Guest essay by David Archibald
The good and the great are uneasy about the state of the world. They know that our current standard of civilisation has been made possible by cheap fossil fuels that will run out one day. And then what? Their experiments with solar panels, with mirrors, with windmills have been disappointing. And it is dawning upon people that 70 percent of the protein we eat has its origins in fossil fuels.
Our current dominant nuclear technology of burning U235 in light water reactors is inherently unsafe and produces a lot of waste while doing so. And it uses only 0.2 percent of the nuclear fuel available to us.
The situation is summed up in this blog comment:
So biofuels will power the mining of phosphorus and the manufacturing of nitrogen via the Haber Bosch process to fertilize crops to make biofuels to mine phosphorus etc etc and as well create surplus power for our appliances and food requirements. Sounds like a perpetual motion machine to me. If you think solar power can replace oil (power our industrial civilization) and have enough surplus power remaining to mine the elements needed for the manufacture of solar panels, make solar panels, and maintain solar panels then I think you’re living in a dream world. Magical thinking at its finest.
In other words, solar panels are cheap only because the diesel and coal used in their making are very cheap. So the Breakthrough Institute has announced the formation of Breakthrough Energy Ventures to fund the development of new technologies that will provide reliable and affordable power. The funding available is $1 billion, provided by private individuals. In part, global warming is a religion that elites believe in and try to impose on the rest of us. So the first order of business for their new venture is to genuflect to their god with the prime requirement that the new technologies they will invest in “have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least half a gigaton.”
They have their screening processes for evaluating projects put to them but I can save them a lot of trouble. There is only one technology that can save civilisation – the thorium molten salt reactor, written up on WUWT here, here and here. If that technology produces power at $0.03 per kWh then liquid hydrocarbon fuel could be produced at about US$120/bbl equivalent. The molecule most likely to be used as an energy carrier is dimethyl ether (DME) which has an energy content and handling characteristics similar to those of propane. Civilisation could continue at a high level indefinitely.
Thorium has been wilfully neglected. How that came about is shown in the following graphic:
Fission of uranium was first demonstrated in Berlin in 1938. The following day, physicists at Oxoford University were brainstorming on how to make a fission-based bomb. That kind of development pace continued for three decades. Early work on how to run a thorium molten salt reactor was conducted at Oak Ridge in the mid-1960s. Then that work was terminated in favor of plutonium breeder reactor research which in turn was killed off. And nothing much has happened since, until a Chinese engineer read an article in the July, 2010 issue of American Scientist and the Chinese research effort into thorium molten salt reactors was initiated.
There are literally hundreds of different nuclear reactor designs and a range of fuels can be used. There is also a basic division on how to approach fission with consequences for inherent safety, handling and processing of fission products, and operating and decomissioning costs. That basic choice is either having the fuel circulate or having the coolant circulate, illustrated in the following graphic:
The first commercial reactor for power generation was commissioned in in 1958 in Shippingport, Pennsylvannia. It used a uranium-burning, lighwater reactor from a cancelled aircraft carrier. All subsequent commercial power reactors have the coolant circulating.
Over the last decade, governments around the world have spent tens of billions of dollars on all sorts of schemes to make energy from anything other than fossil fuels. They have tried everything except the only thing that will work. When the new administration comes into power, they will stop the waste of billions per annum on green nonsense. It would be wise to put aside a little bit of what is going to be saved and apply it to the only thing that will work.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare.
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I’ve been saying this for years.
I live in Australia where we’ve already dug up enough thorium to power the entire world for free for the next 200 years.
But try convincing anyone to even listen to how much better it is. In the 70s the greens and coal miners joined in an alliance to kill all nuclear power here, to the point that the only degrees even available in nuclear science in Australian universities are medical in nature.
Which means it’s still there in the tailings? If so, it’s a minor/(miner?) cost to scoop it into ore carriers for processing of would it be cheaper to just build the processing facilities close to the mines?
“Which means it’s still there in the tailings?”
Beach sand, in the form of monazite.
Probably be less expensive to build the mineral processing refineries closer to where the end product is being utilized. Far less concern by envirofa$cists over transporting potentially damaging materials as, until it is refined, it is Dirt.
I’ve been saying it as well. There’s very little discussion among either fossil fuel proponents or environmentalists regarding the technology, whether or not its feasible, whether or not it is safer than light reactor nuclear fission, with a quick death to any follow-up dialogue. For greenies I’d think that this would be far better of a technology, a plug-and-play always-on version, than windmills and solar panels, that truly has the ability to power the world we have today and the needs for the future.
You miss the point that the greenies DO NOT WANT people to have cheap, reliable energy. They think people having a good, happy life means that they are using too much energy and MUST be damaging the world and environment. They are perfectly happy saddling the world with intermittent, expensive energy
The greenies miss the fact that, when people have wealth and time, they clean up their mistakes and work to not commit more. The environment benefits richly from developed nations. Instead, greenies want to de-industrialize the Western world and reduce our standard of living to an agrarian society living a subsistence life—no machines (we have hoes, rakes and shovels), no livestock (we are all vegetarian by mandate), and no guns (we cannot hunt or defend ourselves); the evils of Agenda 21.
That’s because you assume there propaganda goal has anything at all to do with their real one. Such as the “Green” party fighting to reduce that which actually makes things “Greener”..
2017 and still no Edit button on word press. Perhaps if I invoke my right to be forgotten…. ;p
There is one other elephant in the room. The term “fossil fuel” suggests oil and gas especially has only one use, to be burnt as fuel. But remember,
Polymers(plastics, man made fibres, etc)
cheap medicines
agrochemicals
I,m sure there’s more
Tell any eco-loon that to be trully green they need to give up their mobile phone because it’s made mostly of oil based plastic…………….
Don’t forget, the greens, when it comes to energy production, do not want something that actually works. For them, the idea of unlimited cheap energy is something they want to avoid at all costs. Their objective is global de-industrialization and massive population reduction – a completely evil construct.
Here are a number of links I saved on Thorium at my forum,worth viewing:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forum-64.html
Video presentations are there too.
Your link is a bit dated showing just Defkalion. The prime contenders for LENR are Rossi (with his QuarkX, BLP with their SunCell and Brilouin,
Really, I just looked at a few links that works fine.
Here is one you manage to miss,from Journal of Energy Security:
Thorium as a Secure Nuclear Fuel Alternative
http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=187:thorium-as-a-secure-nuclear-fuel-alternative&catid=94:0409content&Itemid=342
I might be over simplifying things here, but the massive hurdle for nuclear (where I live) is the government and regulations. There is a massive time and cost component just to get an approval.
I’d agree – the manufacture of ‘portable’ nuclear generating plants will be the saviour of many societies (assuming it is allowed to happen) as centralised power generation/distribution has many disadvantages.
