Th Solves Global Energy Shortage?

Here's to hoping this isn't another one of those crazy, loopy, government-suppression-conspiracy-related ideas. The benefits sound wonderful, and almost too good to be true. I'd really like to see where this goes.

Nuclear power definitely has its place. Mars, for example, is perfect. Or the moon, where there's no wind for wind power and no solar power for two weeks at a time. (Unless you're at the poles.)

But on Earth there's enough extra energy floating around to give us plenty of power along with increases in efficiency.

I've read about thorium reactors, though, and the nuclear waste produced is about 10% of the waste from current reactors, and it's perfectly safe after 49 years, not a couple thousand.

But that still doesn't solve the problem of the radioactivity of the containment vessels.

If thorium is so great, how come we do not see W trying to push Thorium on Iran? Nuclear weapon problem solved? Go thorium

Are you kidding? George W. couldn't even pronounce thorium.

Like so many technologies that actually could provide a base for a long term strategy for greater energy and political stability, this is so far off the Bush administrations radar it borders on the absurd.

If it isn't petroleum (or hydrogen, haha) Bushe's buddies couldn't sell it. Why invest in new technologies when we can just invade an oil producing country???

I suspect this is the MOX publicity bandwagon trying to keep the nuclear industry alive in the hope that full scale fast reactors will eventually be available.

Even with different feedback and different delayed neutrons no one fissile fuel is magically safe without engineering work comparable to existing reactors.

Not that I'm opposing the idea - just apply suitable scrutiny to the claimed properties.

My father used to work in the nuclear energy sector and talked about using Thorium for years. Appearently it has been known that this stuff can be used for a long time. The only problem is the initial investment to research and build the first thorium power plants (think Manhatten Project II). The research challengers are, however, much smaller than those of fusion.

He always says that there was a conscious decision to go for Uran and Plutonium because back in those days they WANTED the stuff to build bombs.

The thorium reactor described is an interesting concept proposed by reputable scientists (the physicists at the CERN accelerator). Some of these folks are working on fusion. The proposed "Energy Amplifier" uses a proton beam to extract energy from the fuel. It is very different than the current nuclear technology - it is not just a matter of replacing uranium fuel with thorium fuel. It may have some safety and non-proliferation advantages - and it is interesting that proponents note its waste will be less radioactively nasty than common coal ashes after 500 years. (Yep, coal has radionuclides in it naturally - most stays in the ashes but some goes into the air as tiny particulates.) One interesting feature is that the fluid used with the fuel is not water as in today's reactors, or air as in the proposed Pebble Bed Reactor - but liquid lead. And this illustrates some of the problems with this approach. Dealing with liquid metals on a large scale as part of a heat exchanger mechanism present their own special engineering problems which will have to be solved. The proponents note that more R&D is needed in the area of material corrosion and material endurance. (BTW: Liquid sodium was tried in early reactors, and there were a lot of problems.)

In short - the Thorium Energy Amplifier nuclear reactor is a decent idea to look into but it's going to take a lot of work to get the practical engineering aspects solved and plants which work consistently well. Decades, most likely - if it proves feasible at all.

In the meantime, the electricity we use (and we should use less) has to come from somewhere. Few really understand how electricity is produced on a mass scale today - - which isn't so good if we're to make the right decisions for our energy future.. If you would like an entertaining profile of U.S. electric generation, and nuclear energy in particular, see my novel "Rad Decision". It is available free to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com - and they seem to like it judging from their homepage comments. It's also been endorsed by Stewart Brand, founder of "The Whole Earth Catalog", internet pioneer and noted futurist. I've spent over twenty years working in nuclear power plants, and in my novel I profile the people, the politics and the technology. Incuded are overviews of Chernobyl, TMI and a detailed look at a fictional accident.
RadDecision.blogspot.com

Why is Thorium not used? Like was said its not weapon grade. I wouldn't doubt that the aquisition of uranium for weapons is masked by the need of uranium for power plants.

Don't be confused, there is some risk of use for weapons, dirty bombs of course and with much refinement nuclear bombs. No reactor makes weapons grade fuel. It all needs to be enriched, even power plant fuel. Weapons grade is just more refining.

