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

[Patriotic1]

Let’s jump right to dilithium crystals.

+1

[Patriotic1]

I’m not all that technical, but is there any downside to this? Otherwise, I would send a letter. (A sample letter would be nice!)

[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.

The similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present.

Some concern over weapons proliferation risk of U-233 (if it could be separated on its own), although many designs such as the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor address this concern.
The technical problems (not yet satisfactorily solved) in reprocessing solid fuels. However, with some designs, in particular the molten salt reactor (MSR), these problems are likely to largely disappear.

Much development work is still required before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialised, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. In this respect, recent international moves to bring India into the ambit of international trade might result in the country ceasing to persist with the thorium cycle, as it now has ready access to traded uranium and conventional reactor designs.

Nevertheless, the thorium fuel cycle, with its potential for breeding fuel without the need for fast neutron reactors, holds considerable potential in the long-term. It is a significant factor in the long-term sustainability of nuclear energy.

- - - -

When uranium becomes expensive enough, Thorium will be more commonly used.

Thorium is getting more attention because starting in 2007 uranium started become significantly more expensive.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/umar/summarytable1.html

[epithermal]

Thanks for the info and link. I am rusty on my nuclear physics but I question this from the original article:

“Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium”

So, if I understand it correctly, the thorium is converted to U-233 in a breeder, which is then used to produce the power. So, why would one ton of thorium provide as much power as 200 tons of uranium? Does one ton of thorium yield 200 tons of U-233 (Thorium (90) - Uranium (92))? I need to brush up on my nuclear science.

[Wurlitzer]

“I’m not all that technical, but is there any downside to this? Otherwise, I would send a letter. (A sample letter would be nice!)”

---

Thanks Patriotic1, first I’ll let this thread run for a day to see if we have anyone on FR who knows something negative for which there has been no known solution.

If that does not happen I would like to see those of us on FR carpet bomb our reps and media with positive suggestions that this technology be fast tracked.

I would be willing to create a Sample that anyone would be free to modify and send as needed.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

There are so many factual errors in this article it's hard to know where to start.

From the article:

After the Manhattan Project, US physicists in the late 1940s were tempted by thorium for use in civil reactors. It has a higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed.

Bombarding thorium with neutrons is how uranium 233 is generated. This was investigated back in the 1980's;

Scientists would like to find a way to use this process to make uranium-233 economically. Thorium is much more abundant than uranium. It would be far cheaper to make nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants with thorium than with uranium.

Unfortunately, no one has figured how to make the process work on a large scale. One nuclear reactor using thorium was built near Platteville, Colorado, in 1979. However, a number of economic and technical problems developed. After only ten years of operation, the plant was shut down. The promise of thorium fission plants has yet to become reality.

Also:

"They were really going after the weapons," said Professor Egil Lillestol, a world authority on the thorium fuel-cycle at CERN. "It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It wouldn’t be worth trying." It emits too many high gamma rays.

All of the common isotopes of thorium are alpha or beta emitters. None emit gamma rays.

[Wurlitzer]

"“Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium”" =================================================

very good question epithermal as we all know the hype media or unscrupulous corporations have been known to use.

I would say that based upon the minimal waste and the claimed higher efficiencies of the proposed high temp. turbines most of this claimed efficiency can be realized. If you use more of the fuel supplied your process is more efficient.

It is certainly a number to be challenged.

[thackney]

I believe they are looking at how much useful U-238 is left when a nuclear plant is refueled.

Most of the world reprocesses that spent fuel to recover the fissionable material. We don’t from the Carter Administration rulings.

Thorium results in a different process.

[mo]

FWIW..here’s an interesting technology..

http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/11/05/here-come-the-japanese-nuclear-reactors/

[Wurlitzer]

Everything I have read in addition to the article CLAIM that this is not the type of reactor you would want to build if you were looking for weapons grade material. Certainly building one at any scale for weapons grade material would not make sense seeing as we already know how to produce enough stuff to blow up the world many times over.

More detailed articles did describe the initial problems of not having materials available at that time to handle the required higher temperatures. Technology has now supplied us with those materials.