But given the propensity of Governments to ‘encourage’ campaign groups to manufacture ‘acceptable limits’ for pollution, exposure, particulates etc etc, we MUST take a pragmatic approach rather than an idealised one.
Nonsense, Mr. Archibald.
There was no thorium molten salt reactor at Oak Ridge.
Thorium was of interest in the 50s and 60s, when it was thought uranium was rare and expensive. We then learned that it isn’t. Thorium presents no opportunity; it has no advantage.
Additionally, conventional fuels will last Man generations before any significant worldwide shortage arises. In other words, we have no problem to solve, nor is it appropriate for us to even try.
Leave the future to the future.
Technically you are correct Gamecock, the MSRE at Oak ridge was powered by U235 and U233. The U233 was obtained by breeding of thorium in other reactors.
..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
If you leave the future to the future, you have no future, because the future is created by people NOW who are thinking of the future.
+1
Who is right? (30 seconds of research)
John, you need more than 30 seconds of “research”…..from the Wikipedia article you copy and pasted from, you neglected the following:
…
So this reactor did not “use” thorium
“So this reactor did not “use” thorium”
Actually, that’s how thorium reactors work, by using the Th232 to breed U233 as required.
catweazle666, the ORNL MSRE did not use thorium.
The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was an experimental molten salt reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researching this technology through the 1960s; constructed by 1964, it went critical in 1965 and was operated until 1969.
The MSRE was a 7.4 MWth test reactor simulating the neutronic “kernel” of a type of inherently safer epithermal thorium breeder reactor called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor. It primarily used two fuels: first uranium-235 and later uranium-233. The latter 233UF4 was the result of breeding from thorium in other reactors. Since this was an engineering test, the large, expensive breeding blanket of thorium salt was omitted in favor of neutron measurements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
catweazle666, thank you.
..
Note: ” the large, expensive breeding blanket of thorium salt was omitted ”
…
and
…
Note: “It primarily used two fuels: first uranium-235 and later uranium-233”
…
See?….it didn’t breed thorium, nor use it as fuel.
..
Thank you for proving: the ORNL MSRE did not use thorium.
You simply don’t get U233 any other way than by breeding thorium. There is no U233 in nature. U 233 is part of the “thorium” cycle. Whether the breeder part of the cycle is done in the same facility or in another facility is a moot point.
Doesn’t the word simulating in the sentence tell you something, John, catweazle and david?
As Rob is trying to point out, the Oak Ridge MSR demonstrated that the reactor could run on U233 as well as U235 but the U233 was bred from thorium in other reactors. Thorium itself was never used in the fueling of the Oak Ridge MSR so the use of thorium as the fuel in an MSR reactor has never been done.
Annie’s link list some reactors where thorium was mixed with uranium as the fuel but most are/were small experimental reactors and the commercial reactors have not been successful.
I have no personal Knowledge of Oak Ridge But WIKI has this to say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
Not molten salt. But from 1962-1990 there have been 6 thorium reactors in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Reactors
Uranium 235 is “Rare”… Only 0.2 percent of Uranium is U 235, the rest is U 238….So you don’t want to waste it. But you can use an initial large quantity of U 235, to create U 233 from a Thorium reaction and then move on to using U 233 and Thorium to maintain salt reactors forever….. Once breeder stock of U 233 are plentiful, we need never even mine Uranium at all, just Thorium.
J.H. Actually 0.3% of natural uranium is U-235 today, not 0.2%. Two billion years ago the U-235 component of natural uranium was more than 3%, which allowed the natural fission reactor at Oklo, Gabon to operate, moderated by light water, over thousands of years. Fission reactors have been around for millions of years, but that’s the only natural one we so far know about.
It’a awful when you have to correct yourself, but natural uranium contains 0.72% U-235, and not the 0.3% i stated in error. I’m too long out of the field. But the natural reactor at Oklo, Gabon, did exist.
Here is a paper from IL State U – Normal, on the Oklo reactor.
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/Files/Okloreactor.pdf
0.72 percent is U 235, not 0.2 %
Right, most likely the fossil fuel era will end because better technology has been developed, not because of shortage.
I know how to do fusion, but am waiting until CO2 gets at least to 600 ppm before revealing the engineering breakthrough. For the good of the plants and planet. And the children, of course.
Archibald writes: ” It used a uranium-burning, lighwater reactor from a cancelled aircraft carrier”
…
Archibald neglects to comment on the subsequent cores used at Shippingport. The third core blanket used Thorium.
Many things are not mentioned in an article of 751 words.
Considering the fact that you apparently are “selling” MSR/Thorium, it would have been a good thing to research the history of thorium before you rushed to get the 751 words published.
How do you know David was in a rush, Rob?
so you are a no on thorium … fine … contribute something beside nitpicking nonsense or go away … 🙂
The Chinese and/or the Israelis will do it.
The Chinese appear to be the only ones not discarding the thorium dug up in their rare earth mining operations. They are storing it in barrels. I wonder why?
In fact, the Indians are building them right now.
Firstly solar, wind, agri-biofuels are not solutions to replace petroleum, natural gas and coal. There is no serious scientific debate on that issue. Beyond hydro-carbon fuels the only answer is nuclear. Fission today followed by fusion once we fully understand the science and advanced materials necessary to commercialize it. In the interim fission is the one and only bridge. Thorium is a futile element not a fissile element. It must be used in a fuel cycle with Uranium. It has a similar actinide decay chain as Uranium 235. (See: http://www.liquisearch.com/radium_series/actinide_alpha_decay_chains ,) Thorium has some advantage over Uranium in that it is more plentiful on Earth. However Thorium has a very serious downside. It produces heavy gamma radiation emitting decay products which are damaging to reactors and their instrumentation and has serious disposal problems because of the gamma producers and their long half lives. “Thorium” is not the holly grail of nuclear energy. It has its aplication but it is not the “energy solution.”
You are thinking about U233 which, because of the radiation thing, will be difficult to make a bomb out of. Gamma rays are easily stopped.
It is actually U232 that has the gamma problem. It is an isotope that is created in the breeding process of the thorium cycle. There is not much U232 created in the cycle but there is enough of it that making bombs highly impractical. The gamma rays would kill bomb handlers and would let everyone know where the bomb is. Isotopic separation of U 232 from U233 is extremely expensive and difficult to do so it is much safer and cheaper to use U235 and U238/Pu239 to make bombs.
U232 is easily fissioned in the reactor and its gamma radiation is shielded. Its gamma radiation is very short lived and easily handled in a reactor.
I’m pretty sure you mean that thorium is a fertile element, not futile. The gamma emissions of the U-233 produced from thorium by neutron bombardment may actually be useful as a way to control attempts to weaponize the U-233 by giving off a strong and identifiable signature and making processing dangerous to all but the suicidal. The main damage to reactor structures is not caused by gamma but by the neutron flux that can embrittle metals and make many materials radioactive..
