Thorium Energy

[stuff_it]

A slight diversion:

I was looking at the ThorEA website and spotted Inside a linear particle accelerator.



This is the original LINAC at the Rutherford Appleton Lab, now used as the proton injector for the ISIS Spallation Neutron Source.

Built by Metro-Vickers in Manchester in 1956, back in the days when we used to design and make things in erstwhile Great Britain, this fine piece of engineering is still working at the cutting edge of high energy physics.
Brings a tear to my eye...

That's just beautiful.

*sob*

 

[Dr Jon]

That's just beautiful.

*sob*

All the more so when you think that the calculations were all done with braincells and log-tables and that the design was done in a similar fashion, without computer simulations and CAD systems, drawn up by draughtsmen on paper...

 

[Dr Jon]

Just spotted LFTR in 5 minutes which is a bit of an underestimate. Very good way to spend 2-hours though:



http://thoriumremix.com

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

 

[Dr Jon]

Recent radio interview with Kirk Sorensen and Baroness Worthington:



Presentations are from the Fourth Thorium Energy Alliance Conference here.

Sign the e-petition to develop LFTRs in UK.

 

[Dr Jon]

Presentations from the 4th Thorium Energy Alliance Conference now available on the TEA website.

 

[Dr Jon]

Preview of Richard Martin's new book: SuperFuel Thorium: the Green Energy Source for the Future.

Some good info here: Thorium One / 101.

 

[Dr Jon]

Westinghouse enters U.S.-China nuclear collaboration

As I reported last week, DOE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have been quietly working together on a reactor design that uses a molten salt coolant auguring safer, more efficient and lower cost reactors that operate at higher temperatures than conventional water-cooled reactors.
The Chinese also intend to use liquid thorium molten salt fuel in a molten salt cooled reactor.

Looks like Thorium is starting to be taken seriously by big players.

 

[Dr Jon]

Podcast:
Kirk Sorensen: A Detailed Exploration of Thorium's Potential as an Energy Source

 

[Dr Jon]

An opportunity ???

An article in the Telegraph Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for Thorium written two years ago is even more relevant now that Obama needs a decisive election win to make real change.

 

[free spirit]

There are some serious teams working on this at the moment. I predict a new generation of thorium fueled molten salt reactors being built by mid 2020s, with a pilot plant operational before 2020, probably more than one.

We've actually been doing some work in this area over the last few weeks via our consultancy, not sure if anything will come of it or not, but I've looked into it enough to understand that this is a technology that could well be producing a significant proportion of our energy requirements by 2040 if we invest in it now, and it's very very different in safety terms to the existing solid fueled water cooled uranium fueled reactors.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

According to that article the Thorium reaction depends upon either Plutonium of Uranium as an additional element to make it work. It refers to clearing up spent fuel from existing reactors. Once these reactors are all de-commissioned, from where will the Thorium process get its co-processing elements?:

Another question: When will I be able to go to my local filling station and fill up my moped with Thorium?

 

[Dr Jon]

According to that article the Thorium reaction depends upon either Plutonium of Uranium as an additional element to make it work. It refers to clearing up spent fuel from existing reactors. Once these reactors are all de-commissioned, from where will the Thorium process get its co-processing elements?

In LFTRs, all that is actually needed is enough fissile material - such as U or Pu - to kick-start the reaction:

... you need some fissile material with which to start the reaction. But what happens is that the neutrons bombard thorium, and the thorium nucleus absorbs the neutron and turns into Uranium 233, which is fissile – it is a fissile material. And that is really where the magic happens. When Uranium 233 fissions, it gives off enough neutrons to continue the conversion of new thorium into fuel and existing U233 into energy through fission. I know that probably sounds like a mouthful. But this is really where the magic is. It's the only nuclear isotope that does this, in what is called a thermal spectrum reactor. That’s what different about thorium and uranium. It gives off enough neutrons to continue its consumption. The analogy that I have heard used before – it's kind of like when you go camping and there is wet wood and there is dry wood. You can start the fire with dry wood, and if you get the fire hot enough, you can even burn the wet wood. Thorium and Uranium 238 are both like the wet wood – if you dry them out to the form of turning them into fission material, then you can burn them for energy

An accelerator-driven system would produce its neutrons by spallation.

