Tag Archives: Thorium-Based Nuclear Energy

NUCLEARIZATION OF ENERGY SOURCES: Rebirth of nuclear energy?

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chernobylNuclear energy in the news:

  1. Proposed West Virginia bill would lift ban on nuclear energy
  2. Two nuclear power plant bills advance to Oklahoma House floor
  3. Senate panel backs nuclear energy for Utah
  4. Georgia nuclear bill tops first hurdle in House
  5. Iran plans test run of nuclear plant
  6. Great amounts of carbon are emitted during the construction of nuclear power plants and during the “decommission of the waste.”
  7. “The nuclear power industry and the nuclear arms industry are conjoined twins, locked forever in a deadly embrace, and cannot be separated.”
  8. NUCLEAR POWER: “Leapfrog” nuclear power technology developed by US government laboratory
  9. Five U.S. nuclear plants make DOE loan short-list
  10. Nuclear Regulatory Commission adopts 1 million year rule for Yucca Mountain

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NUCLEAR POWER: “Leapfrog” nuclear power technology developed by US government laboratory

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Recent developments in nuclear energy will supposedly make it cheaper and safer to use. From mini nuclear power plants that do not contain weapons-grade material or moving parts, to thorium-based nuclear power plants, these new technologies are promising alternatives to today’s monsters. Regarding the mini nuclear power plants, it would be interesting to see exact numbers regarding how much feedstock would be required to run one of these mini nuclear power plants, who will remove the waste, and how much waste would result from these mini nuclear power plants. However, the numbers below look promising.  From the guardian.co.uk, UK:

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

.       .       .

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

‘You could never have a Chernobyl-type event – there are no moving parts,’ said Deal. ‘You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it’s too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.’

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

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NOTEWORTHY COMMENT regarding “NUCLEARIZATION OF ENERGY SOURCES: Thorium-based nuclear energy promsing what uranium never delivered?”

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Ken writes:

There are several ways to utilize Thorium, which also has potential economic advantages on the front end (more abundant than uranium and no expensive enrichment required). It has already been used in pebble bed reactors both here and in Germany for commercial power production. There is a company, Thorium Power Ltd which is close to marketing a fuel design that not only converts current light water reactors into Thorium burners, but also enables these same reactors to dispose of long term nuclear waste products from other reactors. Another option actively under development in Japan is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, which they call Fuji II. This one promises to be the most efficient reactor ever built since it can almost completely burn down the input thorium fuel. It can also be used as a nuclear waste ‘garbage disposal’ for all the long lived transuranic waste from current reactors. Bye bye Yuka Mtn!

Tell McCain and Obama to support research into the utilization of Thorium and write you congress people too. Don’t make this a narrow partisan issue, it is far too important, I’m as blue as they get and I fully support nuclear power. Coal is killing the planet, it’s not the CO2 (which is bad), it is the heavy metals. A single coal plant will dump 30,000 pounds of highly toxic mercury into the sky to fall back into the oceans. Just picture that much mercury in five gallon pails. Probably several hundred of the heavy stuff. Then pick up the pails one at a time and dump them into the nearest river upstream of your water source. Get the picture? Repeat for each of the hundreds of coal fired plants across the country. Repeat for Arsenic, Chromium, Uranium and Thorium. Mercury stays around in the environment for hundreds of years so repeat year after year. Ever wonder where all the mercury in tuna comes from? Oh, did I mention acid rain?

Despite my stance on traditional uranium-based nuclear power, I do believe in using and promoting new technology to solve our energy problems – sans major impacts to the environment. If the claims and feasibility of thorium-based nuclear energy are true then thorium-based nuclear energy should be part of the debate.

Here is a reason why we need to move away from dirty energy sources such as coal: Mercury pollution from an unknown source or sources is currently a huge problem in the Great Salt Lake and for waterfowl that feed on the brine shrimp inhabiting the lake.

NUCLEARIZATION OF ENERGY SOURCES: Thorium-based nuclear energy promsing what uranium never delivered?

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The new age of nuclear power? What if there was a nuclear reactor with “no possibility of a meltdown,” that “generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles,” and “what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands?” Proponents of a new generation of nuclear reactors that are powered by thorium claim these thorium-based nuclear reactors can deliver what uranium-based reactors never could.