The key is the Molten Salt Reactor, it’s low pressure design negates a $Billion + pressure dome, 150 atmosphere plumbing, triple redundant water cooling & power backup will cost 1/3 of LWRs. Uranium will be fissioned first or Plutonium, next will be the Thorium breeding second loop. The high thermal design will allow coal to liquid fuels conversion and lower cost desalination. http://www.egeneration.org
In addition to its low pressure is the “frozen plug” of salt which seals the fuel into the core. In case of uncontrollable overheat, the plug will melt and drain all of the fuel out of the reactor and into an isolated holding tank, where it will harmlessly sit.
Typo above in my comment. Thorium is a fertile element not futile element
Thorium is the future. We need a Manhattan type project to catch up to China, Russia, India and maybe Australia that are way ahead of us.
I have advocated this for years: (Thanks, David Archibald for keeping up)
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-based-nuclear-power-generation/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-more-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-why-we-chose-uranium-over-thorium-and-ended-up-in-this-mess-time-to-clean-up/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-and-earthquakes-how-to-make-it-safer-and-better/
No one is supposed to know about the Australian thorium developments.
Best it be kept quiet so the idiot greens and their fellow travellers don’t try to kill it.
There are no corners in a round room. Let the idiots in one country try to corner the Th supply…. “see ya in a few millenia”
Given the circumstances surrounding the Manhattan project and the way society seems to be headed I think you may just get your wish……
Regarding the comment posted above (Gamecock) indicating we have no hydro-carbon fossil fuel problem made by I would suggest a review of the report written by Dr. Robert L. Hirsch titled “Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management” which I have posted on our website at: http://fusion4freedom.us/peaking-world-oil-production-impacts-mitigation-risk-management/ We do indeed have a problem and we will feel the economic over this coming calendar decade
“… calendar decade ” ?
Meaning 2017 to 2027? or the final 3 years of the decade 2010-2020?
Peak oil? Really?
They have been predicting the imminent peak of fossil fuel production for over 50 years now.
We easily have enough oil in the ground to last 100 years.
Ah, “February 2005” eh, Tomer D. Tamarkin?
So before the advent of the shale gas boom resulting in a couple of orders of magnitude or better increase in petrochemical reserves, right?
Do try to keep up!
An example of “cognitive disonance” or “doublethink” or whatever…
Part 1)
* Nuclear fuel in a reactor generates a lot of heat
* The heat boils water
* The resulting high-pressure steam spins a a turbine
* The turbine drives a generator that produces electricity
Part 2)
* Spent nuclear fuel (“nuclear waste”) still generates quite a bit of heat
* The nuclear waste has to be cooled, requiring an input of energy!?!?! Why?
At Fukushima, the earthquake knocked out the electrical grid, and the tsunami knocked out the backup diesel generators. With no power for cooling, the water surrounding the waste boiled off, and the waste then heated up to the point where it caught fire, which is where things went really bad.
“Waste heat recovery” is not exactly a new concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_heat_recovery_unit Yes it may cost a bit more than mining fresh Uranium/whatever, but remember that the waste has to be contained anyways, somehow, somewhere. So the cost of waste heat recovery would not be a 100% additional expense.
“Fukushima was “a profoundly man-made disaster” which was “the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties,” a report by the parliamentary commission tasked with investigating the disaster said. ”
https://www.rt.com/news/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-report-459/
So says Russia Today.
It was natural disaster compounded by regulator green issues that made it worse than it should have been, but it was never that bad technically anyway.
The real tragedy was that people called a minor industrial accident with no loss of life a ‘ disaster’.
Ignoring the 20,000 death toll from the tsunami, a lot of which might had been prevented with better sea walls etc.
It is sometimes hard for people to see things in their proper perspective, particularly when there is an agenda to be pursued.
Look at how Germany over-reacted to this.
Insane, or what?
@Leopold Danze Smith January 8, 2017 at 1:32 am
“So says Russia Today.”
From the official report carried out in accordance with the Act Regarding the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission:
“Our report catalogues a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11. And it examines serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government.
For all the extensive detail it provides, what this report cannot fully convey – especially to a global audience – is the mindset that supported the negligence behind this disaster.
What must be admitted – very painfully – is that this was a disaster “Made in Japan.” Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.”
I’d say Russia Today pretty well nailed it. 🙂
@ur momisugly Richard Verney
It’s true that the Germans have a sad tendency of insane exaggeration of all things they are doing. For instance, about 80 years ago it was a cult of mad racism, today there are similar exaggerated cults of a totalitarian eco-religion and cultural self-hate and self-destruction…
But this tendency of insane exaggeration alone was not able to make those cults happen. There were additional reasons which made them possible: The Great Depression of the early 1930s enabled Hitler to seize power, and the constant “German Angst” brain washing of the German public by heavily left-leaning MSM during the last 40 years enabled the ruling cults of modern Germany. So we see, it is quite crucial who controls the MSM and consequently the thinking of the people.
Luckily, the free and uncontrolled information by Internet sources begins to change this. Therefore skeptical sites as WUWT are very important and we must fight with all our capability to prevent any censorship of the Internet!
The groundwork for the Fukushima disaster was laid when the plant only existed on paper. The common point of the future catastrophe was both a reactor design and an approach to handling spent fuel that required continuous active cooling.
Leo, there were deaths linked to Fukushima, just none from radiation related causes. The “emergency response” and evacuation lead to several avoidable deaths among the elderly.
Reluctance to question authority, devotion to ‘sticking with the program’, groupism and insularity sound like a description of the nuclear power industry as I experienced it while working in the industry over a period of two decades years. The leading force in this dysfunction was the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
That is completely inaccurate. The waste did not heat “up to the point where it caught fire.” That simply did not happen. That is what NRC Chairman Jaczko told Congress that he thought was happening, but it did not happen. See: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18294/lessons-learned-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-accident-for-improving-safety-of-us-nuclear-plants, and http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Lessons-Learned-from-Fukushima-Accident/21874.
My response was to Walter Dnes. I should have quoted his post.
Walter,
Part 1 – a LFTR reactor is designed to run at high heat. You don’t cool it using water. There is no water involved either to cool it or pull heat from it. You dont use steam to spin a turbine, you use a high efficiency heat exchanger running a fluoride based high temperature loop. There is no high pressure in a LFTR reactor. And, there is no hydrogen production.
Part 2 – a LFTR reactor doesn’t have spent fuel in the traditional sense. You dont need to take rods out early before the fuel is fully burnt or before the cladding cracks because there is no cladding or rods. The resulting ‘waste’ has orders of magnitude less long lived transuranics so the waste is much easier to deal with and has a tiny relative half life. There are fewer transuranics because thorium is ‘farther away’ from plutonium than U238.
Anyway, LFTR is really ‘walk away safe’. You have to abandon everything you think you know about nuclear when you think about the LFTR.
