Category Archives: nuclear plants

The Dawn of the Thorium Era

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What will a Thorium Era look like. In the beginning the road will be a little rocky. Resistance will be inevitable. But as more and more natural disasters start to happen and as the nations who fear nuclear start to regret abandoning nuclear because their quality of living declines there will be a gradual acceptance.

Chances are the first Thorium reactors will be used for heat process applications. The need for high temperature industrial reactors will be of the molten salt variety. There’s no guaranty that Thorium will be the fuel of choice. Uranium also works quite well in a Molten Salt Reactor. (MSR)
Eventually however the abundance of Thorium will win over once the reactors become more popular.

Pioneers of Thorium Era


Alvin Weinberg
weinberg_alvin_b2 Eugene_Wigner_bio

Glenn Seaborg
Glenn_Seaborg

Heat applications that can make a big difference to the well being are things like solving water shortages by purifying and desalinating water. Also replacing steam can have large benefits when water is inconvenient. MSRs don’t need water to run.

After the reactors prove their capability the commercial reactors will follow.

It will be the hybrid reactors of the future. They will be multi-purpose reactors and very likely will be designed so that process heat is easy to access for industrial purposes. Design consistency will be the way to keep their costs down. The assembly production lines will start creating a whole new era of productivity and improved quality of life.

We have no idea how many projects cannot evolve because of the cost of an infrastructure. In fact, the so-called smart grid will not be needed if we learn to mass produce MSRs. Why build huge transmission lines if you can just add MSRs where they are needed.

Apart from practical reasons of helping any country’s industry grow and prosper there are the health and survival issues that MSRs can solve.
Energy created from MSRs is dense and uncontroversial. It is much more efficient at creating energy without nearly as much waste as conventional nuclear reactors. The opportunity is there for medical isotopes that will assist in saving lives.

And for those who want to stop coal plants from burning coal, the dirty energy source, MSRs are the answer. The pollution is getting so out of control now that even China is looking to nuclear plants as a solution fixing the mess. This is an understatement.

Places like England and Japan which have dense populations and are surrounded by water will need to replace the current energy sources with more reliable and easy to expand small footprint reactors. MSRs are also SMRs? What kind of anagram is that? Small Modular Reactors are becoming the reactor of highest praise in the US. MSRs will be modular and that will give them their flexibility and at the same time allow them to be cost effective.

We are seeing the signs of the new era with at least 5 countries starting their own research into making a Thorium Era happen.

So cutting down on pollution and CO2 is not the only reason for supporting the idea of a Thorium era.

Another welcome book about Thorium but more by Robert Hargraves

Posted on by • Posted in Advocates, education, LFTR, New Posts, nuclear, nuclear plants, thorium, uranium • 3 Comments

Review by Rick Maltese of the book by Robert Hargraves titled

THORIUM energy cheaper than coal.

If any of us were picked to join a team to decide on an energy policy what would you do? I’d want a book that was easy to follow, clearly referenced with facts expanded on about the leading energy solutions.

Robert Hargraves does just that. His book takes you through some fundamentals and then shows you the facts in summary fashion. Exactly what we would need to be up to speed when joining discussions about
the pros and cons of various competing forms of energy. But more than that. It is like the textbook that you first go to when you want to get to the bottom of something nuclear or other energy related topic.

Choosing to study molten salt nuclear reactors is a rewarding path of study Continue reading →

Things for LFTRs looking up (Rumors and Predictions)

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There are 5 or 6 countries that have an approximate 5 year plan for an MSR prototype. They are China, South Africa a joint venture between Australia and Czechoslovakia, maybe France and maybe Japan. And maybe the US. FLIBE Energy in the US is hoping for a deal with the Military which would let them get a prototype faster than waiting for approval and laws to be changed. The UK has interest too and may invest outside their country for their first shot. Information updates cam be found at http://thoriummsr.com or http://energyfromthorium.com and http://thoriumenergyalliance.com which is having their TEAC4 conference in Chicago May 31st and June 1st. The recent steps taken in US engineer John Kutsch is fighting to have a law changed that will allow mining of Thorium. The mining of rare earth metals is monopolized by China. It’s time for a change.

Japan had an interesting concept to power cargo ships with mini Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. They were being called Mini Fujis.

Another milestone is the creation of the Weinberg Foundation in England started with the support of Bryony Worthington.

ThEC12 will be held in Shanghai at the Hope Hotel, Shanghai, China October 29- November 1, 2012.

Fit ending for 2011 Atomic Insights has lengthy discussion on LFTRs

Posted on by • Posted in education, LFTR, nuclear, nuclear plants, Rod Adams, thorium, uranium • 1 Comment

Atomic Insights has a discussion happening that has caught the attention of some of the unconverted old school nuclear advocates as well as some LFTR advocates.

The original post was meant to compliment Kirk Sorensen for his recent Google Tech Talk but now has over 150 comments.

Compliments to Kirk for answering an often difficult to answer question. With all of the advantages of Thorium why did it never take off? Much of the first part gets technical but it appeals to the initiated and technically aware nuclear advocates.

