, transmission losses are greatly reduced. Such losses can be up to 30 percent with present power plants. No need for expensive superconductive transmission technology to accomplish long distance transmission requirements. Such, by the way, are envisioned for large windmill and solar array farms forced by regulation to be far from populated areas.
It is apparent that the foot dragging in this nation's energy needs is the U.S. Congress and Senate who put more energy into devising ways to regulate our energy production than the energy that is created. I recently asked my U.S. Congressman if he ever heard of Thorium power. He did not have a clue.
There’s also plasma arc, which vaporizes waste of all kinds.
HEADS UP - WARNING
WHEN I CLICKED ON THE DAILY MAIL “INLINE” LINK (SHOULD HAVE BEEN “ONLINE”) AT THE TOP OF THIS ARTICLE I GOT HIT WITH TWO TROJAN HORSE VIRUSES - LUCKILY MY ANTIVIRUS (AVG) CAUGHT AND BLOCKED THEM.
Wow! Thanks for posting. I saw the original Rubbia patents in the ‘90’s and always wondered if someone was working on them. I knew when I saw them that if this technology worked out, we would be living in a different world. I just wished the darn thing was in California and not in England.
The plasma arc torch technology is meeting much government resistance and protests from environmentalists who do not understand the technology. They think that the process will emit dioxins and excess CO2. All of such fears are only good for the politicians who care only to sell their favors to the highest bidder.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.