Category Archives: reprocessing

Q and A with Russell Wilcox of Transatomic Power

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I asked Russell Wilcox of Transatomic Power to fill us in a little more about the WAMSR (Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor.)

The history of missed opportunity regarding advances embraced by France has left the US behind in the area of reprocessing. It started back when it was made illegal to recycle used fuel in the US. Many people don’t realize that law was reversed but the stigma attributed to nuclear waste and what to do with it has left a vacuum of unrealized potential.

This proposed new reactor had it’s beginnings at MIT with two of the co-founders of Transatomic Power Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan, both MIT PhD students.

The Massachussets based company is getting attention and advice from a team of experienced Continue reading →

Why Canada should Look at LFTR or DMSR

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This recent article posted in news website Canada.com and this This is the new video (see below ) posted on youtube by Gordon McDowell
that was part of a Washington D.C. conference “Commercializing Small Modular Reactors for Domestic and International Markets” – July 18.19 2012, are indicators that the timing is good for Canada to become involved in next generation nuclear research and development.
At the panel discussion at the July 19th evening discussion titled “Public‐Private Partnerships to Commercialize SMRs” this video was provided.

The conference (see agenda pdf) had guests covering the flip side of light water reactors (LWRs) and with a focus on small modular reactors (SMRs.) For those less up to speed on nuclear technology SMRs have become a buzz word in the nuclear industry partly because of the need to lower costs of power plants and partly because of the realization of the benefits of using small reactors for smaller power needs such as local industrial usage and smaller communities. The LWR is what we all know as American and their influence is worldwide. They form the majority of reactors in the world although Korea, India and Russia and more recently China have developed HWRs with the influence of Canada. Canada has exclusively heavy water reactors. HWRs which are better at using unenriched Uranium and is a better fit for Thorium as a solid fuel. So the conference was focused on non-LWRs such as the molten salt reactors including LFTR and DMSR and some others including the Energy Multiplier Module and the Gen4 Module.

The panelists are Dr. Tim Birtch presenting General Atomic’s Energy Multiplier Module (waste to Energy converter), John Kutsch of the Thorium Energy Alliance on molten salt reactors (MSRs LFTR and DMSR)
and Bob Prince of Gen4 Energy (formerly Hyperion) who presents the Gen4 module.

How free is the regulatory system from political influence? This is the way to judge whether a country will support nuclear. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) just took a thrashing by Harry Reid because of their unwillingness to keep Jaczko as their chairman. This is really sour grapes and all the proof we need to show how the NRC does not make decisions independent of political influence. The fact is that Jaczko was there largely to prevent advancement of nuclear energy and to guaranty that Yucca Mountain stays closed which was a condition Harry Reid made when he conditionally offered to support Obama if Obama appointed Reids choice for NRC chairman.

Rumour has it that Canada’s CNSC is supportive of Molten Salt Reactor. There is good reason for the oils sands developers in Alberta to take a serious look at SMRs and particulalrly the LFTR proposed by FLIBE Energy and the DMSR proposed by David LeBlanc. The heat processing that is available from running such a reactor is cost effective and much less harmful to the environment. With the pressure on Canada to conform to some kind of standard on CO2 emmissions it makes sense to improve the methods of oil extraction.

UK's Weinberg Foundation Brings Renewed Hope for MSRs

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Kirk Sorensen has started a series of posts about his September trip to England. There has always been regret among Kirk and his supporters that Alvin Weinberg was not more recognized for his contributions to MSR research. Weinberg also developed the LWR which is the design behind most of the worlds reactors. Having the foundation launched is an exciting step and to be launched by Baroness Bryony Worthington does add significant credibility to all advocates for Thorium energy. Kirk describes the positive energy in the room and you can also sample that same positive energy when Baroness Worthington talks about the Nuclear industry in the UK at the House of Lords at Westminster.

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 →

Why Blue Ribbon Commission Report Will Be a Terminator Moment

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I am rather concerned about the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Energy Future. In the first Terminator movie the future of the world is dependent on an advancement in robotic technology and it causes the survivors of near annihilation from robot forces to travel back in time to prevent the fateful moment from happening. I can’t say enough about how important the results of the commission will be. A lot of weight is on their shoulders.

The polls that test support for nuclear are better than previous years but the recent Fukushima incident has caused the antinuclear people to apply more pressure.  What will be the fateful moment and what announcement would be so important to the future survival of the planet? It may be the report as a whole that makes a difference and how heavily it weighs in favor of Thorium Molten Salt Reactors and in favor of a push for regulatory reform. My whole two years as a pronuclear blogger feels put on hold in anticipation of their report.

Just like the US government seems blind to their overspending and misplaced rhetoric the nuclear industry will possibly lose their chance to save the planet from drastic climate change and perhaps the point of no return if the BRC does not do their job. If they are somehow motivated by corporate forces or desire for personal gain the outcome could be very serious. If they submit to pressure because of the history behind the closing of Yucca Mountain or the Fukushima incident it would be tragic.