My father used to work in the nuclear energy sector and talked about using Thorium for years. Appearently it has been known that this stuff can be used for a long time. The only problem is the initial investment to research and build the first thorium power plants (think Manhatten Project II). The research challengers are, however, much smaller than those of fusion.

He always says that there was a conscious decision to go for Uran and Plutonium because back in those days they WANTED the stuff to build bombs.

I think you're right, Valentin. I've been trying to figure out for years why we didn't pursue the thorium option for nuclear energy instead of uranium, and the only reason that makes any sense has to do with nuclear weapons.

When the Atomic Energy Commission was formed in 1946, priority 1, 2, 3, and 4 was to produce more weapons grade nuclear material (uranium enriched to >93% U-235 or plutonium consisting of >93% Pu-239). The reactors that the AEC operated in Hanford, Washington didn't produce any electrical energy--they produced plutonium for weapons.

Power-producing reactors were scarcely even on the AEC's roadmap. They gave some support to early efforts at Argonne and in Idaho to produce liquid-metal fast breeder reactors, but those reactors promised to produce large amounts of very high quality (>96% Pu-239) plutonium for weapons.

It wasn't until 1957 that the US even bothered to build a reactor for making electrical power, and that was done by simply adapting the design they had done for the Nautilus nuclear submarine three years earlier into a quick and minimum-development power plant.

So when confronted with the thorium option, it's not surprising the AEC showed little interest. The fissile material bred from thorium (uranium-233) is nearly worthless in nuclear weapons because it is always contaminated with U-232, which has a decay product that emits penetrating radiation.

Lightweight bombs and sensitive electronics couldn't afford the shielding mass that would be associated with using U-233 as a weapon material. U-235 and Pu-239 are alpha-emitters and are easy to shield against.

So the weapons-angle, which doomed thorium to a low priority fifty years ago, is one of the prime reasons we should be considering thorium-powered reactors today.

How much money would it cost to rush develop a Thorium reactor in 5 years?

Do you consider Thorium power green?

Right now energy companies have a tough time keeping up with the demand for green energy. I would consider Thorium a green technology, and willingly pay a little extra for the clean(er) energy. Anyone else?

Before the discussion proceeds further here, recognize there are two different types of "thorium" reactors being discussed.

* the Norway proposal of the beginning article, which is a radically new reactor design using a particle beam and liquid lead, and producing no sustained nuclear fission (safer), no plutonium (for bomb) and no really horrible waste, and

* use of fuel containing more thorium within today's reactor design (or an upgrade of today's design). Less bomb material is produced - But because you still need some uranium in the fuel it's not eliminated entirely. I believe there would also be waste of similar health nastiness to today's reactors (with somewhat less plutonium, the bomb-maker's favorite.) This approach to using thorium eliminates many engineering aspects of the Norway proposal (like dealing with large amounts of liquid lead), but it does change the physics of today's reactor core and it's response to events. Fortunately, much of the basic research in this area has already been done. This second option is more likely to bear fruit in the short term.

There is a company working on Thorium power plan designs and has been for years. They work with the Russians and have some US Government contracts.
See:
http://www.thoriumpower.com/

The energy contained in one kilogram of Thorium equals that of four thousand tons of coal

How about you compare apples to apples and compare it to the energy contained in 1 kg of plutonium? I'm not being cute here, I really want to know the answer to that question, whereas coal vs. nuclear doesn't really do anything for me unless you also tell me how much coal 1 kg of plutonium equals.

1 kg of firewood corresponds to about 1 kWh of electricity

1 kg of coal and oil correspond to respectively 3 and 4 kWh of electricity,

1 kg of natural uranium corresponds to about 50,000 kWh of electricity and

1 kg of plutonium corresponds to about 6,000,000 kWh of electricity.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2001/blix.htm

as
1 short ton = 907.18474 kilograms
then,
4,000 ton ~ 3,628,739 kg
at 3 kWh per kg for coal we get
10,886,217 kWh which is = 1 kg of Thorium

Thus,
1 kg of thorium corresponds to about 1.8 kg(s) of plutonium

Well I think that depends on the reactor type too. The thorium designs are breeder reactors. Meaning they make fuel once started. The current nuclear reactors are not breeders.

