Nuclear Power For Electric Elios. Ok It's About Thorium.

[AriLea]

Was given this link. I am against nuclear in general, but maybe not against Thorium. I'm not even thinking they are so much the same thing anymore.

This is long, two hours, and absolutely worth watching.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/thorium-energy-solution/

Learned a heck of a lot about Nuclear power in this video, and just how stupid political moves and hard stances can be. You really need to know the details when you decide to hold firm, make a change or chase an idea

Then follow up with this.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-china-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor/

 

[bowers baldwin]

Was given this link. I am against nuclear in general, but maybe not against Thorium. I'm not even thinking they are so much the same thing anymore.

This is long, two hours, and absolutely worth watching.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/thorium-energy-solution/

Learned a heck of a lot about Nuclear power in this video, and just how stupid political moves and hard stances can be. You really need to know the details when you decide to hold firm, make a change or chase an idea

Then follow up with this.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-china-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor/

I hope I don't start an argument here, but coal is way worse.. Coal kills way more people. I understand the danger of nuclear power, but Id rather live next to a nuke plant than a coal burning power plant.. I am not saying I like it, but given the choice of the 2 evils, I'll take living next to Limerick over Beesley's point any day.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

 

[Ekh]

View attachment 7014
I hope I don't start an argument here, but coal is way worse.. Coal kills way more people. I understand the danger of nuclear power, but Id rather live next to a nuke plant than a coal burning power plant.. I am not saying I like it, but given the choice of the 2 evils, I'll take living next to Limerick over Beesley's point any day.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

The point of the LFTR (Thorium reactor) is that you DON'T have waste piling up. The thing fissions til it's 99% inert, unlike Uranium which is typically called "spent" when it is 1% depleted. By the time the Thorium in an LFTR is burned up, disposal is non-hazardous.

 

[bowers baldwin]

The point of the LFTR (Thorium reactor) is that you DON'T have waste piling up. The thing fissions til it's 99% inert, unlike Uranium which is typically called "spent" when it is 1% depleted. By the time the Thorium in an LFTR is burned up, disposal is non-hazardous.

Oh I'm totally on board with a Thorium reactor, but they've been talking about this since before I was born, so I'm not ready to jump up and down about it just yet.. From Wikipedia:


After World War II, uranium-based nuclear reactors were built to produce electricity. These were similar to the reactor designs that produced material for nuclear weapons. During that period, the U.S. government also built an experimental molten salt reactor using U-233 fuel, the fissile material created by bombarding thorium with neutrons. The reactor, built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, operated critical for roughly 15000 hours from 1965 to 1969. In 1968, Nobel laureate and discoverer of Plutonium, Glenn Seaborg, publicly announced to the Atomic Energy Commission, of which he was chairman, that the thorium-based reactor had been successfully developed and tested:



See my own radio active stuff here:

 

[Ekh]

Oh I'm totally on board with a Thorium reactor, but they've been talking about this since before I was born, so I'm not ready to jump up and down about it just yet.. From Wikipedia:


After World War II, uranium-based nuclear reactors were built to produce electricity. These were similar to the reactor designs that produced material for nuclear weapons. During that period, the U.S. government also built an experimental molten salt reactor using U-233 fuel, the fissile material created by bombarding thorium with neutrons. The reactor, built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, operated critical for roughly 15000 hours from 1965 to 1969. In 1968, Nobel laureate and discoverer of Plutonium, Glenn Seaborg, publicly announced to the Atomic Energy Commission, of which he was chairman, that the thorium-based reactor had been successfully developed and tested:



See my own radio active stuff here:

That's part of the point -- why AREN'T we jumping up and down about it? Watch the movie. You'll find out, and it's not pretty.

Effectively, we've got the better mousetrap and are ignoring it. The Chinese, the Indians (the nation, not the tribes), and various other nations are NOT ignoring it.

We committed to the Uranium - Plutonium route initially because they could produce bombs. Thorium can't. Then, we committed to the FBR (fast breeder reactor) which had two big problems: 1. It produced lots of weapons grade plutonium, and security problems were a nightmare. 2. It was cooled by liquid sodium, which is one of the nastiest substances on earth to work with. This program was abandoned.

