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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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1 posted on 06/08/2010 6:30:57 PM PDT by george76
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To: george76

any stocks connected to this type of power source?


2 posted on 06/08/2010 6:35:20 PM PDT by ak267
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To: george76

How hot is molten fluoride salt?


3 posted on 06/08/2010 6:36:02 PM PDT by Mmogamer (<This space for lease>)
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To: george76

I never heard of this. That it hasn’t been pursued is, as usual, criminal.


4 posted on 06/08/2010 6:37:12 PM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: Mmogamer

I wouldn’t take a bath in it.


5 posted on 06/08/2010 6:37:59 PM PDT by palmer (Cooperating with Obama = helping him extend the depression and implement socialism.)
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To: Mmogamer
How hot is molten fluoride salt?

And how corrosive?

6 posted on 06/08/2010 6:38:13 PM PDT by Grut
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To: george76
I watched a 1.5 hour GoogleTalks video on this. Don't remember if it was Sorensen though. It does make a lot of sense.

Jimmy Carter really, really screwed up this country's power generation capability. And no one has fixed his stupid rules.

At the very least we should be reprocessing fuel like the French do, so that there is a fraction of the waste now generated.

/johnny

7 posted on 06/08/2010 6:39:29 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: george76

Cobalt-Thorium “G”? ;^)


8 posted on 06/08/2010 6:39:58 PM PDT by Windcatcher (Obama is a COMMUNIST and the MSM is is armband-wearing propaganda machine.)
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To: george76

This wouldn’t happen to be the revered Cobalt thorium G ... would it?


9 posted on 06/08/2010 6:40:32 PM PDT by CapnJack
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To: Talisker; thackney

India leading research on Thorium


10 posted on 06/08/2010 6:42:51 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

Thanks for posting this.

I have to suspect that the co-product of Plutonium had a lot to do with the selection of Uranium as a fuel.


11 posted on 06/08/2010 6:43:10 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: george76
They used thorium back in the '20s as a cure for the croup and to remove warts.

12 posted on 06/08/2010 6:43:47 PM PDT by I see my hands (_8(|)
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To: ak267; freekitty

Thorium is actually more prevalent in the crust than uranium is worldwide.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-leading-research-on-thorium-us-official/621383/


13 posted on 06/08/2010 6:45:55 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76
I like the idea!


14 posted on 06/08/2010 6:47:36 PM PDT by 70times7 (Serving Free Republics' warped and obscure humor needs since 1999!)
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To: Mmogamer

According to this internet thingy, about 600-700 degrees Centigrade.


15 posted on 06/08/2010 6:50:12 PM PDT by willgolfforfood
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To: Windcatcher

“Gentlemen, there will be no more fighting in the War Room!”
~President Merkin Muffley


16 posted on 06/08/2010 6:59:50 PM PDT by Frank Sheed (Fr. V. R. Capodanno, Lt, USN, Catholic Chaplain. 3rd/5th, 1st Marine Div., FMF. MOH, posthumously.)
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To: george76

I have been saying this for a while,Thorium Breeders are what we need, they also clean up hot Waste.

The reactors can be built modular in a factory quickly and they are fail safe.


17 posted on 06/08/2010 7:05:33 PM PDT by Cheetahcat (Zero the Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: Cheetahcat; sionnsar; neverdem

The molten salts are tricky, difficult to work with.

It CAN be done, but they are harder to work with.

(So at least, why don’t START by making a pilot plant to work out the technology? Gee. I wonder.)


18 posted on 06/08/2010 7:11:27 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: george76
If it wasn't because of that scum Carter we would have reprocessed all the rods and there would be no need for mass storage. All the product could be put in a container the size of a small box. In 60 years it could be placed in any trash.
19 posted on 06/08/2010 7:15:48 PM PDT by Domangart
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To: george76

The Russians Ran a couple of those liqid sodium reactors and I thought they had a meltdown or two because they went out of control.This was reported during the coldwar and the Soviets were not open to proving the info.

Can someone verifye that?


20 posted on 06/08/2010 7:19:28 PM PDT by puppypusher
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