1 kg of coal and oil correspond to respectively 3 and 4 kWh of electricity,

Bituminous coal is around 25,400 BTU/kg and 1 kWh of electricity is 3,412 BTU. So, a kilogram of coal is more like 7.4 kWh of electricity.

A kilogram of oil is around 41,760 BTU, which would make it equivalent to about 12.2 kWh.

Not sure about the others, but you might want to check your numbers again.

Ugh,
Those numbers were from the site I sourced... not my own.

The point of the comparison is not that thorium has more energy/kg- because really- who knows?

The point is thorium has vastly more energy/kg then coal... for whatever milage you get out of that

Before the discussion proceeds further here, recognize there are two different types of "thorium" reactors being discussed.

There's even more than that. There were at least three different types of "fluid-fueled reactors" being considered by the AEC in the 1950s, each of which was a thorium reactor. (see "Fluid Fuel Reactors" or TID-8507, the AEC report downselecting to the liquid-fluoride (molten-salt) reactor)

There were also the solid-core variants of thorium reactors. Most of these couldn't breed (convert as much thorium to U-233 as they consumed U-233) so they weren't truly thorium-burning reactors, but some of them got close. WASH-1097 described several of these reactors.

As of these precede the accelerator-driven thorium reactor mentioned by the Norwegian fellow, which I consider unnecessarily comples. But hey, when you're a Nobel laureate who works with accelerators, it's like a hammer looking for a nail.

The molten-salt reactor was the best reactor on the thorium cycle, because it was capable of continuous reprocessing and complete consumption of the thorium resource. It was also the most developed, with two reactors that were built and operated very successfully. It's no secret that I think the technology should be resurrected. In fact, I gave a seminar at Ohio State University earlier this week on just this topic. My presentation slides are available here

I want to take a break from the serious comments here and say bravo to my favorite blog headline of the week.

India has been doing a fast breeder thorium program for a decade or two becuase they were locked out of importing Uranium/Plutonium, and they have yet to materialise in any significant way.

It is a long way off, people!

It's a long way off if you're trying to use thorium in fast-breeders. It's not a long way off if you use thorium in a liquid-fluoride reactor. Check out WASH-1097.

India took the path they did because they couldn't get significant amounts of fissile material from enrichment when they first embarked on their nuclear program--that is not a problem anymore for small countries (as shown by the Iranians).

With fluoride reactors you don't need all the difficult fuel fabrication, the complex reprocessing (it is very simple when your fuel is a fluid), but you don't get the weapons-grade plutonium output of the fast breeder, which may have been why the Indians chose fast-breeders. They have/had a weapons program to feed.

With a molten salt thorium reactor you can have a thermal (=safe) reactor that is a breeder (=uses fuel efficiently). And those have already been built as prototypes and operated.

It's better than today's solid uranium thermal reactors that waste fuel and generate lots of long-lived waste, and also better than the proposed and prototyped inherently dangerous (positive feedback, danger of runaway) and expensive fast breeder reactors for uranium.

The drawback is that you have to process the fuel all the time to prevent unwanted nuclei from absorbing neutrons. But it's relatively easy when the fuel is a molten salt. Read all from Kirk's site.

Th can't solve the global energy shortage. Not by itself. No fuel can. Don't get me wrong- thorium sounds like a very nice fuel- but the energy shortage simply can't be solved on the supply side. I'm sure that figure of thousands of years is based on today's rate of consumption. We have to cap the growth in energy consumption. That means we have to cap population growth, and the growth in per capita energy consumption. Why? Bartlett puts it more eloquently than I could. His article is about 9 pages, but very easy reading.

Th can't solve the global energy shortage. Not by itself. No fuel can. Don't get me wrong- thorium sounds like a very nice fuel- but the energy shortage simply can't be solved on the supply side. I'm sure that figure of thousands of years is based on today's rate of consumption. We have to cap the growth in energy consumption. That means we have to cap population growth, and the growth in per capita energy consumption. Why? Bartlett puts it more eloquently than I could. His article is about 9 pages, but very easy reading. You may find it here:
http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_section2.htm

the energy shortage simply can't be solved on the supply side.

Here's a page on how long nuclear energy will really last.

