Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

[Vinod2070]

FALSE !!!

Where is the world largest thorium deposits found?
Answers.com - Where is the world largest thorium deposits found

estimates in tonnes (2010)
Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TRUE.

India is already in top 3.

There may be more reserved discovered if we make that effort.

 

[Hafizzz]

I will place my big bet on China's future thorium reactors. No hard feelings India.

Soon you will see lots of China bashing from Indian media if China takes the lead in Thorium Reactors.

 

[SpArK]

Soon you will see lots of China bashing from Indian media if China takes the lead in Thorium Reactors.

Dont worry , you can start a lot of threads on that with ur own headers and funny comments regarding it.

 

[500]

Japan's earthquake only showed how safe is nuclear. 40 years old reactor withstood 9.0 magnitude earthquake with tsunami. Modern reactors are even more safe.

 

[Hafizzz]

Japan's earthquake only showed how safe is nuclear. 40 years old reactor withstood 9.0 magnitude earthquake with tsunami. Modern reactors are even more safe.

If that is the case then Israelis should build more nuke plant in Israel

 

[Alphatech]

If that is the case then Israelis should build more nuke plant in Israel

Or they could just take over some land right in the middle of what is left of Palestine, and set up their nuclear reactors there. I am sure it will eventually also help to reduce the Palestinian power shortage caused by their rapid population growth.

 

[casual]

this technology sounds fantastic. maybe china will be the first to break free from coal and oil.

 

[Akasa]

Japan's earthquake only showed how safe is nuclear. 40 years old reactor withstood 9.0 magnitude earthquake with tsunami. Modern reactors are even more safe.

Which resulted in a partial nuclear meltdown in all the reactors and radioactive fallout over most of the world.

 

[S10]

Which resulted in a partial nuclear meltdown in all the reactors and radioactive fallout over most of the world.

All over the world? The amount of radiation recorded in North America was minor. Even Tokyo, a city as close to the plant as Fukushima has levels well below safe limits. These first generation reactors took the worst nature could throw at them and still manage to contain the crisis to a local scale.

I'd say bring on nuclear power.

 

[marshall]

I thought MSRs were something in between. They are a molten solid.

MSRs and liquid thorium reactors are the same thing. There is no in between.

 

[marshall]

Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list doesn't have China in it, so it can't be very large.

On the other hand, it seems China has sufficient Uranium deposits.

Question: Why is China interested in Thorium reactors? Where would it source the material from?

Liquid thorium reactors, aka. LFTR...aka MSR is even more efficient than breeder reactors and can burn over 99% of thorium fuel including the dangerous actinides which are the main source of long lived nuclear waste. Thorium is also much more abundant in the crust, is much cheaper to extract than uranium and is a by-product of rare earth refining of which China is the world's largest producer.

In other words, thorium is the only power source that can ensure China has long-term energy self-sufficiency that also happens to be clean, safe, cheap and abundant.

 

[marshall]

So it can operate at atmospheric pressure? That would certainly decrease costs, complexity, and size as well as improve safety as there is not a pressure differential that caused the Hydrogen explosion at Fukushima.

Yes, sounds incredible compared to traditional nuclear reactor tech. Liquid thorium reactors can produce the same amount of power something like ~50 times less space volume because none of the complicated plumbing required for cooling is necessary. It's a completely self-regulating closed fuel cycle.

 

[below_freezing]

I disagree. Solar is also a very viable competitor. Photovoltaics can be integrated into building materials, the technology exists, is proven and uses existing process equipment, it will only get cheaper, and even 20% of the urban space in China being covered with photovoltaics (easy to do once integrated into building materials) at 10% efficiency can double our electricity production.

The first step is to pull the plug on Suntech, the Australian owned but government sponsored low tech traitor company that suppresses newcomers in the market.

 

[S10]

Liquid thorium reactors, aka. LFTR...aka MSR is even more efficient than breeder reactors and can burn over 99% of thorium fuel including the dangerous actinides which are the main source of long lived nuclear waste. Thorium is also much more abundant in the crust, is much cheaper to extract than uranium and is a by-product of rare earth refining of which China is the world's largest producer.

In other words, thorium is the only power source that can ensure China has long-term energy self-sufficiency that also happens to be clean, safe, cheap and abundant.

Thorium sounds great on paper, but it has two drawbacks for China. The known deposits of Thorium are concentrated in U.S, India, Australia and Canada. While they are not hostile, they are certainly far from dependable sources of supply. This is especially true if relationships with them became sour.

Furthermore, it is easier for China to expand its current arsenal of nuclear stockpile through the use of uranium and plutonium. Also, spent uranium and plutonium fuels can be reprocessed into MOX compound for further use.

China has already had dozens of new reactors under construction/planning, so Thorium reactors won't come into the picture for at least 20 years down the road. I see China's roadmap to nuclear power as followed:

Gen III+ fission (present to 2025) -> Gen IV fission reactors (2025 to 2060, possibly with Thorium fuel) -> Gen I fusion reactors

 

[SBD-3]

here is a good read on why Thorium is preferable as a safe option

Green Energy from Thorium in South Asia
In addition to green energy from water, wind and sun, is there a source of clean, renewable and plentiful energy that can satisfy the growing needs of humankind without destroying the planet earth? The answer is a qualified yes. [More...]