Firstly, the spent fuel pool No 4 at Fukushima never dried out, so the handwringers who were predicting that it would kill everyone in the northern hemisphere were disappointed.
Secondly, even if it had dried out, there was not enough heat coming from radioactive decay to set the spent fuel rods on fire. The rods were all over a year old, mostly several years. Uranium oxide, which forms ninety percent of spent fuel, can’t burn – it’s an oxide, you might as well try to burn water.
The zirconium alloy cladding can, in theory, burn – in powder form. As a bulk metal, not so much – you can heat it to 2000 C with a blowtorch and it won’t burn, just crumples a little. In the presence of water, at over about 800 C, it can react to form free hydrogen, but at atmospheric pressure, as in the spent fuel pools, it’s very hard to see how you could achieve these temperatures before all the water vapourised and disappeared.
It is going to take a LOT of research and prototype work – as well as commercial scale test reactors – to even begin to persuade and sell the idea. Nuclear in general has been the victim or a very effective negative PR effort and it will take a LOT of work to overcome that stigma. The thorium cycle is very different but most folks won’t be capable of discerning the differences.
Even though it will take a lot of money and effort it is still worth doing!
Indeed. The typical greens response to anything with the n-word are the echoes of past, with shrill cries (lies) of two-headed calf birth defects, man-eating trout and a general green night-vision-type glow to everything within ten miles. The truth is that if US nuclear plant radiation standards were applied across the country, every coal-fired power plant would have to be shut down for hazardous radiation levels!
Much of the current negative press for thorium is generated by the current (non-thorium) nuclear industry, which stands to lose an awful lot if thorium reactors take off. Thorium was IMHO the “Betamax” of early reactor research. It was pipped by uranium for one simple reason – you can’t make plutonium (bombs) with thorium.
There is no ‘conventional versus thorium’ industry. there is a nuclear industry and it will build whatever it knows how to that is cost effective to whatever regulations it has to meet.
If someone comes up with a cheap licensable design that meets regulations that’s what will get built.
Right now PWR and ABWR are what is well known and works. Britain has arguably superior AGRs, but was never able to sell them due to the cost of them. CANDU reactors are also pretty widely established.
Any of these designs are safe enough and cheaper than developing a whole new reactor class, and arguing for re next 20 years about whether it is in fact ‘safe’
Thorium (LFTR) is in dangerof being the next ‘renewable energy’ A sexy new technology that is sold as ‘superior’ but needs massive (taxpayer) investment to prove in reality it is more expensive and not as good.
We don’t need new technology, we need new regulatory frameworks.
And just build the damned things, even if its 70 technology.
@Leopold Danze Smith January 8, 2017 at 1:45 am
“There is no ‘conventional versus thorium’ industry.”
Yes, there is no thorium industry, because it was shut down because of its inability to produce plutonium for weapons. What I said. Or just keep using oil and coal, even if it’s 50s technology.
@Alan Ranger: But you can make uranium-233 bombs with thorium.
@Leopold Danze Smith: A molten salt reactor is more thermodynamically efficient than a PWR, BWR, or CANDU because it operates at higher temperatures. That alone is reason to prefer it LWR and HWRs. Molten salt reactors are also orders of magnitude safer because no scenario exists which might lead to widespread radioactive contamination as seen at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Of course, you already know all that. IMO the nuclear industry builds PWR, BWR, or CANDU reactors with their once or twice through fuel cycle because they’ve been ordered to. ‘Cradle to grave’ is the anti-proliferation strategy. In the USA, it is seemingly directed by spooks at the DoE. Of course, ‘Cradle to grave’ is not actually an anti-proliferation strategy because all the used fuel could be used to make plutonium A-bombs. [ see my references below, and testimony to the US House of Representatives ]. A agree with you on regulation. Overregulation is holds nuclear power back. It can’t be fixed without politicians who believe in the necessity of cheap, plentiful energy.
They’re already being built. Elsewhere.
The newer designs are inherently safer and SHOULD NOT need a great deal of selling. But in today’s world they might, anyway.
I have been looking for updates on this but have not seen any in a while. This does have promise but perhaps that is all. The compact fusion reactor
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html
That isn’t the same lockheed-martin that can’t get the new F35 fighter to work ,is it?
The F-35 is the most capable aircraft flying today and will continue to be so for at least three decades more; there are no plans on the drawing board anywhere in the world for any aircraft that can match let alone exceed the capabilities of the F-35.
Yes, it is the most expensive aircraft development effort in history and will remain so until it’s replacement is designed. The replacement aircraft will then become the most expensive aircraft development effort in history. It’s the nature of the beast; air dominance costs money to build but saves lives in the long run.
No, the F-35 is not perfect; nothing made by mankind is now or ever will be perfect. Deploy 16 F-35s on an LHA along with a few Aegis equipped destroyers/cruisers and you’ll have surface combat group with as much combat power as a full CVN group at one third the cost and three times the flexibility. Yes, the plane costs more, but the ships cost less.
The F-35s issues reside in the software, not the airframe. The software is the most complex development ever attempted for an aircraft, I’m not surprised they are having issues with integration and development.
@MSO. I think the Russians would question your assessment. The Sukhoi 4th gen fighter is highly capable and got a 9 to 1 kill ratio against the US air force in combat games. The 5th gen Sukhoi has started flight tests and will be in service soon. Russian missile technology has caught up with US. The US could once have guaranteed air superiority, I suspect those days are over.
But back on subject, no one has mentioned that Norway is building a Thorium reactor in the middle of a mountain.
Its airframe is also a big problem. It’s way too heavy for starters.
MSO,
The advantage of the F-35 is not that clear cut. It is more stealthy, but not as fast, not as maneuverable, is heavier, doesn’t have the range, is far more expensive and only has one engine compared to the SU-35 that has two.
So the advantage of the F-35 is more in the radar/electronics than the actual aircraft. I suspect advances in detection will reduce the advantage of stealth too. The cost and delays are real killers. But for the amount of money already invested the F-45 would probably be cancelled. A pilotless drone would have been a better solution.
MSO,
The cost savings in platforms are not that great. Amphibious ships need to be rebuilt to strengthen them to operate F-35 v. Harriet, and will have to be bigger in future to accommodate the fuel needs and space required.
I’m reminded of Jefferson’s supposedly cheap (manned by naval militia) coastal defense gunboats, which cost more per gun than did ships of the line.
My Harrier was autocorrected to Harriet.
Adrian,
IMO there is still a need for manned close air support (CAS) aircraft, but a stealthy, super-expensive jump jet taking over that mission from A-10 is absurd. What use is low radar cross section in the air to mud role, when the enemy being attacked can detect you with a Mark I eyeball and your exhaust as an IR signature as large as all outdoors?
