Posted on 12/27/2009 5:23:09 PM PST by Lorianne
See link in post below
Bomb o’ the future?
Nailed it. Primarily that, but many in the leadership are simply anti-human and anti-technology.
“I know my periodic table fairly well so i guess your Dilithium Crystals are some sort of humour of which kind i do not know..”
Yeah...and the accompanying paragraph about the “Star Trek” material - (it’s a little known American pop culture reference to something you may have heard mentioned) probably didn’t clear that up for you, eh?
“If you want to drill for oil in your backyard what is stopping you? Want a hand out?”
Huh? Why, you got some extra money laying around?
Figures, there would be a nuclear power project that would satisfy everyone’s needs and fears but nope, radical environmentalists don’t want you to have cheap energy; they want you to live like peasants.
“awesome. Let’s get to building!”
How long would that take?
Rookie NASA engineer discovers a 1950s era book “Fluid Fuel Reactors”, launching him on a quest to learn more about Thorium’s potential to supply nuclear energy without the problems of uranium (waste storage and weapons proliferation).
Started a blog called “Energy from Thorium”.
Wants Thorium to replace coal.
Cunningham police---???
Cunningham police---???
Too much Lysergic Acid Dilithium in the 60’s? {snort-chuckle-guffaw}
It’s in interesting article, thanks for posting it Lorianne.
It looks like they’re putting all their eggs in the Liquid Floride basket; is there any reason they are bypassing Sodium? (I read about it being used as the thermalizer/coolant for some reactors; in the same book, it said that it was ideal for breeder-reactors.) {Yes there is the water/air thing.}
A book titled The Radioactive Boyscout was an interesting read and the titluar character was interested in building his own breeder reactor. While reading it, I was struck with the thought that perhaps cold-welded components would be more ideal for the internals of a nuclear reactor... this article’s excitement about the floride-solution being self-regulating [w/ proper engineering] brought to mind the idea of a hydraulic-piston where the working fluid is moved from one chamber to another; couldn’t this be also used with the Thorium reactor as a control mechanism?
{The cold-welding comes to mind specifically for the materiel in the heat exchanger, which could (and arguably should) be a closed system. Perhaps the heat-exchanger’s and reactor’s thermalizer’s volume/pressure couldbe linked like in the example of the hydraulic-piston as a means of automatically regulating it.}
Interesting read. I am old enough to have read of thorium’s potential as a nuclear fuel source in the early 1960’s and enjoyed this update.
Cluebat below.
Cheers!
The article is interesting, but lacks lots of information.
First - Thorium in nature is 100% Th-232, which is fertile, but not fissile. You can’t build a reactor with only Th-232 and have it go critical.
Thorium is principally the “blanket material” - add Uranium as the seed material (either U-233 or U-235) that is fissile, and if you add enough that the reactor goes critical, then the Thorium is a great neutron absorber, and the Th-232 that absorbs a neutron becomes transmuted to U-233. So a reactor with a seed/blanket - can go critical, and the Th-232 becomes a source of make-up fuel.
If Thorium is mixed with partially enriched Uranium fuel for reactors - it “breeds” much better than U-238 (which becomes Pu-239 when it captures a neutron.) When the fuel rods need to be discharged - any Plutonium is easily chemically separated and makes good bomb material, because it can be effectively highly enriched ( greater than 90%). On the other hand, if the fuel was 5% U-235, 95% U-238, with Th-232 added in ....the transmuted U-233 can’t be easily separated from the U-238 - making the discharged fuel not easily diverted for bomb material.
So - the article might lead someone to think that you can have a reactor that runs ONLY on Thorium .....but it can’t!! What is actually doing the fissioning in a reactor is Thorium that has been transmuted to Uranium 233.
But heck - why confuse people with more details!
OK enough with the trekkie i get it.
Get ready for a ban on Thorium mining in the US.
Sodium is used as coolant for Uranium to Plutonium breeder reactors.
Sodium is heavy enough that the neutrons released from fissions are not thermalized too quickly, thereby giving the Uranium 238 a better chance of absorbing a neutron and being converted to Plutonium 239. (These breeder reactors are referred to as Intermediate Reactors, vs. Thermal reactors - and both terms refer to neutron energy levels.)
Uranium fissioning releases, on average, 243 neutrons per 100 fissions - and when at power, steady state - you want every “life cycle” to have 100 fissions for every 100 fissions in the previous life cycle, and you want as many of the remaining 143 neutrons to be absorbed by U-238 to create Pu-239. Realistically, there is leakage, neutron capture by other materials - but to optimize reactor design - you want to maximize fuel breeding.
For this article - Thorium is an easier breeder at Thermal neutron energy levels - so water moderator is okay. Other fluids are okay, if they have suitable heat conduction, minimal corrosion characteristics, etc.
(US civilian reactors were never used for weapons production of Plutonium. Some Plutonium production reactors use Graphite as the moderator - not as efficient as sodium, but far better than water. The Soviets used graphite moderated reactors in the civilian realm, but diverted Plutonium produced to weapons use. Think Chernobyl!)
Mike
Oh come on .... Ya mean you haven’t been hoping for a Th reactor since the mid-70’s?
(I personally like the pebble-bed continuous feed reactors myself. Need to get a few going for their Pu by-product production, even if they don’t become full-scale breeders themselves.)
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