This additional comment is a highlight of the discussion by Robert Steinhaus who also is a regular commenter on the Facebook group EnergyFromThorium

Robert Steinhaus … more 

December 26, 2011 | 12:54 PM

I would like to thank Kirk Sorensen for providing a very excellent review of the history that surrounded the decision to abandon Molten Salt Reactor development .
It would also like to thank Atomic Insights Blog for featuring this recent Google Tech Talk and for making this information available to a broader nuclear interested audience.
I offer the following short quotes from ORNL Laboratory Directors that may also bear on this subject.

Question: Why wasn’t this (Thorium Molten Salt Reactors) not done?

Comments by Dr. Alvin Weinberg – ORNL Director (1955-1973}
1. Politically established plutonium industry –
“Why didn’t the molten-salt system, so elegant and so well thought-out, prevail? I’ve already given the political reason: that the plutonium fast breeder arrived first and was therefore able to consolidate its political position within the AEC.”
2. Appearance of daunting technology -
“But there was another, more technical reason. The molten-salt technology is entirely different from the technology of any other reactor. To the inexperienced, [fluoride] technology is daunting…”
3. Breaking existing mindset –
“Perhaps the moral to be drawn is that a technology that differs too much from an existing technology has not one hurdle to overcome—to demonstrate its feasibility—but another even greater one—to convince influential individuals and organizations who are intellectually and emotionally attached to a different technology that they should adopt the new path”
4. Deferred to the future -
“It was a successful technology that was dropped because it was too different from the main lines of reactor development… I hope that in a second nuclear era, the [fluoride-reactor] technology will be resurrected.”

ORNL Deputy Director H.G. MacPherson:
1. Lack of technical understanding -
“The political and technical support for the program in the United States was too thin geographically. Within the United States, only in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was the technology really understood and appreciated.”
2. Existing bureaucracy -
“The thorium-fueled fluoride reactor program was in competition with the plutonium fast breeder program, which got an early start and had copious government development funds being spent in many parts of the United States. When the fluoride reactor development program had progressed far enough to justify a greatly expanded program leading to commercial development, the Atomic Energy Commission could not justify the diversion of substantial funds from the plutonium breeder to a competing program.”

 

 

 

Does "small" have a better chance of making it to market?

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Interview with Hyperion Power Generation CEO John R. “Grizz” Deal

It is a small 70 MW reactor but works in a distributed system as Romania and the Czech Republic are planning for 2013. About the size of an outhouse.

Interesting quotes :

John R. “Grizz” Deal: Transportable, not portable. Once you put it in the ground, it’s there for its life because it’s hot. It’s about a meter-and-a-half across and about 2 meters tall, which is very small.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

“So how do you get dependable, base-load power? Wind is not base-load capable. Solar is certainly not base-load capable. They’re not always there. You can’t store electricity; you generate it and then you use it or lose it.”

Those people—and virtually every country in the world, to some extent—rely upon United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing as a basis for their own licensing. So we are seeking a design certification and a license from the U.S. NRC, even if we never install one in the U.S.

[Other countries] won’t rely on [NRC licensing] completely, but they will leverage that work.

So an NRC license will get you in the door?

John R. “Grizz” Deal: Right. It’s a lot like the FDA and how getting licensed in the [European Union] helps you in the U.S. and vice versa.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

“…The difference here is it is really easy to build one computer chip, but it’s really hard to build a million of them because there’s quality control issues, there’s supplier issues, there’s raw material issues, so we’re doing that part of this so we can build—well, of version one, we expect to build 4,000 reactors.
Small or not, that’s a lot of reactors.

John R. “Grizz” Deal: The market opportunity is for half a million units today and it’s growing, so selling 4,000 units of our first design is a pretty reasonable goal. But we’ve still got to be very, very careful about how we get that final design done.

That’s what we’re doing now. We’re finalizing the design so that it’s repeatable, it’s replicatable and it’s got a high degree of quality control behind it because, quite honestly, unlike a lot of products out there, we are extremely regulated. You wouldn’t believe. And I’m glad that we’re highly regulated—it’s nuclear energy, after all; it should be highly regulated.

How tightly regulated is this technology?
John R. “Grizz” Deal: Just as highly regulated as the drug industry is the way that we put it. People are familiar with 20-year development cycles for biotech products. Well, we pre-empted the first 10 years of our quote-unquote product cycle because of the work that we’re leveraging from Los Alamos. So, if you wanted to make an analogy between the regulatory environment for nuclear reactors and a medical device or drug, you could say we’re getting ready to start clinical trials.

Do you have a working prototype?
John R. “Grizz” Deal: We’re leveraging the design of a very common reactor, called a TRIGA reactor. There are 60-something of those reactors around the world. They are the only reactor that the NRC has licensed for unattended operation, meaning it’s so safe that you can literally walk away from it. It’s walk-away safe.
So we’re taking that basic concept and …”

"What garbage…a Thorium reactor needs an accelerator like a fish needs a bicycle."

Posted on by • Posted in Advocates, education, Kirk Sorensen, LFTR, nuclear, nuclear plants, recycling, reprocessing, thorium, uranium • Tagged , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

This is Kirk Sorensen’s comment on his Facebook group page EnergyFromThorium which has encouraged 60 interesting responses.

