While Matthew Nisbet opines on peak oil being a uniting cause, this short essay on thorium power is instructive and relevant. – Anthony
Guest post by David Archibald
Early in June, I gave a lecture entitled “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” at the Institute for World Politics (a graduate school for the CIA and State Department) in Washington. From that lecture, following are a couple of slides pertaining to the advantage of thorium relative to uranium for nuclear power:
To run a 1,000 MW reactor for a year requires one tonne of nuclear material to be fissioned. In the case of thorium, only one tonne of waste material is produced with 30 to 100 grams of transuranics (Neptunium and plutonium). Alternatively, the Neptunium could be separated from the uranium and burnt separately in a reactor for that purpose, at the ratio of 49 thorium reactors per one neptunium reactor.
The very low level of transuranics from the thorium route compares to the large waste volumes and transuranic content of that waste from the uranium route, shown in the above slide. The one tonne of thorium from the first slide is shown in scale to the 250 tonnes of uranium needed to produce one 1,000 MWyear in the light water reactor route. That 250 tonnes of uranium produces 35 tonnes of enriched uranium, which becomes the spent fuel volume. Of that 35 tonnes, 300 kg is plutonium. The transuranic content of the uranium light water reactor route is some 10,000 times greater than that of the thorium route.
Once the thorium reactor is adopted as the nuclear process of choice, we will be wondering why we bothered with anything else.
Here is a link to where I posted a video of a recent talk (this year) in Canada by Kirk Sorensen (energyfromthorium.com) on Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR). Also included are comments about the failure of the Fukushima reactors and an explanation of why we are not mining rare earth elements. He also indicates that China seems to be on track to build the first LFTR production units. These reactors appear to be inherently safe and eat most of their own waste. According to proponents, they have been dismissed in the past largely because they are incompatible with nuclear weapons technology.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/13/hey-how-much-thorium-you-got-under-the-hood/#comment-719291
It looks like Kirk Sorensen has started his own company to develop a commercial Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. It is named Flibe Energy for the liquid Lithium Beryllium Fluoride salt reactor medium. Here is what appears to be his kick-off video presented at a conference in May of 2011:
Kirk Sorensen – Introduction to Flibe Energy @ur momisugly TEAC3
57 likes, 0 dislikes 2,695 views (time 19:43)
Uploaded by gordonmcdowell on Aug 4, 2011
“Presented at the 3rd Thorium Energy Alliance Conference, in Washington DC. Kirk Sorensen & Kirk Dorius announce creation of Flibe Energy, a company devoted to making energy from thorium a reality, via the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).”
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors–
In looking over the comment thread here, I see that Dave Springer is highly skeptical of anyone ever solving the graphite plumbing problems associated two-fluid LFTR design. I understand that this was to have been the next stage of the Oak Ridge project after they had just finished the five-year proof of concept run. It is too bad they were not allowed to at least attempt to solve that problem. I believe Kirk Sorensen had a complete electronic archive of their work made and it is available from him on CD.
I understand the salt being used is relatively inert even though its two components are highly corrosive in themselves because those components bond to each other more strongly than they will bond to any other atom. The big advantage being touted is the ability of these reactors to operate at normal atmospheric pressures (in contrast to today’s units) and be self-regulating.
As far as I can tell, LFTR reactors are claimed to be a universal solution to the energy crisis, real or imagined. With the power from his reactors, Kirk Sorensen proposes to manufacture an artificial gasoline from the CO2 in the air for automotive and aircraft use.
Now that Flibe Energy Inc. has been established we may see how far this concept can be taken.