Posted on 05/22/2011 6:04:55 PM PDT by neverdem
Now, following the release of radioactive material at the Fukushima plant in Japan, activists around the world threaten to eliminate nuclear power as an acceptable energy source. However, before governments indulge that knee-jerk response, they should consider the tremendous benefits of TFR.
The fuel is in the form of a fluoride salt with a melting temperature of approximately 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Because the system is not pressurized, any reactor breach leading to a release of fuel would be driven only by gravity. Thus, the fluoride salt, instead of being blown into the atmosphere, would cool and solidify. Hazardous radioactive material would be frozen into place in the shape of easily cleanable salt crystals.
To further guard against a catastrophic release of radioactive material, the TFR is designed to have fuel added and radioactive fission products (nuclear waste) removed on a continual basis. The fission products, therefore, do not concentrate within the fuel. This prevents the reactor from containing an excess of fuel reactivity at any given time. The most problematic waste products are gases, such as iodine and xenon, but the continual elimination of these gases and other radioactive fission products effectively eliminates the potential for catastrophe.
Additionally, far less radioactive material is needed to operate a TFR plant. Whereas conventional uranium plants create 35 gigawatt-hours of electricity per metric ton of uranium, TFR creates 11,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per metric ton of thorium. The waste generated by TFR must be stored for only 300 years, as opposed to the thousands of years required for the waste generated by uranium plants.
In regard to expense, the TFR itself consists of little more than a low-pressure fluid circuit filled with a low-cost, molten fluoride salt. There is neither a massive high-pressure system nor thousands of fuel rods. There is also no need for a fallible decay heat removal system. Because the core essentially has no complex internal components, the power output of the reactor is limited only by how rapidly molten salt can be forced through the core. A single TFR, with the same size core as a conventional reactor, could produce literally tens of times as much energy. These two factors, simplicity of construction and an increased energy output, even suggest that TFR would be cheaper than coal-powered electricity.
If the goal of nuclear energy is to construct a failsafe, inexpensive facility, then energy policy analysts need look no further: The Thorium Fluoride Reactor is ready for business.
Joseph Archer is a professional engineer with a degree in nuclear engineering.
Thank you for exposing you total ignorance of engineering and technology.
Safe, cheap nuclear energy for the United States does not fit with the Progressive worldview.
Uh, you missed it. It was used to convert THORIUM to U-233!!!!!!!!!!!!
You’re obviously an asshat.
The amount of Thorium necessary is derived directly from the article, moron, unless basic math is beyond you. Building a mobile reactor and generator was done with 1960’s technology, and yet it can’t be done today ? You’re an idiot.
Do you even know what the critical mass required is?
“Because you can’t have a weapons program using Thorium. “
A thorium cycle, it is sometimes argued can avoid this fear by avoiding any production of plutonium 239. But the thorium cycle does produce U 233, and bomb experts assure us that a bomb can easily be made from U 233, and since there are no neutrons from spontaneous fission of U 233, U 233 can also be used easily in a gun-type nuclear bomb. The advantages of a thorium cycle are not therefore as large as often claimed.
http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/publications/ppaper703.html
Thorium does not undergo fission. It has to be converted to U-233 using either plutonium or uranium. Assuming you have enough U-233 converted, the ideal geometry critical mass is about 15 kilograms. Given that the U-233 is diluted in the Thorium and molten salt, the critical mass size would be at least twice the size of your ego.
Building a mobile reactor and generator was done with 1960’s technology, and yet it can’t be done today ?
How big was it?
You’re an idiot.
I am a nuclear engineer.
The waste turns to U232, which you actually need a bit of to make a LFTR run.
Problem is that with Uranium reactors, if you put a cup of Uranium in one end, you get 3/4 cup of Plutonium out the other, so to speak.
It’s like saying “If I put a cup of silver in one side, I get 3/4 cup of gold out the other, plus I get power.”
The original financial analysis on Uranium reactors was that they literally paid for themselves in Plutonium yield. Plutonium is used to make Hydrogen bombs.
“Because you can’t have a weapons program using Thorium.”
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/thorium2009factsheet.pdf
U232 is the waste. It is not used to make a LFTR run. Thorium is not fissionable. It has to be transmuted to U-233 which does fission.
Problem? I am not sure what your point is. Thermal uranium reactors use low enriched uranium as fuel BUT much of the U-238 is transmuted to PU-239 which then fissions to produce energy.
In fast breeder reactors, natural uranium is used and most of the energy comes from the U-238 > PU-239 > fission route.
A single ton of Thorium will barely produce enough energy to toast your bread ...
Most of which are more hype than fact.
I hope they didn't laugh too hard.
tic tock tic tock tic ...
Why won't you respond to my question?
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