It’s true that China has started their pursuit of the TFMSR which will be their version of a TMSR or LFTR. There is no guaranty they will succeed.

So BRC members please seriously consider the benefits and potential of this very promising technology which has been ignored for far too long.

Read the plan laid out by Kirk Sorensen and his fellow pro LFTR community.

http://energyfromthorium.com/plan/

 

Below is from the DOE website http://www.energy.gov/news/8698.htm

March 2, 2010
Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future Charter
 

The Secretary of Energy, acting at the direction of the President, is establishing the Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel, high-level waste, and materials derived from nuclear activities.  Specifically, the Commission will provide advice, evaluate alternatives, and make recommendations for a new plan to address these issues, including:

  1. Evaluation of existing fuel cycle technologies and R&D programs. Criteria for evaluation should include cost, safety, resource utilization and sustainability, and the promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and counter-terrorism goals.
  2. Options for safe storage of used nuclear fuel while final disposition pathways are selected and deployed;
  3. Options for permanent disposal of used fuel and/or high-level nuclear waste, including deep geological disposal;
  4. Options to make legal and commercial arrangements for the management of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste in a manner that takes the current and potential full fuel cycles into account;
  5. Options for decision-making processes for management and disposal that are flexible, adaptive, and responsive;
  6. Options to ensure that decisions on management of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste are open and transparent, with broad participation;
  7. The possible need for additional legislation or amendments to existing laws, including the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended; and
  8. Any such additional matters as the Secretary determines to be appropriate for consideration.

Review the Advisory Committee Charter (pdf – 56kb)

 

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

Posted on by • Posted in LFTR, Mining, nuclear, nuclear plants, recycling, reprocessing, thorium, uranium • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments

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…

 

 

Hey Utah, China knows Weinberg was right about TMSR's. No Water Needed!

Posted on by • Posted in Advocates, Charles Barton, education, Kirk Sorensen, LFTR, nuclear, nuclear plants, reprocessing, thorium • Tagged , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

Utah needs water for nuclear power but water is scarce. (see Article in the Salt Lake tribune) The only alternative besides a LFTR is Natural Gas.

What’s that? A “LiFTer”? Huh? A LFTR is a Molten Salt Reactor that is a Fourth Generation Reactor yet it’s origins are predecessors of our current reactors. Why does China and Japan want them? China has started their own program as of last month. Japan will likely follow this year. Why? Because they are extremely adaptable and useful for all kinds of applications.  Besides, thorium is plentiful and the reactors emit zero carbon dioxide. Natural gas emits how much CO2? We know that it’s a lot.

The TMSR’s are cleaner and more fuel efficient and create almost no nuclear waste. Oh, and did I mention that it can also reprocess used fuel very effectively and that they are less expensive to build than LWR’s because they don’t need a dome containment.  Who invented the TMSR? Weinberg!!! Alvin Weinberg. You know who invented the light bulb. You know who invented the telephone. But you don’t know who invented the LWR. The basic principal originated with guess who? Alvin Weinberg!!! The 104 reactors (soon to be 105 if things work out) are all based on Alvin Weinberg’s design. Is his name in your child’s history book or science book? No.

These facts have been stated over and over among the various websites who advocate the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor and it’s successor the LFTR. China says it might take them 20 years but experts here say it could be done in less than 10 years maybe even 5 years. What’s stopping us? Just a few regulatory and licensing hurdles and an entourage of  ”do gooder” antinuclear groups who, like Oprah Winfrey’s audience, judges before they know the facts. Sorry Oprah. I guess you deserve some credit for recognizing they exist. I guess Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck also count on the gullible masses.

LFTR’s don’t use water. They don’t need pressurized containment. They can be shut down very quickly.  What’s the old KnowItAll Nuclear establishment’s excuse? The graphite cracks. Hmm that’s a 50 year old problem. Material knowledge has grown immensely in 50 years. There are a whole group of smart guys who believe in this technology. You owe it to Alvin Weinberg. You owe it to the American people. You can’t just let this huge body of knowledge stay on the shelves of some library at ORNL.

“A single thorium mine in Idaho could produce 4500 MT of fuel per year. The current US energy load could be supplied by 400MT. We also ALREADY have 3200 MT of it stored underground in a Nevada Test Site from past efforts.”

It’s taken almost 30 years for us to realize that we’ve fallen behind in the energy race. We still are a highly resourceful people. The next wave of reactors really should be LFTR’s but how about building just one to start. What better opportunity than a place that is short of water. Ironically the 1st reactor in thirty years will start in 2012 will still be based on the LWR’s. And in that time France built their fleet to handle 80% of their electricity.  It’s not the law enforcers who are to blame it’s the model of regulation, licensing and punitive rules for the unfair advantage they have over fossil fuels.

Even if the country does not embrace LFTR’s I am still pronuclear. The developments over the last 30 years have been huge in improvements to LWR’s and HWR’s (Canada’s contribution).

You can look around here or go to http://energyfromthorium.com or http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com or check out my blog list for more information.