Even before all its developmental and test problems, the solution was obvious: build more F-22s for the Air Force and an upgraded Harrier III (larger airframe, more powerful Pegasus engine and updated avionics) for the Marines. The USN could either navalize F-22 or further upgrade its Hornets, or both. A turboprop, such as Tucano, for the lower-threat, counter-insurgency (COIN) mission should also have been on the table.
There is also a larger role in the mix for drones and precision artillery fires.
The software developed for F-35 could be installed on other aircraft.
MSO, “…The F-35 is the most capable aircraft flying today and will continue to be so for at least three decades more…” Some research indicates that late generation Sukhois and the F-22 are both far more capable. The F-22 however was not an exportable platform and will not be for some time, and far too many “critics” argued it was “too much” plane for the foreseeable future – apparently Russian stealth capacity extended to the “experts'” crystal balls. As it is, you now have a less-stealthy, less-agile, less up-close capable weapons platform that effectively is the modern equivalent of an early F-4. The YF-23 was potentially more capable than the F-35 is now. If the opponent adheres to expected doctrine, the F-35 is a capable craft, but if they do not, and “new doctrine” in combat is a perennial issue that allows bureaucrats to kill their own with impunity while not hampering an opponent in any way.
LPPFusion in New Jersey is far ahead of Lockheed and has publish results in peer reviewed journals. The LPPFusion test reactor is entering the final stage of development, having achieved two of three of the so-called Lawson Criteria (temperature, density and confinement time).
http://lppfusion.com/
And for Gaia’s sake DON’T mention that firm in NJ working on a ‘power cell’ that is scheduled to engage in some friendly-customer trials this year!
CM, if have also been trying to follow the high beta Lockheed fusion, without success. Inhave a speculation. Lockheed wanted Navy support, didn’t get it, went public, and then got Navy support in return for which the program went dark. I expect it will be half a decade before we hear anything. If it doesn’t work out, we may never hear more. If it does, there will be big noises.
Fusion is only ten years away from commercial usefulness… and always will be.
I remember reading articles about it back in the ’70s. It’s always been “10 years away” from fruition.
Just another boondoggle.
It might have been appropriate to include the LWBR that was installed at Shippingport in the timeline. I know because I supplied the Safety Injection System pumps for this project.
Shippingport operations with the Light Water Breeder Reactor core. (LWBR Development Program)
https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/5914091
https://nuclear-news.net/category/rare-earths/thorium/
Some good info on that link Greg.. And the story concerning a working thorium reactor shows a lack of transparency and even corruption on this link from that resource as well over a long period.. The Bellona.org links are most constructive as they are based in Norway and are they are not happy with developments at the plant that powers a paper mill. Also, there has been some heavy Beta contamination in the Oslo Fjord area from that reactor from time to time and there are issues with Waste storage as well.. https://nuclear-news.net/?s=thorium+norway
Greg, only bad arguments about thorium on this propaganda site (look at the side bar)
Hi Reiner, Should bad “thorium” arguments be banned because of climate change posts though?
Another point not being discussed here is that the military industrial complex will burn tax payers money to save uranium based reactors making Thorium a non issue ..
“…But critics note that while France struggles to sell nuclear reactors abroad, Denmark’s Vestas (VWS.CO) and Germany’s Siemens (SIEGn.DE) are winning export deals for wind turbines.
Former environment minister Corinne Lepage blames an old boy’s network of graduates from France’s elite engineering schools for defending nuclear at any cost.
She opposes EDF extending the life of its oldest reactors, saying it should instead start decommissioning them. EDF could build this into a business in dismantling reactors while gradually switching to renewable energy, she told Reuters.
“We need a massive reconversion plan for EDF staff. These are engineers. If they can handle nuclear reactors, they can also handle wind turbines and solar panels,” she said…..” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-areva-restructuring-france-idUSKBN14O1JW
Whatever the source of information, one can not hide fro the facts.. Big industry will always destroy innovation ..
I should point out, to counter your propaganda statement, that this blog has at least 30 percent viewership from pro nuke sources and we have a good working arrangement with all technology related journalists, if somewhat jocular at times..
https://nuclear-news.net/2017/01/03/wnn-could-get-their-facts-right-but-are-peace-loving-journalists-really/
We have covered a range of alt technologies and just to show you a sample here is one that backs up my posit on alt tech (including Thorium) being sidelined in some interesting ways.. Even tech that is more far advanced than Thorium research ;
https://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/03/an-aluminium-fuel-cell-why-is-uk-government-blocking-it/
My gut reaction is that the F-35 fiasco feels remarkably similar to the CAGW fiasco.
“David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare.”
Here is an excellent article about the F-35, comparing it to other aircraft of its kind:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/22/american-gripen-the-solution-to-the-f-35-nightmare/
What of that small-scale nuclear plant designed by some 19-year-old teenager who was looking at making them for residential distributed power generation? Anyone remember or know what I’m talking about? I think that used some similar type of MSR design.
You mean Sheldon?
This boy is Taylor Wilson, I know him personally, he is some smart kid! Under the supervision of Prof. Phaneuf, Taylor built a Farnsworth fusion reactor. I have seen it running in the sub basement of the Physics Department at UNR.
I’m astounded that anyone could “research” new nuclear technologies and not mention molten salt
nuclear reactors sans any need for Thorium. The MIT nuclear physicists who have collaborated on one molten salt reactor design at Transatomic Power, which is at the stage where they are verifying the corrosion resistance of the metal they plan in using to make a molten salt reactor last (which was one of the reasons early versions of molten salt reactors were eventually discarded as impractical -the other main reason was the lack of a compact moderator other than carbon – its size prevented the reactor from having a large enough amount of fissionable material to be practical
using low level radioactive fuel). Their reactor design CAN be configured to burn Thorium, but they consider Thorium a bad choice : one reason is that it produces plutonium, a no-no; the other is that there is a much better fuel : nuclear wastes – not only does this country have enough nuclear wastes to provide all the power we need for 1000 years, but this would also essentially eliminate the difficulty and cost of storing the stuff – it would have relatively low level radioactivity, which would reduce to background levels in a hundred and fifty years. It also costs practically nothing, although a molten salt reactor extracts so much energy out of normal uranium fuel that its cost is essentially nothing as well. Even if extracted from sea water, uranium fuel costs would be inconsequential, versus the 3/4 cents per kWhr that uranium fuel costs a typical conventional reactor these days.
Those reactors without access to nuclear wastes would burn low level uranium like we now use – its cost would be insignificant, whether terrestrially mined or extracted from sea water. The world will never run out of uranium. There is no need for Thorium .
There are at least three other molten salt designs from Moltex Energy, Terrestrial Energy and the Chinese govt crash program.
As mentioned, Transatomic Power’s design could conceivably (unlikely) discover that their non-corrosive reactor vessel alloy would not be corrosive resistent enough, which presumably would kill their design. But the Moltex Energy design takes a different tack and uses sacrificial metal cladding that would last 5 or 6 years and then simply discarded as the cladding rotates fuel thru the reactor. Their design also uses many components already used by nuclear reactors and thus has a ready made line of component supply. It could be ready to go more quickly than the others. It is also the cheapest.