Finally, the folks who built nuclear power plants don't build them any more. But they make a ton of money selling fuel, which is increasingly scarce, and correspondingly more expensive. Fuel rods are called "spent" when they still have 99% of their energy -- and then they have to be disposed of, which we STILL have no real way of doing. So GE, for instance, gets richer and richer, while we run out of uranium. It's not sustainable. This isn't opinion, it's recognized around the world.

So, between inertia (we've always done it this way), the Military's desire for weapons-grade material, and the greed of suppliers to the industry, we are stuck.

The Chinese, who openly got the plans for their LFTR reactor from Oak Ridge (nobody cared; no security needed for thorium-based reactors), aren't dawdling. With their coal dependence and choking cities, they know they need Plan B, and LFTR is it. (LFTR = Liquid Flluoride/ Thorium Reactor).

So maybe we SHOULD get all excited about this. After all, our Elios won't run forever, and the world is cooking itself using fossil fuels. LFTR is one way to get off the oil tit, and eliminate toxic nuclear waste problems for good.

So, yeah, jump up and down. Overcoming 70 years of government inertia ain't easy.

 

[Ty]

That's part of the point -- why AREN'T we jumping up and down about it? Watch the movie. You'll find out, and it's not pretty.

Effectively, we've got the better mousetrap and are ignoring it. The Chinese, the Indians (the nation, not the tribes), and various other nations are NOT ignoring it.

We committed to the Uranium - Plutonium route initially because they could produce bombs. Thorium can't. Then, we committed to the FBR (fast breeder reactor) which had two big problems: 1. It produced lots of weapons grade plutonium, and security problems were a nightmare. 2. It was cooled by liquid sodium, which is one of the nastiest substances on earth to work with. This program was abandoned.

Finally, the folks who built nuclear power plants don't build them any more. But they make a ton of money selling fuel, which is increasingly scarce, and correspondingly more expensive. Fuel rods are called "spent" when they still have 99% of their energy -- and then they have to be disposed of, which we STILL have no real way of doing. So GE, for instance, gets richer and richer, while we run out of uranium. It's not sustainable. This isn't opinion, it's recognized around the world.

So, between inertia (we've always done it this way), the Military's desire for weapons-grade material, and the greed of suppliers to the industry, we are stuck.

The Chinese, who openly got the plans for their LFTR reactor from Oak Ridge (nobody cared; no security needed for thorium-based reactors), aren't dawdling. With their coal dependence and choking cities, they know they need Plan B, and LFTR is it. (LFTR = Liquid Flluoride/ Thorium Reactor).

So maybe we SHOULD get all excited about this. After all, our Elios won't run forever, and the world is cooking itself using fossil fuels. LFTR is one way to get off the oil tit, and eliminate toxic nuclear waste problems for good.

So, yeah, jump up and down. Overcoming 70 years of government inertia ain't easy.

Well, they don't work. That's why.

'Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.'

Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor; unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 – 'so these are really U-233 reactors,' says Karamoskos.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium-nuclear-uranium

 

[AriLea]

The Chinese thing is good in a way. It's getting us to at least look at it. And too, wouldn't this provide Iran a non weapons way to have Nuke power with out nuke bombs, a win-win?. Do ya wonder why they haven't pandered for it? Why IS that? Cause they actually want the other kind?
Someone should offer it to them as a condition, and see what they say.

 

[AriLea]

...; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater,...

That's the contension of the video, they are cheaper than what we've had. Much cheaper, more efficent. I don't think the video is suggesting government subsity. In fact they are saying don't wait, don't really need it. But it will take big investment, just not as big as one might otherwise think.

If that's right, the other countries will prove it out cost wise, it will take 10-15 years for us to discover that, and there ya are. By then, there will be no market for GE fuel and then they will be pandering to get it, since they can reengineer it for fuels only they can do. That's one way this could go down.

 

[Ty]

The Chinese thing is good in a way. It's getting us to at least look at it. And too, wouldn't this provide Iran a non weapons way to have Nuke power with out nuke bombs, a win-win?. Do ya wonder why they haven't pandered for it? Why IS that? Cause they actually want the other kind?
Someone should offer it to them as a condition, and see what they say.

There are only certain reactors hat can produce plutonium... and THOSE are easy to detect... But, who am I to talk nuclear?... Oh, just an instructor at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School...

 

[bowers baldwin]

Why waste all this time and energy on Thorium when we can discuss pie-in-the-sky cold fusion.. now that would be exciting...