Many scientists believe that the answer lies in developing and exploiting the abundant but mildly-radioactive element thorium in a redesigned nuclear fuel cycle. Large deposits of thorium oxide are found in many countries of the world, including United States, China, India and Pakistan. There are significant concentrations of thorium oxide in Kerala, India and Mardan, Pakistan.

Research conducted by Dr. Muhammad Haleem Khan at Punjab University’s Institute of Chemistry found thorium oxide concentrations of 6.5% in Badar near Mardan in Pakistan, and 5.9% in Kerala, India. (Reference: Dr. M.H. Khan, 1992, Chapter 4, Page 114).

Rising concerns about climate change caused by carbon emissions are forcing a second look at nuclear energy. But the uranium-based nuclear power has had a bad name for various reasons, including potential for more disasters like Three-Mile-Island and Chernobyl, as well as genuine worries about nuclear weapons proliferation from uranium/plutonium byproducts, and highly radioactive waste disposal.

Just last week, a fire at an Indian nuclear research facility killed two people, according to the BBC News. And last month, more than 90 Indian workers suffered radiation injuries due to contamination of drinking water at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka, India.

In addition to the high-profile case of nuclear proliferation by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan, there have been other cases posing the nuclear proliferation threat from India, particularly as it dramatically expands its nuclear energy production after the US-India nuclear deal. In July 1998, India’ s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized eight kg of nuclear material from three engineers in Chennai. It was reported that the uranium was stolen from an atomic research center.

The case still remains pending. On November 7, 2000, IAEA disclosed that Indian police had seized 57 pounds of uranium and arrested two men for illicit trafficking of radioactive material. IAEA had said that Indian civil nuclear facilities were vulnerable to thefts.

Thorium-based reactor technology addresses many of the above concerns to a great extent. Dr Hashemi-Nezhad of Australia’s Sydney University says thorium has all of the benefits of uranium as a nuclear fuel but none of the drawbacks. Dr Hashemi-Nezhad believes thorium waste would only remain radioactive for 500 years, not the tens of thousands that uranium by-products remain active.

The thorium reactor byproducts are not suitable as fissile material for nuclear weapons, reducing concerns about dual-use of peaceful nuclear technology.

“In fact, the green movement must come behind this project because we are moving in a direction to destroy all these existing nuclear wastes, to prevent nuclear weapons production, to [prevent] Chernobyl accident happening again,” the Australian ABCOnline quotes Dr Hashemi-Nezhad as saying.

Although thorium itself cannot support a nuclear chain reaction, subjecting thorium to a stream of accelerated neutrons from plutonium inside a nuclear reactor turns this element into uranium-233, which can support fission. For this reason, the designers of nuclear plants have long considered the possibility of combining thorium with a fissionable isotope, which would prime the reaction. Increasing concerns about the diversion of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel to the construction of nuclear weapons has prompted a revival.

Thorium-based nuclear fuels would leave far less waste plutonium than conventional fuels. What is more, the plutonium created is of a type that is not weapons-grade. The nuclear power industry is unlikely to adopt thorium for economic reasons alone, but should policymakers mandate its use in an effort to limit the proliferation of weapons and alleviate waste-disposal safety concerns, the technical modifications required of nuclear power plants would be readily achievable.

The idea of thorium reactors for nuclear energy is not new, according to a story published by Wired Magazine. It was first detailed in 1958 in a book titled “Fluid Fuel Reactors” under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission as part of its Atoms for Peace program. But it was not pursued at the time because the US was in the midst of a major nuclear arms buildup requiring large amounts of enriched uranium and plutonium for its WMDs. The use of thorium would not help in the weapons production, because the waste from thorium is not suitable for weapons.

The Wired Magazine article features Kirk Sorensen who is championing the revival of research and development into thorium reactors in the United States. Sorenson runs a blog “Energy from Thorium” that is bringing together a community of engineers, researchers, amateurs and enthusiasts talking about thorium.

When Sorensen and his online community of scientists began delving into the history of thorium work done by Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Lab, they discovered not only an alternative fuel but also the design for the alternative reactor, according to the Wired story. Using that template, the Energy From Thorium team helped produce a design for a new liquid fluoride thorium reactor, or LFTR (pronounced “lifter&#8221, which, according to estimates by Sorensen and others, would be some 50 percent more efficient than today’s light-water uranium reactors. If the US reactor fleet could be converted to LFTRs overnight, existing thorium reserves would power the US for a thousand years.

Currently, there are active research programs in the United States, China and India, the biggest coal users and polluters in the world, to develop thorium fuel cycles. The research teams are exploring various approaches, including Ur+Th oxide rods and Ur and Th fluoride solutions, the latter preferred in the United States for its higher efficiency and safety. While there is promise in the technology, it is far from ready for commercial exploitation. In the mean time, the best way to tackle the climate change menace is to reduce the use of coal and other fossil fuels, and focus on hydro, solar and wind energy development in the foreseeable future.

Green Energy from Thorium in South Asia | Pakistan Daily