Re: Thorium!
dave andrews
--OK, there may be work to do, but Brendan's claim that nuclear technologies should receive more support because of the level of subsidies and R&D for renewables is clearly stretching credibility. R&D into nuclear has been far higher than R&D into renewables. It is difficult to unravel what has gone where, especially as funding can be in the form of tax relief as well as direct funding from research councils. The 2009 figures from the Office of National Statistics say that £62 million funding has been allocated by the Energy Technologies Institute for research into renewables, with £100 million already allocated for projects in development. Although there may be other projects funded through the research councils, I understand that this is the major source of funding into renewable energy. Compare this with the £15 billion of UK and EU funding into fusion, which Brendan claimed was underfunded compared with renewables. For more details of how government funds science and why it is difficult to say what has been spent on what without analysing individual projects, see http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/science/docs/a/10-1356-allocation-of-science-and-research-funding-2011-2015.pdfI am sure that Kirk will be looking into funding streams from the established sources, but please don't whine about needing more money and campaign instead for the money already allocated to the sector to be more wisely spent.----- Original Message -----From: James BirkinSent: Monday, May 30, 2011 12:38 PMSubject: RE: Thorium!--There is a lot to do in that it has to be proved and tested - the reactor worked but was small and we have moved on a lot now.
The design Kirk Sorensen is proposing to build is a core and blanket which is different and hopefully an improvement on the single fluid design in the sixties.
I am actually sceptic and certainly not blind to important issues - it is just that the sooner we test the theories the sooner we will know if this is another blind alley or not.
The nuclear people's arguments seem to be that Thorium because it needs testing and designing to a commercial scale is too far away to be of interest. They do not actually seem to address the alleged benefits of the MSR technology with Thorium. That same argument (too far in the future) could have been applied to the current unsatisfactory nuclear technology once, but it did not deter then.
I think fusion is very far away - molten salt reactors can and have worked. Weinberg saw the dangers of PWR technology years back and was vilified because he rejected his own invention (PWR) in favour of MSRs.
Kirk Sorensen is a very good speaker - and of course that is dangerous because he can make things look seductive. That said so far I have seen nothing to say he is wrong.
The MSR would be very cheap compared to other solutions as it does not need a pressure vessel and the re-processing infrastructure would be un-necessary. Far less waste or fuel would need to be moved around - and if they can be made small then far less infrastructure needs to be built for power. It is also intrinsically safe ( I was going to use the word failsafe - but because of the film I will refrain!) It is a heck of a prize if true and surely we must give it a fari chance.
That is all I am saying - just treat it seriously and, given what it purport to offer - do this now.
James
From: energy-disc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:energy-disc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter Rowberry
Sent: 30 May 2011 8:35 AM
To: energy-disc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Thorium!
You say "The really big question about Thorium, and GT-MHR, and Fusion is why is their funding so low or non-existent when subsidies and R&D money for Coal, Oil Gas Wind and Solar are so large."
Comparing subsidies for energy production with money invested in research is comparing apples and pears and quite frankly is nonsense, especially when you consider the amount of public money that has gone into supporting the nuclear industry. This included £1 billion a year for 6 years, given in the 1990s to prepare the industry for privatisation, which Michael Heseltine said the the EU was to go on decommissioning (otherwise it would have been illegal state support), but all of which went on running costs and an estimated £1 billion a year for at least 70 years in decommissioning costs (see the NDA budget). Also the nuclear industry is set to get a windfall of around £3 billion between now and 2050 as a result of the proposed carbon floor pricing regime for doing absolutely nothing and not saving a single gram of carbon pollution! I am sure that the renewables sector would be happy to receive just a small percentage of that money for its research and proof of concept projects.
I am sure that this depends on how you wish to cut the cake, but fusion has been massively supported by research funding. In 2003 The EU wished to put around £200 million a year into cold fusion research and to develop the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn192.pdf ) . In 2003 the estimated cost of ITER was around €5-6 billion. As of 13 July 2010, the total price of constructing the experiment is expected to be in excess of € 15 billion. Only a year earlier that estimate was € 10 billion. Prior to that, the proposed costs for ITER were € 5 billion for the construction and € 5 billion for maintenance and the research connected with it during its 35 year lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER). As James has been at pains to point out, Thorium is not a new technology and I am not sure why any further research is necessary. What is there to prove with when a working reactor was developed so long ago?
The pro-nuclear lobby is begging for even more funding, while my hospital services are below standard and my libraries are being closed! Maybe the industry should divert some of the millions it spends on public relations and image management into doing more R&D themselves?
----- Original Message -----
From: Brendan McNamara
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2011 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: Thorium!
James,
Sorensen's Thorium site is doing a good job of familiarising people with the Throium story. There is a lot os spin in his presentations especially when talking about the Uranium-Plutonium cycle. However, it is a BLOG site and ~90% of the posts are off target or muddled in some way. Fine, it gets people involved.
Eifion, you want to 'emphasise the negatives' which you will almost exclusively find on blog sites. You MUST read the Hargraves and Moir paper I sent to James which gives a very clear description of the technology, with very little spin, aand refers on to much deeper technical papers. You can then measure the negatives against what you actually KNOW. Otherwise you are just trawling the web to confirm your own uninformed opinions, just like Steve Conor, non-Science Editor of the Independent. You can also make life easier by spotting the uninformed bloggers and deleting their stuff on sight - or defusing viral nonsense by outing it in your work.
The really big question about Thorium, and GT-MHR, and Fusion is why is their funding so low or non-existent when subsidies and R&D money for Coal, Oil Gas Wind and Solar are so large. We live in an age when the media mean just mobile phones in their Technology sections.
Brendan
On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 9:23 AM, James Birkin <j...@joblaw.org> wrote:
Hi Eifion
I have had this argument and really no one has produced a good argument why not but if the heat the argument produced could be harnessed in a Rankine cycle - the problem might be solved.
I am at present forming a UK group of those who want the Molten Salt Thorium Reactor concept explored to see if it stands up to its claims - I believe it will.
Are you interested?
Kind regards
James Birkin
From: energy-disc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:energy-disc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Eifion Rees
Sent: 27 May 2011 2:55 PM
To: energy-disc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Eifion Rees (journalist, ecologist) joins group - welcome
Hi all, vielen dank/diolch yn fawr for the welcome - would anyone with a nuclear/energy background like to go on the record with a few targeted quotes about why thorium isn't the great green hope its fans claim it is? I found your group discussion interesting but have also been impressed with what I've read from people like Kirk Sorensen, who seems to be the foremost pro-thorium guy out there. I am just a layman of course, but with so much positive stuff in the nationals recently about China and India forging ahead with this technology I'm keen to highlight some of the negatives.
EOn Fri, May 27, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Herbert Eppel <He...@hetranslation.co.uk> wrote:
On 27.05.2011 14:44 UK Time, Frank Holland wrote:
On Fri, 2011-05-27 at 14:12 +0100, Herbert Eppel wrote:
Eifion Rees (journalist, ecologist) hast just joined the group -
welcome.
Herbert,
You welcome a (probably) Welshman, almost auf Deutch!
Sehr peinlich, Entschuldigung :-[
Herbert
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Brendan McNamara
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