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Norway is building thorium reactor

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21–30 of 102 posts

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#21
post #11
post #7

While germany is getting out of nuclear power altogether... their "Energiewende" plan is very ambitious but i wonder if its not better to invest into nuclear power to make it saver instead of getting rid of it completely. I dont know much about it though, what do experts think?

Is that an offer to pay all the external costs of nuclear power? I mean, all of them. From final deposit, over insurance policies in case of a meltdown to environmental consequences of the entire nuclear supply chain? Nuclear power is just too expensive for an economy. Nuclear power is limited, there is just not endless amount of uranium on the planet. Also globally nuclear power is pointless, IIRC nuclear power has…

"Nuclear power is limited, there is just not endless amount of uranium on the planet."

A finite quantity can be quite large. Uranium is not that scarce even with a ramp up of nuclear activity. And even then, there is thorium, a more abundant fuel.

"you can't usually use the heat an nuclear power plant produce for anything productive, so it's lost."

That is a problem with conventional low-temperature high-pressure designs, however LFTR (low-pressure high-temperature) produces high enough temperatures to be usable in industrial processes directly (700C). Designs can be modified to get to 1000C or so which is useful for hydrogen production.

"But of course there are new and better plants in development, they are safer and bigger and produce less waste."

LFTR not only produces less waste, but it can be used to burn existing waste. So if we consider the costs of long term security and storage, just developing LFTR to process waste is going to be worth it.

"Since 2005, there is a nuclear power plant being build in Finland, called Olkiluoto III."

That is indeed a problem with all large industrial/construction projects that need government funding or complex regulatory processes. If you are arguing against nuclear power you should be against all such projects.

One problem with wind power is a poor ability to provide base grid load. Yes, if you have a widely distributed (continent-wide) network things may even out. But then that means you have to waste energy in the transportation network, as well as investing in powerlines. The same argument about inefficiency starts to come up.

The main argument then for wind and solar is that the costs scale linearly with output, whereas for a government-backed power plant the costs tend to escalate (bribes, kickbacks, cost-plus etc). That is acceptable, it just means people can become more independent of the inherently inefficient state-run grid. But with a state-run renewables system you have to contend with a centralized and potentially oversized grid. You trade away centralism in one area (identical turbines or panels) and have to buy it back in another (large scale power distribution system).

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#22
The title is misleading. They only test thorium in an already built conventional reactor. Meanwhile in Germany they developed a conceptionally more safe reactor type powered by thorium, built a test reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor) and an industrial reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300). They're both shut down now, partly because of safety concerns: Water leaking into the cooling circuit can lead to explosions (which happened in small amounts)

So I guess only time will tell if new reactor types really are better than current ones.

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#23
post #7

While germany is getting out of nuclear power altogether... their "Energiewende" plan is very ambitious but i wonder if its not better to invest into nuclear power to make it saver instead of getting rid of it completely. I dont know much about it though, what do experts think?

Germans have more than one goals: more renewable energy (to replace conventional power plants) AND no nuclear. The latter is not optional.

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#24
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many nuke advocates go much too far in the "nuclear power will solve all our problems!" That said, the strongest arguments for nuclear power has always been as part of a balanced energy diet, not as the off the shelf answer to everything. So, how do we figure out where it's appropriate and where not? Properly price carbon, and remove all distorting subsidies to all forms of energy, from fossil fuels to solar…

Markets can only work, if the prices for something tell the truth about the costs of something. You won't solve that with just cutting subsidies for all energy sources. And carbon emissions are not everything. The idea to reduce them by trading certificates collapsed in the minute when the total amount of certificates were not lower than the amount of carbon emissions in the past or when it was not adjusted for the s…

To me it seems that taxing unwanted effects is far better than subsidizing good techs. With the taxing scheme you are not endorsing a single technology but are attacking the root cause of your problem.

For example, would coal powered power plants be a problem if they didn't produce greenhouse gases?

Nuclear waste is the problem? Put tax on nuclear waste and raise it until the tech is either abandoned or the problem is solved.

