Thorium: Answer to our Elec Energy Needs?

Telegraph UK ^ | Aug 29, 2010 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

[Wurlitzer]

If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years

[Wurlitzer]

WP I spent just a little time on the link you gave and it is great. There also is an active forum there which will take me weeks to go through.

http://energyfromthorium.com/

[thackney]

Yes, the older thorium reactor was a hot gas cooled design. We have better options today. The Thorium reaction was used in commercial operation in that unit.

I believe we will see new nuclear units being built this decade. There are several in progress.

Location of Projected New Nuclear Power Reactors
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html

New Reactor Licensing Applications
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/new-rx-licensing-app-legend.pdf

[thackney]

Thorium-based fuels do not require conversion or enrichment

http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=187:thorium-as-a-secure-nuclear-fuel-alternative&catid=94:0409content&Itemid=342

[wolf78]

Not believing in mass conpiracies, I have a problem understanding how, if this process is real, and it seems to be as reactors have been built, why we are not pursuing this technology PUBLICLY.

Honest answer: Lack of socialism. No, really. Uranium fission reactors were tied into the cold war nuclear build-up, so the taxpayer coughed up the development expenses. The reason why nuclear energy is comparatively cheap today is because of the externalization of these costs. Today without the Russian threat that wouldn't be doable.

And just like the frog that doesn't notice being cooked if you just raise the temperature slowly enough, private companies tend to be risk-averse on the grand scale as long as there is a proven solution.

Will thorium work? Most likely. Will it take another oil crisis to get it started. Most definitely.

[FatherofFive]

the frog that doesn't notice being cooked if you just raise the temperature slowly enough

An urban legend that just won't die.

[blade_tenner]

So... Obama should have nothing to do with it.

If the thorium reactor is a viable technology, the market will make sure it happens.

[Cuttnhorse]

Thorium-based fuels do not require conversion or enrichment

No, but thorium OREs require processing...that was my question; what is the process for mining thorium-bearing minerals and processing to finished product? My guess is it isn't easy or inexpensive.

[thackney]

The problems include:

The high cost of fuel fabrication, due partly to the high radioactivity of U-233 chemically separated from the irradiated thorium fuel. Separated U-233 is always contaminated with traces of U-232 (69 year half-life but whose daughter products such as thallium-208 are strong gamma emitters with very short half-lives). Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle by making U-233 hard to handle and easy to detect, it results in increased costs.

See Post #43