I read the page by Cohen. He assumes a constant rate of energy consumption- no growth, at least beyond a certain point. He picks twice the world energy consumption in 1983, which is 28% more than the energy consumption is 2004. How long a supply lasts at a constant rate of consumption basically has no bearing on how long it will last when our consumption keeps growing, as Bartlett shows. A 5 billion year supply, as measured by today's rate of consumption, would be exhausted in only 31 doubling times. If you don't know what that means, you obviously didn't read Bartlett's article.

If energy use growth rates don't increase from a few percent per year (a quick web search turned up a figure of 1.6%), 31 doubling times is a fairly long time by human standards. Ultimately if human civilization expands enough (eg. into space), we'll have to switch to space solar power eventually. And, ultimately, the amount of energy that can be extracted from space solar power is limited by the power output of the sun (barring expansion to other stars). So we'll have to stop energy use growth at that point, sure.

You have a point. From a purely economic point of view, we could get away with this growth for several centuries. In the long run, we would still have to change our way of thinking. We can't assume that our consumption is linear, when it's not. If we started gradually building a Dyson Sphere after, say, 21 doubling times, integrating it into our energy infrastructure over several centuries, there should be a relatively seamless transition to solar. We could avoid most of the launch costs by mining asteroids and building in space.

However, if technological improvements allow the energy to become too cheap, it might not last that long. The main problem is not actually that we'd run out faster due to an increasing rate of growth, but rather that it would be impossible to integrate solar energy into our economy smoothly if the fission technology became too much cheaper. As a brand new technology, the Dyson Sphere would likely produce expensive energy when we start building it. Advances in solar and space technology might make it a little cheaper, but since fission would have a monopoly over the energy sector for centuries, almost all the technological progress would happen there, and that would get even cheaper, in theory. If fission energy becomes cheaper, but we still spend the same percentage of our economy on the energy, we're using more energy. If the real price of solar energy still stays the same, the annual construction cost of the Dyson Sphere would increase relative to the size of the economy. If it gets too high, the project would become too expensive, so we'd have to cap growth before it gets to that point. Note this could happen long before we actually need to start building it. I suppose we could simply add a floating tax onto the price of energy, to keep it at a certain minimum. However, a targeted tax on energy is all you would need to cap growth anyway, or even reverse it.

Another thing that could require us to cap growth, or even start construction, earlier than expected is the habits of other nations. After all, I don't expect a one-world governement to persist for several centuries, although it might. Since seawater is an international resource, you'll have to share it. In particular, other countries might not realize or accept that they ought to curb growth at some point and drain the reserves much too quickly. You'd have to watch them closely and act accordingly.

It seems that this construction project would be a *huge* undertaking that would require a coordinated plan to be executed across generations, and much more difficult then simply capping growth today(which we'll have to do eventually anyway!). Alternatively, if the future is going to be in renewables anyway, we could start today, with wind, land-based solar power, etc.(which would unfortunately require phasing out other sources of energy), and naturally growing from there to solar satellites.

But looking at problems from soley an economic viewpoint defeats the purpose of this website. The real problem is the damage that would be caused to the environment by unending growth. Even if we set up human outposts on other planets in the next thousand years, more than 99.9% of humanity will remain on the only hospitable planet within light years. Can you imagine the devastation that would be dealt to the environment by human activity expending 5 billion times today's already huge energy consumption on this world? Orders of magnitude more than that, from solar satellites? The result isn't pretty. We have to stop growth at some point. NPG argues we've already passed that point, and it's time to shrink. At the least, we shouldn't just wait until we start to run out of resources, even if we finally understand when that really is.

The fact that you guys are even talking about Dyson spheres and doubling times indicates what a massive expansion in energy potential thorium represents.

As far as the carrying capacity of the Earth, if the "per capita" impact of each human can be reduced, significantly, over today's values, then the Earth could carry much more population.

One of the ideas I've wondered about is the idea of floating sea colonies (espoused by Marshall Savage in his book "Millenial Project"). In his book he projected using ocean thermal gradients to power his floating colonies, but thorium reactors could offer a far more compact solution. Floating sea colonies would make enormous new areas of the planet available for sustaining civilization, while at the same time not displacing large indiginous ecosystems. From what Savage said in his book, the open ocean is an ecological "desert" with most ocean life clinging relatively closely to the continental shelves.

