Posted on 03/20/2011 8:25:08 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.
This passed unnoticed –except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts – but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.
If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.
China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say.
Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.
“The reactor has an amazing safety feature,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.
“If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” he said.
“They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don’t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we’ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.”
Thorium is a silvery metal named after the Norse god
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
yitbos
Pebble Beds are still out there. It’s just that nobody is bulding them. . .
What do they use on a submarine?
Count me among the “thorium enthusiasts”...encouraging to see it’s being adopted elsewhere at least, if not here.
It’s not big companies, per se, it is the weaponizable by-product that won out in the 50’s. If research monies are minimal, you get minimal results.
We’d never have gotten to the moon without a orchestrated effort backed by proper funding.
The Indian advanced heavy-water reactor is going beyond the research stage. Their prototype unit is supposed to go online sometime in 2012 according to this article (http://www.globalenergymagazine.com/?p=2968). Also, it’s not a fast breeder reactor design; it uses thermal neutrons. I hope they can pull it off.
I liked the molten salt breeder reactor design that also uses Thorium. It was tried out experimentally in the US a couple of decades ago. However there are substantial engineering challenges to develop materials that can last long term in molten fluorine salts and to develop on-site fuel reprocessing to facilitate radioactive byproduct extraction. Continued development was killed for lack of funding.
“safe” and “Chinese”
Yet another oxymoron.
I China it’s considered “population control”.
Thanks. That does sound promising and I really hope it works as designed. It would be nice to see some of the money we have poured into alternative energies go towards better nuclear energy but most of that energy has been directed towards political goals vs reality. Nuclear obviously seems to be the answer but it was “silent screamed” long ago.
I thought we were about to turn the corner on nuclear energy but the hysterical reporting from Japan has once again set us back.
More people have died in the backseat of Ted Kennedy’s car than any nuclear power plant on US soil.
4 l8r
A little misleading, there. There has been at least one US reactor accident which killed more than one, even if it was not a commercial power plant.
Actually, I was a “refugee” from the Nuclear Power industry bust of the 70’s. I ended up in aerospace (rocket propulsion) and retired a couple of years ago. I always felt that the industry was killed by unfounded fear mongering from nuclear Luddites. I sure a lot of these Luddites bought into the Global Warming scam and it amused me to no end when some of them advocated nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions. I wonder how they expect to get these new power plants built when the industrial infrastructure required to produce them has been scattered to the winds.
You talking about Samantha Carters Naquadah generator??????? LOL
You asked, “He know this how?”
Good grief man, I don’t think you spent more than 30 seconds on your answer.
If, as you quoted, Sorenson is considered an expert on thorium - then he would have to be a total idiot, not to know about the safety features in a Chinese thorium reactor.
What do you think experts do about their chosen field - hide under a rock until someone actually makes a working model so that he can act surprised.
Think man think!
Lurking’
Excuse me, but India has been THE leader in this technology. China is a latecomer.
Not to mention... how is a good thing that in the event the reactor overheats, all the coolant (ie: the salt) is drained out?
That’s on par with saying that Japan’s Fukashima reactors are now safer because all the coolant (aka: the water) was drained out.
And no, this is NOT the same as the "pebble bed reactor", which still has significant safety problems (though not of the "China-Syndrome" type), and is no further along in development than the Indian thorium reactor.
My understanding is that the Indians are using molten sodium, not flourine salts, for their thorium design.
So, if a heat exchanger leaks, is that compatible with water? (Arf arf arf)
Why are all these "cutting edge" nuclear plants still using steam engine technology to generate electricity? What's next, nuclear steam locomotives?
Is there a good reason why there isn't a concept capturing the nuclear reaction's frenzied electron activity and converting it directly into usable electric power?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.