Another question: When will I be able to go to my local filling station and fill up my moped with Thorium?

Not Thorium, but the technology is here now.

 

[Dr Jon]

Thorium Energy Conference, ThEC13
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, from October 27 to 31, 2013.

 

[Fez909]

Just spotted LFTR in 5 minutes which is a bit of an underestimate. Very good way to spend 2-hours though:



http://thoriumremix.com

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

Here's the genuine 5 minute version

 

[8ball]

Someone page Crispy to tell him he can stop worrying about that 'peak oil' business.

 

[Fez909]

I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?

 

[8ball]

I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?

You might not be - I've just bought a crate off eBay.

 

[Crispy]

Bring it on with all haste.

 

[Dr Jon]

I think he's right to worry...we're not seriously investing in thorium yet, are we?

Norway ringing in thorium nuclear New Year with Westinghouse at the party

 

[rover07]

So what's the catch?

Why aren't all governments and private energy firms piling into this?

 

[Fez909]

Norway ringing in thorium nuclear New Year with Westinghouse at the party

Nice one. Good to see NNL involved.

 

[Fez909]

So what's the catch?

The catch is it's unproven, and conventional nuclear technology has a 60 year head start. That's it, I think.

 

[Crispy]

Why aren't all governments and private energy firms piling into this?

Vested interests.

 

[rover07]

So no one has tested these theories yet.

And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.

 

[Crispy]

So no one has tested these theories yet.

And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.

No, the technology's been built and tested, 50 years ago. It just couldn't make plutonium for nuclear weapons, so was sidelined.
Much less waste. Orders of magnitude less.

 

[rover07]

So that's climate change and peak oil sorted.

I best get back to work.

 

[Dr Jon]

Just noticed that
China blazes trail for 'clean' nuclear power from thorium

Meanwhile, in UK, I reckon Robert Cywinksi's ADSR project is worth a punt.

 

[free spirit]

The catch is it's unproven, and conventional nuclear technology has a 60 year head start. That's it, I think.

So no one has tested these theories yet.

And there is still nuclear waste just like a uranium reactor.

sorry, but this is bollocks.

I did a bit of work last year trying to work up a grant application with a retired university lecturer who worked as part of the team in the late 60's, early 70's who had a pilot MW scale thorium fueled molten salt reactor runnning for several years at Oak Ridge national labs in the States. The technology has been proven for 40 years, and all the minor issues that were flagged up during this pilot have been solved in the intervening time anyway and are in regular use in other fields in a transferable form.

The programme was shut down because the US opted to stop funding 2 streams of nuclear research, and the other stream was about a decade ahead of the thorium stream, and coincidentally also produced the material needed for the nuclear weapons programme.

Now the chinese are going to pwn this technology as well.

 

[Fez909]

sorry, but this is bollocks.

I did a bit of work last year trying to work up a grant application with a retired university lecturer who worked as part of the team in the late 60's, early 70's who had a pilot MW scale thorium fueled molten salt reactor runnning for several years at Oak Ridge national labs in the States. The technology has been proven for 40 years, and all the minor issues that were flagged up during this pilot have been solved in the intervening time anyway and are in regular use in other fields in a transferable form.

The programme was shut down because the US opted to stop funding 2 streams of nuclear research, and the other stream was about a decade ahead of the thorium stream, and coincidentally also produced the material needed for the nuclear weapons programme.

Now the chinese are going to pwn this technology as well.

If it is proven, why are they not building proper plants now, rather than research plants?

 

[Dr Jon]

If it is proven, why are they not building proper plants now, rather than research plants?

Practice makes perfect.