Investigation of the various links especially http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/ will yield an unfortunate political food fight, egos, corporate leverage, and of course the materials vs temperature issue.

Once we started down the LWR path this technology was left in the dust for the most part in the USA but other countries seem to have take great interest as shown in some posts above so it would seem the technology has some merit.

Note: China is on a thorium buying spree.

Thanks again for your contribution to the discussion.

[Cuttnhorse]

Good info, and many thanks thack...question; what is the process for processing mined thorium ore to fuel-grade product?

The US actually has a lot of thorium resources in Idaho...some very significant deposits.

[epithermal]

I see your point. It is not just the energy in the thorium, but the difference in efficiencies of the reactors. I will have to study this more when time allows.

[Wurlitzer]

“FWIW..here’s an interesting technology..”

Thanks mo. yes it is. Very similar in the thorium LFTR except it can be fueled with Uranium or Thorium.

Also, and it may be they did not show enough detail, I did not see the very sound method used in the LFTR to shut down the reactor by draining the liquid core without human intervention. I liked that feature as it allowed for a worse case scenario and a safe shut down. Maybe I just missed it and they have something just like it or similar.

[Brett66]

I think Thorium is a solid answer to our energy needs, it may be the best answer in the future. However; the regulatory environment in our country really needs to be re-wrote, top-to-bottom.

That's why we have seen these spring up in other countries, but not here. Unfortunately, political roadblocks can be more daunting to remove than technical ones.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I agree with you that many of the technical problems originally encountered with u-233 reactors are probably within reach of current technology.

I just couldn’t make heads or tails out of the technical discussion in the article.

My opinion is that reactors using u-235 or pu-239 are already well established technologically and produce power more cheaply than any other existing technology.

Why spend the money and resources trying to develop something that we won’t see for 10 to 20 years?

We could start building nuclear plants using existing technology after breakfast tomorrow morning.

[Western Phil]

I have perused the thread and did not see any reference to the July-August issue of the American Scientist which had an article “Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors”. It is available from their web site, but costs money. They state that “Thorium is not currently under consideration for the DOE’s development attention”. They do not appear to be very optimistic that anything positive will happen soon.

They reference an online forum at http://energyfromthorium.com/ which may have some information of interest. The forum’s mission statement is: “Devoted to the discussion of thorium as a future energy resource, and the machine to extract that energy–the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor.” The authors call the forum, “an energetic, international gathering of scientists and engineers probing the practical potential of this fuel.”

[mad_as_he$$]

Yes, but it was not the design currently being discussed (which is way better if it works as advertised). I do not see any nuclear power plants coming online in this country for the next fifty years. The current generation(s) of kids have been to indoctrinated against nuclear to the point of rabid opposition. Just think if we had 100 plants in the 600Mw range in operation what a different place we would be in the energy world.

[Wurlitzer]

“Why spend the money and resources trying to develop something that we won’t see for 10 to 20 years?

We could start building nuclear plants using existing technology after breakfast tomorrow morning.”

---

Very valid point. I would think that if many of the hot button issues from the people who oppose everything were removed, the process could be fast tracked.

As you stated we have the known designs and yet we still are dragging our feet. The waste issue is huge and you can see the political games being played with Yucca Mt. (Thanks Harry R.)

Either build what we have or shift gears to something that has a bunch of research but not a long commercial history.

We sure as hell cannot run a country like America on windmills or solar as they are simply too intermittent.

[Wurlitzer]

“Unfortunately, political roadblocks can be more daunting to remove than technical ones. “

Oh so true! After 40+ years as a Director of Corporate engineering for a $50B/year company I can assure you the people issues were always more difficult than the technical ones. Glad I am done with it.

[Wurlitzer]

Thanks for the link Western Phill I'll clean off my glasses and start reading.

"The authors call the forum, “an energetic, international gathering of scientists and engineers probing the practical potential of this fuel.”"

Hope it is not just like the UN's panel on climate control with scientist who would not know the scientific method if it bit them on the butt.