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#25
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many nuke advocates go much too far in the "nuclear power will solve all our problems!" That said, the strongest arguments for nuclear power has always been as part of a balanced energy diet, not as the off the shelf answer to everything. So, how do we figure out where it's appropriate and where not? Properly price carbon, and remove all distorting subsidies to all forms of energy, from fossil fuels to solar…

Dear fellow free market enthusiast, I fear it is not possible to determine a price for the storage of nuclear waste, because it needs to be taken care of so long. If one could estimate a price, I would doubt that any of todays companies companies is yet big enough to pay for it. If you look at germany for instance: We are using nuclear power since decades, in almost 20 plants. Yet there is no solution for waste stora…

The US had a ban on reprocessing nuclear material and the industry is currently not commercially viable. However, other countries (France and Germany) do recycle their nuclear material. This can help reduce the amount of nuclear waste.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#26
If I am correctly informed (would love to hear from people who are involved in the project), this project is being done in spite of the Norwegian government's stance on nuclear energy.

Thor Energy and its associated researchers have tried to stir up support for thorium reserach for years now, but there has been very little support and large amount of uninformed opposition ("nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad"). A number of physicists, notably Egil Lillestøl at the University of Bergen, have talked to official figures about this for a long time about this without getting any kind of traction.

Thorium energy seems to be a very promising candidate for safe, clean and cheap next-generation nuclear power. If these researchers manage to develop something without official support, it would be impressive indeed. That the Norwegian government isn't willing to support clean energy research is really quite baffling, given that the energy sector is hands-down the largest contributor to the Norwegian economy. And Norway has the world's second-largest known thorium reserves. For all our supposed good policies, we are still subject to mob rule and completely uninformed detractors.

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#27
post #26

If I am correctly informed (would love to hear from people who are involved in the project), this project is being done in spite of the Norwegian government's stance on nuclear energy. Thor Energy and its associated researchers have tried to stir up support for thorium reserach for years now, but there has been very little support and large amount of uninformed opposition ("nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad"). A number of physic…

Being cynical, perhaps the fact they're swimming in oil makes them disintersted as a nation in developing alternative energy.

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#28
For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend this video on liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...!

I passed the video by my uncle who was an expert/engineer dealing with control and safety of water cooled reactors. This is what he had to say:

"I found the video very informative technically, as well as being effective in countering many of the the arguments of those who profess to be against nuclear power in any form. I also found the details of the design of the liquid thorium fluoride reactor intriguing. To become an advocate for further investment in this concept, I would have to learn more about how the concept deals with the safety issues involved in the handling of fluorine gas and fluoride materials."

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#29
post #26

If I am correctly informed (would love to hear from people who are involved in the project), this project is being done in spite of the Norwegian government's stance on nuclear energy. Thor Energy and its associated researchers have tried to stir up support for thorium reserach for years now, but there has been very little support and large amount of uninformed opposition ("nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad"). A number of physic…

Being cynical, perhaps the fact they're swimming in oil makes them disintersted as a nation in developing alternative energy.

"Norwegian crude oil production peaked in 2001 and as of 2012 it has declined about 50% from the peak. This fact has been overshadowed by the oil price growth in recent years."

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9166

Re: Norway is building thorium reactor

#30
post #26

If I am correctly informed (would love to hear from people who are involved in the project), this project is being done in spite of the Norwegian government's stance on nuclear energy. Thor Energy and its associated researchers have tried to stir up support for thorium reserach for years now, but there has been very little support and large amount of uninformed opposition ("nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad"). A number of physic…

Being cynical, perhaps the fact they're swimming in oil makes them disintersted as a nation in developing alternative energy.

95% of the power generated in Norway comes from hydropower[1] so we already have a sustainable and green power source. I think it's more likely that the government sees power generation in Norway as a "solved" problem, and wants to be careful about introducing nuclear power. The general opinion is basically "nuclear is dangerous!", and no-one wants to be the first politician to support it.

[1]: Source: http://www.ssb.no/energi/ (Norwegian site)

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