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Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
31–40 of 106 posts
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#32Google... please save us.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#33This is project pursued by many[1]. The main hurdles are: 1. political [2], which Kirk mentions (it is no coincidence, that the pellets that the rods contain are as standard as the NATO bullet) -- the industry and power has a very different interest 2. technical: Kirk always mentions, that the fuel is not solid. It is liquid. The latter means, that you do have higher concerns about corrosiveness, hence (useful) react…
Corrosion is one of the main objections people bring up, given that the fuel is a liquid salt. Sorenson says there's an alloy that solves the problem.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#34I hear a lot about the LFTR, and I wonder what the problem is. Is there a major technical hurdle that prevents this from seeing widespread use? Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes a really good idea never gets used because... well... because nobody really picks it up and runs with it. It's that simple sometimes. But sometimes there's some hidden gotcha.
Mainly it's historical reasons. Light-water reactors were developed first, for nuclear submarines. Once they had those working, everybody went with what they knew, and thorium advocates got fired. Then people forgot about thorium.
At this point, NRC regulations assume solid fuel, and the nuclear industry makes most of its money from selling complex fabricated fuel rods.
However, there was a small liquid-fluoride reactor actually working back in the 60s.
The main technical objection I've seen is corrosion from the liquid-salt fuel. Sorenson claims there's an alloy that makes it a non-issue.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#35For anyone who wants to delve into this more deeply, Sorenson's videos (http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/06/04/adventures-with-gord...) are really great. I recently watched the two-hour one, which was edited from a longer talk to cut out the pauses. It's a rapid-fire, passionate technical introduction that I found very compelling.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#36Can I look forward to a Google thorium salt reactor in the near future?
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#37I've studied this for years and haven't found any credible reason why we couldn't do this today. But there are a lot of forces allied against Thorium in both the government, energy companies and the current nuclear industry. Senator Hatch (R) Utah with support from Harry Reid (D) Nevada has introduced a bill annually for five years to fund $200 million to research to commercialize Thorium power. Yet every year the bi…
Another data point:
Even in India (which has 25% of world's Thorium reserves), it is a mystery to many, as to why the Govt. chose not to invest more heavily in Thorium based research, rather than going for traditional ones.
Edit: grammar.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#38This is project pursued by many[1]. The main hurdles are: 1. political [2], which Kirk mentions (it is no coincidence, that the pellets that the rods contain are as standard as the NATO bullet) -- the industry and power has a very different interest 2. technical: Kirk always mentions, that the fuel is not solid. It is liquid. The latter means, that you do have higher concerns about corrosiveness, hence (useful) react…
Corrosion is one of the main objections people bring up, given that the fuel is a liquid salt. Sorenson says there's an alloy that solves the problem.
I do not think that corrosion is the showstopper.
It rather seems to be the lack of irresponsible megalomania, which actually fuelled the GE/Westinghouse frenzy. And I can hardly blame anybody for the lack of it, because for all the better... Our planet has became smaller in the last 50 years, and running (tea)pot operations would be a tough sell, even on Fox. But obviously (offshore) oils rigs and gas are no better either, though people are still happy with oil running their cars and data-centres.
But useful lifetime/economics of scale/TCO does matter, because ROI in the strict and sole monetary sense is the only metric of success. Note, that most reactors have been rubber-stamped to operate beyond their design lifetime.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#39I've studied this for years and haven't found any credible reason why we couldn't do this today. But there are a lot of forces allied against Thorium in both the government, energy companies and the current nuclear industry. Senator Hatch (R) Utah with support from Harry Reid (D) Nevada has introduced a bill annually for five years to fund $200 million to research to commercialize Thorium power. Yet every year the bi…
Another data point: Even in India (which has 25% of world's Thorium reserves), it is a mystery to many, as to why the Govt. chose not to invest more heavily in Thorium based research, rather than going for traditional ones. Edit: grammar.
India seems to only go for technologies that foreign companies have developed. Guess why? Kick backs are a nice way of living the good life. This, even as recent hikes in fuel prices across the country are putting paid to the dreams of a growing economy.
Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
#40I've studied this for years and haven't found any credible reason why we couldn't do this today. But there are a lot of forces allied against Thorium in both the government, energy companies and the current nuclear industry. Senator Hatch (R) Utah with support from Harry Reid (D) Nevada has introduced a bill annually for five years to fund $200 million to research to commercialize Thorium power. Yet every year the bi…
I'm not sure if the following links refer to the same thorium architecture but in Germany there was a test-reactor and several rather hard to solve problems appeared
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
http://juwel.fz-juelich.de:8080/dspace/bitstream/2128/3136/1... [50+ page PDF outlining the problems]