thorium

concept w/Shutterstock

My last post focused on the uranium as a renewable resource.This seemingly radical view, is supported by well known facts. The question then is, with the renewable nature of uranium, why should we need thorium?Although uranium is virtually infintly renewable in sea water, the amount of uranium that can be recovered from seawater may not...[read more]

In one of the entries on my series of posts on the Integral Fast Reactor, I pointed out that a next-generation nuclear-power-plus-full-fuel-recycling plant would require only 1 tonne of natural uranium fuel (or thorium, or nuclear waste, or depleted uranium) per year, for a 1,000 MWe plant. However, I recently got asked this related...[read more]

Kirk Sorensen has excavated and dusted off ideas and documentation from the archives at Oak Ridge National Laboratory about using thorium in molten salt reactors. According to back of the envelope calculations by Alvin Weinberg, the leader of the effort, the thorium resources on earth could power a civilization of 7 billion people at a US level of energy use for approximately 30 billion years.[read more]

For the past several months, a friend of mine has been telling me about the potentially game-changing implications of an obscure (at least to me) metal named Thorium after the Norse god of thunder, Thor. It seems he is not the only person who believes thorium, a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828...[read more]

The Weinberg Foundation says success with thorium-based reactors could lead to rapid deployment 8 Sept (NucNet): A new London-based lobbying organization aimed at promoting nuclear  technologies fuelled by thorium is calling for the UK's Sellafield site to be used as a research centre into next-generation reactors. The Baroness...[read more]

What are the problems with MSR/LFTR technology? This turns out to be a hard question to answer. Since there are a large number of LFTR design options, however, it is difficult to identify a set of problems that shared all of the options. Rather we should talk about elective choices, and the problems that a MSR/LFTR designer would face...[read more]

In the first part of this essay, I reviewed the almost inevitable rise of China and India to great power status. I pointed out that by 2050, current expectations are that by 2050, China and India will be ranked along with the United States as great powers of the first order. I noted that both China and India are committed to the...[read more]

The sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle will be an eventual threat to the expansion of nuclear power, even if Uranium is cheap at the moment. As mentors of mine have argued, if we can't move to a more advanced fuel cycle, nuclear power will likely have "no future". The fungibility of fuels used in commercial power plants is...[read more]

Adam Curry interviewed Curt Stager, the author of Deep Future: The Next 100 Years of Life on Earth for his Big Book Show. During the interview, Curry and Stager spent several minutes discussing the potential for “green nukes” to be an important climate change mitigation tool.Aside: Adam Curry interviewed me four years ago about Adams...[read more]

Five years ago thorium and molten salt nuclear technology seemed like distant dreams. A lot has happened in five years, and as the Thorium Energy Aliance meet for their third conference, plans for building commercial reactors were emerging. Some plans were good, others not so good, but all who had gathered for the conference were united in following their dream.[read more]

I noted on Friday, that there is strong evidence that a nuclear Renaissance is underway, and that the number of new reactors under construction, being planned, and under consideration is rapidly increasing. Brian Wang has pointed out in a private communication that present world Uranium mining capacity would be unable the demand for...[read more]

Many of the most virulent anti-nuclear activists have begun focusing almost exclusively on spreading the assumption that nuclear energy means expensive energy. They have been helped in this effort by statements from the established nuclear industry who claim that new plants are so expensive that they require government assistance and...[read more]

The Obama Administration might be accused of sending mixed signals on its attitude toward the future of nuclear power. First we have first the January 28, 2010 Obama Memo to Energy Secretary Steven Chu: MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY SUBJECT: Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future Expanding our Nation’s capacity...[read more]

Below is a guest post by Alex Goodwin, which canvasses the idea of a large-scale deployment of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) to clean up Australia’s power generation sector. On the Energy from Thorium forums, he’s known as fnord. Alex refers to himself as “the finance grad they keep in a deep dark hole”, reflecting the master...[read more]

A pamphlet from the Bhabha Atomic research center in Mumbai, India offers a detailed description of the AHWR300-LEU reactor now under development. The reactor will feature a complex fuel mix that will include both uranium and thorium.The development of the AHWR300-LEU has significant implications for the less well developed nations of...[read more]