No one can pose any objection to a molten salt reactor-inherently safe, cheapest power of any technology, can be constructed rapidly in factories at a cost roughly a third of current nuclear reactors (Molex Energy claims less than $2 per watt), can load follow or be used as a baseload reactor, can be sized from roughly 300 MW and up, requires very little human supervision.
Physically incapable of a meltdown or a radioactive water leak under any significant pressure.
No radioactive material is under any significant pressure – a breach would not eject any material
to any extent.
Arthur,
they consider Thorium a bad choice : one reason is that it produces plutonium, a no-no
the probability of plutonium production is much higher in the U than in the Th cycle, see Figure 2 in
http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/downloads/American_Scientist_Hargraves.pdf
Yes. Everyone here should read the Transatomic Power white paper about molten salt reactors, the fuel cycle choices, and the engineeringnproblems to be solved and possible solutions before spouting off. It is a verynpromisingngeneral technology that needs a lot of engineering development.
Is this the paper you mentioned Rud?
http://www2.chem.rochester.edu/~chem286_486/Resources/Nuclear/Molten%20Salt%20Reactor/TAP_White_Paper.pdf
Yup, although not the most direct google find. Well done.
We have no energy emergency now, even if we once thought we might. Fossil fuel supplies sufficient for current uses now exists for hundreds of years. But it won’t be wasted by simply burning it for basic energy needs, beginning in mid century. The CO2 problem never did exist; but Humanity won’t be increasing atmospheric CO2 although we might want to do so. Advanced North America is already bioi-sequestering CO2 now as a CO2 Sink.
I don’t have direct knowledge of MSTR experience, but I worked in the industry, and I understand that there were problems controlling the Fissile density hence criticality of fissile thorium in the molten salt. Random Eddy currents could and did increase the Thorium concentration hence fission rates in unpredictable ways.
What I do know is that the NRC took almost 40 years to authorize and license the merely improved and safer and you might say the “completed” design of the100 odd commercial LWR designs that are running today, producing electricity, in primitive form but pretty safely.
Problem 1. Can you imagine trying to prove that criticality and reaction rates are guaranteed to be controlled in such circumstances to NRC engineers?. I wouldn’t want to even try to guarantee perpetual laminar flow,thus controlled fission criticality Problem 2. . Containment vessels will be needed to contain the still large cache of radioactive material. Maybe not as complex as for a LWR, but I’ll bet when all said and done, not appreciably different and similar cost. . Problem 3. The operating temperature of a MSTR is much higher. Requiring the use of exotic materials in the cycle, elevating cost, and these materials don’t have 60 year performance records for creep and fatigue. More elevated cost and mundane research, and elevated costs. These high operating temperatures will complicate safety measures too, high pressure or not. Don’t forget GE BWRs are not intrinsically high pressure LWR designs.
How long do you think it will take to get an NRC license for a brand new,green sheet, fissile reactor design?
In summary I’ll bet an annual Engineer’s paycheck that a non-existent Fusion reactor but with no large cache of radioactive materials, needing containment, inherently safe, with minimal radioactivity, will be licensed and operating SOONER than a likewise non-existent detailed design for a LMTR, licensed, and operating in advanced societies like the USA by mid century.
The irony in the last couple of posts is tremendous. First we have the Salon post hailing the end of the climate crisis on the tremendous cost reductions in wind and solar making oil, coal, and gas + their infrastructure uneconomic. Then they include some color bar charts showing that between now and 2100 we’ll transition, with great economic savings, to using less than half as much energy for 9-10 billion people living in a first world life style powered by TADA! 45% Nuclear, 22% biomass, 15% Natural gas, solar maxed out at 9% and piddling amounts of wind, oil, hydro, and virtually no coal.
Magical thinking beyond belief. Mr. Archibald seems to think we can develop alternate reactor technologies including a thorium reactor fairly quickly. I kind of doubt this, since according to a friend who works repairing and refueling reactors, about 40 years to discover all the problems with high pressure water cooled reactors. You can’t really engineer something until you know what parameters you have to work within.
The cost of commercialising a thorium molten salt reactor has been estimated at about $1.0 billion. Things can happen fast if people, and the project sponsors, are motivated. They got so far in the 40s, 50s and 60s with such primitive material science and control systems.
They got so far back then because we used to have a lot of god-forsaken wastelands where they could run exciting experiments, and not worry about accidents. Now, those god-forsaken wastelands have been transformed to fragile, sensitive ecosystems, and no one can do any more experiments.
rxc, we don’t need any “god-forsaken wastelands” to test this. It is already fail-safe once the metallurgical and engineering obstacles are eliminated.
Comparing a thorium molten salt reactor to a uranium light water reactor is comparing apples and oranges. Molten salt reactors are far more simple. They can be built on an assembly line like aircraft and they are far less complex than a Boeing. Most of all the engineering challenges were solved in the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment. In the first aircraft reactor experiment in 1954, two million watts of heat were put out by a reactor half the size of a refrigerator.
Perhaps comparing apples to hand grenades may be more apt? 🙂
SteveT
Your friend and his co workers are the reason new projects can be up and running quickly.
They have already shown from past experience where many problems can exist.
New systems will take into account the lessons learned, and not have to start from scratch.
I feel a weakness in the LFTR design is the idea that the fuel salt should circulate outisde the core – highly radioactive fuel flowing outside the core seems like a non-starter for many non-technical people. Also, I don’t think it’s likely necessary. I’ll try to explain my thinking here (I wanted to post it on Sorensen’s blog some years ago but it’s an intimidating place).
There are 2 reasons for circulating the fuel salt and the blanket salt
1. Processing to remove fission by-products that could act as neutron sinks or produce unwanted radiation.
2. Heat transfer to a medium that can carry the heat to a turbine.
Take the fuel salt first.
1. Removal of fission by-products.
I see maybe 4 things could happen with fission by-products while the fuel is in the core
a) by-product forms a gas and bubbles out. no need for fuel to be circulated outside core.
b) by-product forms a liquid significantly less dense than the salt and separates out on top where it can be skimmed off. no need for fuel to be circulated outside the core.
c) by-product precipitates out as a solid and can drained from the bottom of the core periodically. no need for fuel to be circulated, but maybe some fuel is drained with the precipitates.
d) by-product forms an emulsion and is suspended in the molten fuel salt. this would need the fuel to be processed outside the core, but i’m not convinced many of the by-products will emulsify.
2. Heat transfer
Why is it necessary to to circulate anywhere? Can’t the heat be transferred to the blanket salt which is far less radioactive?
Now consider the blanket salt.
