Uranium Is So Last Century - Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke
Eric Gisin
For some reason this option is missing from IPCC recommendations.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
"Published in 1958 under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission as part of its Atoms for
Peace program, Fluid Fuel Reactors is a book only an engineer could love: a dense, 978-page account
of research conducted at Oak Ridge National Lab, most of it under former director Alvin Weinberg.
What caught Sorensen's eye was the description of Weinberg's experiments producing nuclear power
with an element called thorium."
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Eric Gisin" <er...@nospammail.net> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:hgunku$1b2$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Perfectly agree, a thorium thermal/epithermal spectrum breeder reactor is
much simpler and less costly than a plutonium fast breeder, moreover it has
no all the implications from the proliferation POV (uranium 232/233 mix an
hard gamma emitter vs weak alpha emitter for plutonium 239 in a fast breeder
waste stream, where > 95% is Pu-239). In particular, MSR (molten salt
reactors, or LFTR as today are called) have extraordinary levels of safety,
both in terms of loss of coolant accident or criticality excursions.
Interesting enough, being a (quite simple and economic) breeder, they allow
to "burn of the rocks and the sea" as Nobel prize winner Alvin Weinberg
explained in the paper " Energy as an Ultimate Raw Material, or Burning the
Rocks and Burning the Sea," during 1959 in Physics Today (vol. 12, no. 11,
p. 18).
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/11/rosy-fingered-dawn-of-second-nuclear.html
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-fast-breeder-won-great-breeder.html
In this essay I speculated on the very long-range future-hundreds, even
thousands, of years in the future. Where will our energy come from at that
distant time when coal, oil, and natural gas have been used up? Solar energy
is one obvious inexhaustible source. Another, if it works, could be
controlled thermonuclear energy based on deuterium from the sea (thus
"Burning the Sea"). My main point, however, was to stress what Phil Morrison
and then Harrison Brown had already noticed: that the residual and all but
infinite uranium and thorium in granite rocks could be burned with an energy
yield larger than the energy required to mine and refine the ore-but only if
breeders, which could burn nearly all the fertile material, are used. I
spoke of "Burning the Rocks": the breeder, no less than controlled fusion,
is an inexhaustible energy system. Up till then we had thought that
breeders, burning 50% instead of 2% of the uranium, extended the energy
derivable from fission "only" 25-fold. But, because the breeder uses its raw
material so efficiently, one can afford to utilize much more expensive-that
is, dilute-ores, and these are practically inexhaustible. The breeder indeed
will allow humankind to "Burn the Rocks" to achieve inexhaustible energy!
Michael Coburn
So here we see the problem: The people who are invested in uranium
reactors and coal will lose their financial heinies if LFTR gets underway.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1 ---------
Unfortunately, $250 million won’t solve the problem. The best available
estimates for building even one molten salt reactor run much higher than
that. And there will need to be lots of startup capital if thorium is to
become financially efficient enough to persuade nuclear power executives
to scrap an installed base of conventional reactors. “What we have now
works pretty well,” says John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, a power company that
owns the country’s largest portfolio of nuclear reactors, “and it will
for the foreseeable future.”
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And given our bought and paid for Senate, you won't see this any time
soon.
--
"Senate rules don't trump the Constitution" -- http://GreaterVoice.org/60
Eric Gisin
to promote their religion. And Jimmi Carter.
The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Nuke Environmentalists
Why do environmentalists reject a good bet for renewable energy?
Ronald Bailey | December 22,
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/22/fast-breeder-reactors-and-the
Michael Coburn
This sort of garbage from "Reason" is "So Last Century". At the time of
Carter there were some very serious problems with nuclear technology and
Carter and the environmentalists probably saved a lot of lives. But that
was then and this is now. Ans it is standard conservatism to live in the
past. You will find that there are moonbat environmentalists. But the
bulk of the hated "left" are more enamored with the carbon reduction than
they are with fear of glowing in the dark. And it is because the
technology has grown up.
Bill Ghrist
conventional reactors to start using new thorium based reactors?
Michael Coburn
According to at least one article I have seen there is some advantage to
thorium in conventional reactors. But reactors designed specifically for
thorium are less costly and much safer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LeM-Dyuk6g
Bill Ghrist
Yes, but my point was that if a utility were to build and operate a new
thorium based reactor there is no reason why they would not also
continue to use their existing reactors. They don't need to "scrap an
installed base of conventional reactors" in order to add newer plants of
different technology.
Michael Coburn
That is true. Yet the push back comes from the coal people and the
uranium people, and the design and construction people (design and
construction of big uranium reactors) as opposed to the utilities already
operating. I suspect there are a lot of big uranium reactor deals in the
permitting stage. All of the fuel cycle stuff for the uranium and all
the coal and even natural gas is threatened by thorium reactors.
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Michael Coburn" <mik...@verizon.net> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:hh0lb...@news6.newsguy.com...
> On Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:35:16 -0800, Eric Gisin wrote:
>
>> Investing in next-gen nuclear is cheapest way to produce low CO2
>> electricity. For some reason this option is missing from IPCC
>> recommendations.
>>
>> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
>>
>> "Published in 1958 under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission as
>> part of its Atoms for Peace program, Fluid Fuel Reactors is a book only
>> an engineer could love: a dense, 978-page account of research conducted
>> at Oak Ridge National Lab, most of it under former director Alvin
>> Weinberg. What caught Sorensen's eye was the description of Weinberg's
>> experiments producing nuclear power with an element called thorium."
>
> So here we see the problem: The people who are invested in uranium
> reactors and coal will lose their financial heinies if LFTR gets underway.
The benefits of fluid fuel reactors are far behind the possibility to use
thorium vs uranium. For example, ORNL at the time worked at a high
conversion (but non breeder) MSR using a mix of low enriched uranium (< 20%)
and thorium, with a minimum need of chemical processing of the radioactive
fuel.
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=268
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/ORNL-TM-7207.pdf (pag. 31)
Even if it's not a full thorium breeder, the reactor needs only 1/4 or 1/5
of the natural uranium of a conventional LWR, and even less if we fluorinate
(a rather simple operation vs solid fuel reprocessing) the "spent" fuel at
the end of the life of the plant