 

What garbage…a thorium reactor needs an accelerator like a fish needs a bicycle.

www.dailymail.co.uk

No, not the engineer in the lab coat. Rather, the Electron Model of Many Applications in which she’s standing – a remarkable new technology which could change everything about the way we live.

15 hours ago ·  ·  · Share

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    • Cavan Stone

      Every scientist has their obsession, for those who tried to go into particle physics most have found that the problems there are best described as being akin to trench warfare. The accelerator crowd is probably made up of the folk who realized just how bleak particle physics is and need to get out. However the particle physics remains their true love and to make this problem “interesting” they over-complicate it by contorting the design to include their true love. One thing many scientists are guilty of is seeing their one true love as a golden hammer and everything else as a nail. I now I have fallen into this trap sometimes.
      15 hours ago ·  ·  2 people

    • Energy from Thorium

      ‎”‘This means the margin of safety is far greater than with a conventional plant,’ says Cywinski. ‘If the accelerator fails, all that will happen is that the reaction will subside. To stop the reactor, all you would have to do is switch off the accelerator.’”

      More mistakes from this ignorant fellow. If you walk away from any reactor with a negative temperature coefficient Continue reading →

Thorium Molten Salt Reactor covered in Wall Street Journal

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The Wall Street Journal wrote this on Thorium MARCH 19, 2011

…Does a Different Nuclear Power Lie Ahead? By MATT RIDLEY
Might the Fukushima accident eventually create a chance for the nuclear industry to “reboot”? In recent years some have begun to argue that solid-fuel uranium reactors like the ones in Japan are an outdated technology that deserves to peter out and be replaced by an entirely different kind of nuclear energy that will be both safer and cheaper…

The attention brought by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant break down has had unexpected attention brought to the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor which by the way has no need for water or containment and cannot melt down and will not radiate the worst nuclear isotopes.

There was a time when the Americans chose a path based on the perceived need to compete with the Russians for military supremacy. Nuclear weapons needed Plutonium. The method at the time was to breed Plutonium in a reactor. But Thorium Molten Salt Reactors could not produce Plutonium. This was viewed as a negative and became shelved.

Fifty years later, the worst nuclear breakdown since Chernobyl in 1986 has turned turned out to be relatively minor and the 50 remaining nuclear reactors in Japan remain safe. The different circumstances are so obvious. For instance human error was responsible for the Chernobyl accident. A natural disaster of such an unexpected strength that has not been experienced by Japan in modern history caused the disruption of 4 reactor units at the same plant in Fukushima Daiichi. The safety record for nuclear power plants has been unsurpassed by any other power facility or other industry.

The antinuclear movement has unwittingly helped the progress of nuclear energy. Articles such as these will now become more common over the next few months. The reality is that people are asking why has there been so little innovation over the last 30 years? Can reactors be made safer?

One of the main inventors of the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor, Alvin Weinberg, knew that they were superior to the solid fueled reactors and pushed for their acceptance. He eventually lost his job for making too much noise about it when the politics of the time were more about arms than climate change. Weinberg was ahead of his time. He also designed the Light Water Reactor, currently the most popular reactors, which he himself turned against.

Now considered a fourth generation technology the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor shows the most promise as a nuclear energy design precisely because they solve the problems that made the older nuclear power plant designs unpopular.

South African Scientists Like Thorium

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From South Africa
Nuclear matters
Thorium could be answer to South Africa’s energy woes
Published 3 March 2011 in HSNW

…South African scientists are increasingly touting thorium as a viable solution for the country’s energy woes; scientists believe that South Africa could use its plentiful reserves of thorium, a radioactive rare earth metal, to generate greenhouse gas-free electricity; South Africa’s aging energy infrastructure has led to rolling blackouts and energy rations; South Africa currently generates 78 percent of its energy from coal making it one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases in the world; thorium is a better alternative to uranium in nuclear power production as it cannot be weaponized, does not need to be converted or enriched, its radioactive waste breaks down faster, and is less expensive and environmentally friendlier to extract…

…

According to Professor Mulder thorium was the preferred material for the nuclear industry for nearly twenty years, before it was eventually replaced by uranium because it could not be weaponized.

In pushing for the use of thorium, columnist Dave Gleason of NewsTime writes, the rare earth metal “is inherently incapable of causing a meltdown; it doesn’t need to be converted or enriched; it is very energy efficient; its waste lasts for tens of years unlike uranium which hangs around malevolently for thousands; it is much less expensive than uranium extracts and is reasonably environmentally friendly to mine.”

Eskom, the state owned utility company which generates 95 percent of the country’s power, says that it will not consider using thorium until it is licensed by the National Nuclear Regulator.

South Africa contains vast reserves of rare earth metals and in the 1950s was the world’s largest source of rare earth minerals.

South Africa’s thorium mine was closed in 1963, but last October a Canadian mining company was granted a license to extract thorium from the mine, located north of Cape Town.

The metal is not currently available for commercial use yet as a reprocessing plant must be built to “breed” uranium 223 from thorium before it can be used to generate power…