1. By-products
The important by-products are protactinium, which we want to remove so it has a chance to decay into uranium, and tritium from lithium-6 fission which will bubble out as a gas. Separation of protactinium might not need to be very efficient, if the pool of blanket salt greatly exceeds the amount of salt in the reactor at any given time. If the pool were 25 times as big as the reactor capacity and the processing is efficient enough that only a few days worth of protactinium is circulating, the protactinium might only be spending an hour per day in the reactor, and the absorption of an extra neutron would be a fairly rare event.
2. Heat transfer. Having the blanket salt circulate outside the reactor core shouldn’t be much of a concern to anyone. The added radioactivity of a few days’ worth of protactinium and U-233 would be trivial. But think about what having a large pool of blanket salt could enable:
Build a hot reservoir and a cold reservoir, each with about 6 hours capacity. Once the excess heat has been extracted from blanket salt in the hot reservoir, the salt would move to the cold reservoir until it was needed in the reactor. Run the reactor overnight only filling up the hot reservoir sending minimal salt to the heat exchanger for electricity generation. Once the hot reservoir is full send enough salt to the heat exchanger to offset new fuel circulating in. Then during peak electricity demand, send extra salt from the hot reservoir to generate extra electricity. By the end of peak demand the hot reservoir would be depleted and the cold reservoir would be full.
This all depends on being able to transfer heat from the fuel salt to the blanket salt in the core, of course.
My thoughts started from the idea of the reactor as a tube of fuel salt embedded in a tube of blanket salt.
To get even more speculative than the above…
If the heat conductivity of hastelloy-n is insufficient, perhaps the barrier between the fuel salt and the blanket salt could have fins.
If we have fins, maybe the fins could have sheets of graphite inside.
If the graphite is then radially oriented, it seems like we could spacially control the neutron speed gradient to provide high-speed neutrons where we wanted to consume americium and plutonium from recycled light water reactor fuel, while providing low-speed neutrons in the blanket to maximise thorium conversion.
Very interesting and thoughtful…. It’s beyond my school grade, but I get the gist of it….. From my understanding of LFTR reactors, is that the salts and radiation is highly corrosive on the piping, so the less pipework, the better.
Duncan,
The heat transfer is done in an independent loop which does not have fission products in it. Regarding processing out fission products, it is not strictly necessary. Although it would be awesome and infinitely easier than current reprocessing of solid rods.
The first real thorium breeder reactor was Shippingport. Its last core demonstrated that light water reactor cores could breed more fuel than they burned, using thorium. It was a very small breeding ratio, but it was demonstrated. The work was done by Naval Reactors.
The original core designs for Shippingport and for Indian Point 1 envisioned the use of thorium blankets surrounding a driver core that would use uranium. The thorium blankets would be reprocessed to produce U233 for future use in the driver core. All of these ideas came about because there was a lot of concern about how much uranium was available. The AEC, at that time, had better uses for uranium (bombs and naval reactors), and people were worried that commercial reactors would not be able to procure the uranium that they needed to operate. Reprocessing was considered essential to the commercial fuel cycle, at that point.
However, since then, the price of uranium has essentially tanked, because there is a LOT of uranium around, and it is not very expensive to mine. When you consider that the cost of the raw uranium is less than 5% of the cost of the electricity produced, and that it is possible to mine it from seawater (an inexhaustible supply) at a price that is not outrageous, there is no rush to develop thorium. There is a large established, mature infrastructure to handle uranium at low enrichment, and the price is low. All of that infrastructure (materials handling, transportation, regulation) would have to be reworked for thorium.
Back when there was some worry about storing spent fuel, before dry cask storage was common, there was a big push to develop high-burnup fuel, to cut down on the number/volume of spent fuel rods accumulating in spent fuel pools. I was told by several utilities (when I worked for the NRC), that they would prefer to change the fuel more often, because it gave them more flexibility for core design and they could reduce the enrichments so enrichment costs would be lower and overall fuel costs would be lower.
In any case, we have been “mining” nuclear weapons for excess uranium for about 20 years. The spent fuel that is sitting in the casks contains an ENORMOUS amount of untapped energy. So much that the Yucca Mountain repository that will take the spent fuel is not planned to be sealed until 200 years after it is full. Until then, if we decide to re-start nuclear power, they can just roll the railriad cars back out of the mountain and reprocess the fuel. Probably somewhere nearby the repository. Thorium reactors require the same sort of reprocessing technology as reprocessing uranium fuel (slightly different chemistry, but not that different). However, reprocessing is still considered to be evil by the greens. Until they get over it, no one is going to build any uranium OR thorium reprocessing facilities.
Finally, no one who has commented so far seems to have ever worked with radioactive materials. The proposed LFTR will have to be built, maintained, and repaired remotely. There is a LOT of relatively mundane technology that needs to be developed to build something practical, and there is no long-term experience with the materials of construction in an operating reactor. This is the greatest uncertainty, because you can only get that experience from operating a real plant. Some people say that the materials issues are resolved, but I say that they don’t have any good long term data, and I used to have to deal with this for the existing fuel designs at the NRC. When you get to higher radiation exposures, materials behave in unexpected ways, and the only way to find out how they fail is to test them to failure. No one wants to do that with large components that have to be remotely handled.
Nuclear power needs a careful, sustained period of growth, Crash programs cause accidents. The experience base in construction, manufacturing, operation, and design has rotted away. It needs to be rebuilt, slowly and steadily. They will probably have to call a bunch of people out of retirement.
Thorium is not only four times as plentiful as U238 and four hundred times as plentiful as U235, since its half life is about three times as long as U238 it is not nearly as disbursed like U238 much less U235. Other reasons than half life also make it far more concentrated. It is vastly easier to mine and far easier than getting U out of the ocean. No contest. Not even close. Thorium is essentially free when you mine for rare earths.
The cost of thorium is irrelevant. 4 times cheaper than uranium is still peanuts.
What counts is the lifetime cost of the reactor. Oh, no one has built one and run it for 40 years, like they have BWRs…
Our current dominant nuclear technology of burning U235 in light water reactors is inherently unsafe and produces a lot of waste while doing so.
Complete and utter rubbish. Its not inherently unsafe and produces minuscule amounts of waste.
The only problem nuclear power has is not technical. but political .
The regulatory burden makes it impossible to build economically.
We need nuclear power far far more than we need some new initiative funded by taxpayers to develop a technology that is only marginally better than what we already have.
This is the green blob technique. Invent a problem and demand funds to implement a solution that is expensive unnecessary and either no real advance or a heck of a lot worse.
in 1910 there was no need to frack oil.
in 2010 there was no need to breed nuclear fuel.
What we need are lots of reactors of any type (except the Chernobyl type) to save civilisation from energy starvation.
And a whole new attitude towards nuclear power fostered by the political and media class.
