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The mighty thorium : The nearly perfect energy source nobody has heard of
COLUMBUS DISPATCH ^ | March 7, 2010 | Doug Caruso

Posted on 06/08/2010 6:30:56 PM PDT by 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?

(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia; US: Ohio; US: Tennessee
KEYWORDS: energy; fuel; nuclearplant; nuclearpowered; seawolf; submarine; thorium; uranium
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To: puppypusher

As I recall the liquid sodium was the coolant in place of H20, but the fuel was still uranium in those plants.


41 posted on 06/09/2010 10:57:30 AM PDT by reed13 (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.")
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; blueyon; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
Thanks george76 for the topic, and neverdem for the ping to it.

The new Discover mag has nukes, clean coal etc in the cover story on future energy sources.

Keywords thorium, helium3, and he3 sorted chrono:
42 posted on 06/09/2010 5:58:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv ("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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To: george76

I read this thread last week and was fascinated as I work at at a college of engineering in chemical engineering as a secretary. So, after reading this and googling around some more I asked one of our leading NE-ChE professors about this. He said this is 100% correct. I asked him if research in thorium was worthwhile, especially since it doesn’t produce plutonium, is accessible and more abundant here, and lasts longer. He said definitely. Apparently, the only reason we use uranium is because that’s what the military used and all the research, funding, etc. has just gone with uranium ever since. No other reason than politics.

Anyway, thanks for such a fun and informational thread.


43 posted on 06/14/2010 4:44:36 PM PDT by CH3CN
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To: CH3CN

Thanks for the update and your research.

Your points are excellent.

Like most things these days : politics over rule science.


44 posted on 06/14/2010 5:18:36 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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