Posted on 11/01/2013 1:47:34 PM PDT by Innovative
Nuclear scientists are being urged by the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to develop thorium as a new fuel.
Mr Blix says that the radioactive element may prove much safer in reactors than uranium.
His enthusiasm is shared by some in the British nuclear establishment. Scientists at the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) have been encouraged by the government to help research on an Indian thorium-based reactor, and on a test programme in Norway.
China is going for a revolutionary approach, devising a next-generation reactor which its supporters say will enable thorium to be used much more safely than uranium.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
What happens when all the thorium is used up?.............
By then we will have discovered something else...
Heck by then maybe LENR will be working...
“You may want to read up on it.”
Six years navy nuke, eight years college in Nuclear Engineering, Senior Test Engineer for major nuclear reactor vendor, now retired.
Don’t toss me an odd book. If you want to discuss my points fine, we can do that.
Yes, we will have discovered that we are out of thorium.................
“And excellent, informative site explains it and also provides many scientific references:”
Your expert is a geologist. Does he have any credentials in the nuclear field?
Usually people with science degrees are more aware that they may be knowledgeable but that they don’t know “everything” and tend to have open minds.
https://sites.google.com/site/thoriumenergycheaperthancoal/robert-hargraves
Robert Hargraves
Robert Hargraves has written articles and made presentations about the liquid fluoride thorium reactor and energy cheaper than coal – the only realistic way to dissuade nations from burning fossil fuels. His presentation “Aim High” about the technology and social benefits of the liquid fluoride thorium reactor has been presented to audiences at Dartmouth ILEAD, Thayer School of Engineering, Brown University, Columbia Earth Institute, Williams College, Royal Institution, the Thorium Energy Alliance, the International Thorium Energy Association, Google, the American Nuclear Society, and the Presidents Blue Ribbon Commission of America’s Nuclear Future.
With coauthor Ralph Moir he has written articles for the American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society: Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors (Jan 2011) and American Scientist: Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (July 2010).
Robert Hargraves is a study leader for energy policy at Dartmouth ILEAD. He was chief information officer at Boston Scientific Corporation and previously a senior consultant with Arthur D. Little. He founded a computer software firm, DTSS Incorporated while at Dartmouth College where he was assistant professor of mathematics and associate director of the computation center.
He graduated from Brown University (PhD Physics 1967) and Dartmouth College (AB Mathematics and Physics 1961).
“China is going for a revolutionary approach, devising a next-generation reactor which its supporters say will enable thorium to be used much more safely than uranium.”
And China will show some real progress just as soon as it’s researchers, um, acquire the research from the other countries.
“Usually people with science degrees are more aware that they may be knowledgeable but that they don’t know “everything” and tend to have open minds.”
My degrees are in “science”
I had a buddy in HS and college that got a science degree in geology. He was one of the most anti-nukes that I know.
Why post to me if you don’t want to discuss what I posted?
“He graduated from Brown University (PhD Physics 1967)”
And his expertise on licensing, funding, building and operating nuclear reactors is ......?
“and it is almost impossible to make a bomb out of thorium”
Now that I have the NSA on my @ss for checking, I would like to point out that this is a false reassurance. Thorium can quite easily be used to make a dirty bomb, which in some cases cause more havoc.
Unlimited?
I don’t think so.................
..........
Yeah there’s unlimited supplies of thorium in the USA and elsewhere.
Also on the moon and Mars.
Its a measure of the sheer incompetence of the feds and specifically the dod and more specifically the doe that they did not jump on this years ago.
Thorium reactors will collapse the cost of electricity to 1/4-1/10 current lowest cost coal. the reactors are melt down proof, the radioactivity is a tiny fraction of that of uranium, you can burn uranium wastes in lftr thorium reactors, there is a virtually unlimited supply of thorium in the USA and around the world.