U 235 is as rare as platinum and that is what we burn in enriched form in Uranium reactors, along with some U238. We are running out of U235. U 238, (a hundred times as common as U235) which is fertile not fissile, is one neutron from being an actinide or a transuranaic and a long lived nuclear waste (250,000 years). It turns out that we could not successfully breed U238 into fissile Plutonium U239. So there really is a shortage of fissile uranium and when most enriched U 235 has lots of U 238 with it, lot s of long term nuclear waste (called actinides or transuranics with an isotope of 239 or more) is created. When you start with Th232, it has to pick up 7 neutrons without splitting before it reaches an actinide or transuranic. The odds of Thorium creating an isotope of 239 or more are miniscule. The present Uranium reactors, can not fission these transuranics and they accumularte them. A thorium reactor it can fission transuranics. In fact their first likely use will be as nuclear waste burners. Nuclear waste is a great source of breeder neutrons.
You really don’t understand this at all.
Correction: should have said Fissile Plutonium 239; not Plutonium U239.
Actually, both uranium fuel and bombs start with natural uranium (primarily U-238), which is then “enriched,” which actually means they’re separating the U-238 from the U234/U-235 that is in the natural uranium. Generally speaking, the abundance of U-235 in natural uranium is on the order of 0.7% by mass. Stripping the heavier U-238 from the U-234/U-235, increases the fraction of U-235 by mass, and this is what counts when it comes to useful fuel. Much higher enrichment is required for weapons. So, we are not “running out of” U-235; it’s still right there in the natural U, next to the U-238.
You really don’t understand this at all, do you?
There is skads of uranium out there, all with a small percentage of U235. It only meeds slight enrichment…Up the breeder ratios and you have plutonium. All of these are reactor fuel. there is nothing much different abut thorium, except that it breeds to a much nastier intermediary – U233 – than U238 does.
You don’t need an LFTR to use thorium either. Stuff it in with U235 or Pu239 to start and you have a reasonable MOX fuel that will run in (modified) conventional reactors. Or conventional fast breeders.
Thorium just about doubles the amount of fertile nuclear material available, BUT since we already have decades of U238 and Pu239 lying around, we really don’t need it yet,and U238 is cheap as chips, and existing reactor designs run it.
Britain looked at running breeders and plutonium MOX fuel, but in the end didn’t because it was cheaper to refine raw uranium than breed and reprocess fuel. That wont always be the case, but it is right now.
@Leopold Danze Smith January 8, 2017 at 2:00 am
” there is nothing much different abut thorium, except that it breeds to a much nastier intermediary – U233 – than U238 does”
Totally misleading. Any unburned thorium and U-233 from a LFTR will become new fuel for the next generation of reactor. None need ever leave containment, let alone enter into the waste stream. To describe U-233 as a “nasty” is (charitably) nothing short of deceptive propaganda.
You said “Our current dominant nuclear technology of burning U235 in light water reactors is inherently unsafe…”
Aw come on! Airplanes and cars are also inherently unsafe and kill hugely more that light water nuclear power has or ever could. Yet we still fly and drive.
A few additional points.
1) Thorium can also be burned in light water reactors and has been. The Light Water Breeder Reactor was successfully run in the Shippingport plant you mention in the 1970’s. The core was fueled with U233, to simulate a mature thorium breeder technology, and outfitted with thorium 232 blankets for breeding. The device was run for a few years and produced about 1.3% more fuel than it consumed – enough for a near endless thorium fuel cycle using existing light water technology. But to do that, the fuel would have to be chemically reprocessed. We have tried fuel reprocessing before, without success – to much radioactive contamination of the equipment, buildings and surrounding environment. At the time, that was one of the reasons for for shelving LWBR technology. And that issue leads us to the second problem.
2) Molten salt fuel reactor concepts require that fuel continuously or periodically be withdrawn from the reactor, cleaned of nuclear poisons, and refreshed with new fuel. The salt will be so intensely radioactive that nobody could possibly approach it or the machinery involved. It will have to be processed remotely and perhaps by robots. We failed with reprocessing of current reactor fuel systems, now magnify it many many times over and envision what it will take to process live, fertile molten salt fuel. And the same concern would apply to the maintenance of the reactor system. When things break, and they will, fixing them will be extraordinarily expensive if even possible.
I favor researching the idea, but I am not sanguine about the possibility,
You ought to read Thorcon’s business plan which they have supposedly convinced the Indonesians to try. They make a unit capable of holding about four Oak Ridge clones. They run one clone until it needs reprocessing. Then they shut it off. It takes about ten years for the molten salt to be safe to handle for reprocessing. They just leave it in the ground for that time then take it out and reprocess it.
http://thorconpower.com/
Fission products have a mixture of short-term, medium and long-term half-lives. About 67% : 12%: 21% (short : medium : long). After 10 years nearly all the short-term fission products have decayed away, the background radioactivity is considerably less and the used fuel easier to handle. Only 33% of the fission products will still be radioactive, with long half-lives so far less radioactivity.
“The device was run for a few years and produced about 1.3% more fuel than it consumed – enough for a near endless thorium fuel cycle using existing light water technology. But to do that, the fuel would have to be chemically reprocessed.”
It produced no fuel. It produced some U-233 from thorium targets, yes, in an amount similar to that of uranium consumed by the reactor. The thorium targets did undergo separations, and fuel was produced. The point, and it is a critical point, is that in situ reaction of the produced U-233 DID NOT HAPPEN.
It was not “fuel” until extensive post-processing.
BTW, that fuel was never used for anything.
The same result occurred at Savannah River 20 years before. They were able to produce U-233 in thorium targets. Which had to go through external separations processing. Their conclusion was that not enough was made fast enough to be worthwhile.
Hundreds of years from now, it may become worthwhile.
The limitation is not technical, it is financial. There is simply no reason to fool with thorium.
The molten salt reactor offers the theoretical advantage that a U-233 molecule floating in the slurry- in theory – cannot behave any differently regardless of its source. I.e., the problem with the SRP and Shippingport experiments was that the created atoms were embedded in other atoms of non-reactive material (the remaining unconverted thorium) and did not react.
MSR technology may have potential. Thorium is just a distraction. A shiny object of no interest.
Additionally, SRP found some U-232 was produced in the thorium targets (8 grams for 660 kilos of U-233 produced). Ultra-nasty gamma emitting U-232. Savannah River had the separations facilities to handle such nasties. The question I have is, “How much U-232 will be produced in an MSR?” Will their experience be that same as at SRP? Will vastly more be produced in the MSR environment? IF IT IS, introducing thorium into your reactor could POISON the whole damn thing. It will take brave souls to introduce thorium into their multi-billion dollar reactor. Perhaps less will be produced, and it will be a non-issue. I’m comfortable letting India/China find out.
And the Shippingport reactor was absolutely not from a “cancelled aircraft carrier.” It was designed and operated from the gitgo as a commercial electric power generator and resembles aircraft carrier reactors only in that both are light water reactors. They are very different machines.