The freaking technology was developed at the Oak Ridge Laboratories by the head of the Oak ridge labratories, Alvin Weinberg who was the same guy as developed and held the original patents on today’s light water reactors. They had working models of the reactor running for 4-5 years in the late 60’s before Nixon shut down the program and fired Alvin Weinberg head of Oak Ridge Laboratories. He went to his grave saying the USA made a terrible terrible mistake in not developing the lftr thorium reactors.
Here’s the kicker. The father of the H bomb, edward teller, late in life gave his world beater solution to next generation nuclear reactors. Guess what he called for. lftr Thorium Reactors.
With this kind of backing—how the freaking monkey pricks in the federal government and their lackeys cannot get it through their heads that the fastest way into the 21st century is through thorium reactors....is a mystery.
What just brings up bile is that the Chinese read the online stuff like everyone else and believed it. They came over to the USA two years ago. Scooped up what they could. And then proceeded to launch their own multi million dollar lftr thorium program.
Right now the energy dept is helping the Chinese with their thorium lftr program.
wtf?
Thorium is WAY better than standard nuclear.
It’s safer, we have a pretty fair amount of it.
The type of reactor that we use is because the byproduct is good for making bombs.
Thorium will make the econuts’ heads spin. It’s hard to find anything that’s very bad about it.
...don’t worry, they’ll find something.
My only question about Thorium is why is it taking so long for it to become THE single most important push for development on the planet. It seems to be the ideal fuel for fixed power.
A national imperative, on the scale and importance of the race to the moon, for development of Thorium Salt LIFTR reactors is one of the three initiatives I would implement that would seat the United States as the global power for the next 100 years.
Ending taxation of foreign profits and bringing them home BUT with the stipulation that they be reinvested in manufacturing would be another.
I’d also end the stupid federal law that prohibits sale of medical insurance across state lines allowing a nationally based competition, limit tort to actual damages and instate life Health Savings Accounts.
I’d also require the plaintiff to pay in lawsuits he loses.
I’d implement punitive tariffs and reinstate trade wars. It only makes sense to protect our industry against artificial and predatory competition.
Oh well, that is more than three isn’t it?
Thorium is the way to go.
If Obama spent the entire Original "Stimulus" to do this and golfed for the next 7 years and didn't do a flippin thing except Golf, I'd bet more FR's than you think would have bought that deal...
Dang near a Trillion to make Thorium Reactors a reality, man we'd be in high cotton right now, India etc would be knocking our doors down to buy-um'....
in the morning bump
It would be indeed be safer. Just the fact that it would be not be a pressurized water reactor, and would be operating near atmospheric pressure makes it a lot safer in my eyes.
And the reactor cannot melt down by inherent design.
Gas turbines are great. But they need fuel to run, and they do emit atmospheric pollutants.
Just because a single plant has not been built, or was built and shut down doesn’t mean it can’t be done or that it cannot be done at a profit.
If that were the case, we would have never built airliners because the first planes crashed and were unsafe.
That's true. But then, you could make an anthrax bomb, a pesticide bomb, a beryllium bomb, an asbestos bomb, a liver pate bomb and even a feces bomb.
A hammer can build a beautiful piece of furniture, or result in the murder of a human being. Fire can cook a wonderful meal, but can burn down an entire city and kill thousands. Cobalt in a radiation therapy machine can be used to kill cancer or make a dirty bomb that causes cancer.
There is a duality of nearly everything in that it can be used for good or evil. Just because something CAN be used for evil, does not mean we should not use it for good.
It is frustrating. But hey, I would settle for a government that is not anti-energy.
Sure, those in power “running our government” love solar and wind, liberal goobers that they are.
I wouldn’t mind having personal solar and wind power to provide my own power, but the reality is, why use it when you can obtain far more efficient and cheaper power through oil, gas and nuclear.
Affordable and cheap power is what drives a growing economy. Without it, we are sunk, and our own government is doing everything in their power to deny us that, because they think we are using more than “our fair share” and need to “cut back”.
Ah well hammer me if you will, I simply pointed out the fallacy in the article.
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