Yes, I don't consider 31 doublings on Earth to be feasible, that's why I wrote "(eg. into space)" in my last comment. In fact even a few orders of magnitude increase would lead to serious global warming problems from the waste heat alone.

In a hundred years, quite likely 99.9% of humanity will still be on Earth, but after a thousand years, maybe not.

Space solar power is more expensive than nuclear right now when everyone lives on Earth. Once people are up there and have access to space resources, space solar power will be a lot cheaper than it is now, so I don't expect much difficulty switching to it.

A problem for the future. We need flouride fluid thorium reactors today. If we dont make those, you can be sure we'll use coal.

Right now nuclear fission technology is at the same stage as computers were when they used vacuum tubes. They worked, and you could get a hint of where they were going, but there was enormous technological growth potential left in them.

Hopefully, in the next few decades we will take the steps to realize this potential and get us off fossil fuels permanently--and stop global warming dead in its tracks. Forget Kyoto--we'll be able to cut CO2 emissions 90% or more, worldwide.

Kirk,
OTEC, Thorium etc, are all great clean base load power sources, and can work well in tandem together to meet the long term needs of our world.

Anonymous,
Cohen in his book Before its Too Late; A Scientist's Case for Nuclear Power discusses the uranium supply in sea water and a world at something like 10 billion population and US energy usage rates, still lasting about the expected lifetime of the Earth. There are also low-level uranium supplies that are available in coal (burning coal wastes more energy in the form of thorium and uranium locked in the coal) than is produced, shales and granite, which are also more than sufficient to supply all the world's energy for millions of years on top of the stuff dissolved in sea water. Thorium supplies are several times larger than uranium. Using either or both is sufficient to supply all the world's energy needs for the expected lifetime of the earth. Dr. Fred Hoyle ran similar calculations using a reasonable estimate of thorium burnup in CANDU reactors, and found they would be sufficient to run a similar period of time, as would uranium.

Hi, I wanted to invite everyone to come and visit/join a discussion forum about thorium as a possible source of energy. The forum is located at:

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/

I give you my assurance that we welcome all points of view and that I will personally insure that posts will not be allowed that are disrespectful or denigrating to others. Different points of view are welcome--let's discuss them.

>>1 kg of coal and oil >>correspond to respectively >>3 and 4 kWh of electricity,
>Bituminous coal is around >25,400 BTU/kg and 1 kWh of >electricity is 3,412 BTU. So, a kilogram of coal is >more like 7.4 kWh of >electricity.

>A kilogram of oil is around 41,760 BTU, which would make >it equivalent to about 12.2 kWh.

>Not sure about the others, but you might want to check >your numbers again.

No,they are correct.They are electric energies,not heat.Your numbers are thermal energies,instead.Thermal heat to electricity efficiencies are in the order of 30/50%,so those values

I saw one comment made about wood pellet stoves, last summer I purchased a used unit twelve years old, the unit is an Inviro and is manufactured in Canada. I reside in vermont and have for seventy years. I have tried all manner of home heating and am yet to find the equal, in cost of fuel, dependabilityand lack of pollution. The pellet stove can be likened to a torbocharged engine, there is no smoke after ignition, there will always be fuel available, as long as trees grow. I can go outside with the unit going full blast, no smoke , no odor and I would like to see a terrorist harm people by blowing it up.Hundreds of thousands of acres of woodlands are lost every year to fires, yet no one dies from pollution. The stove reduces forty pounds of pellets to a handful of basic elements., any carbon doixide released during the process goes back into another tree, the wheel just turns and no one has to worry about storing hazardous materials for centuries.With the advent of modern technology, hybrid vehicles could be manufactured, remember the stanley steamer, that was before we fell in love with the internal or rather infernal combustion engine. Why dig carbon from eons ago and introduce it in the atmosphere and complain about pollution.When all the mineral rescources are gone, trees will grow.

It looks like we have some experts in this discussion! I like to see educated discussions on these type of topics!

Anyways, I just wanted to give you a realistic perspective from a person who is currently empolyeed in the nuclear industry as an enivormental engineer. Th reactors are great technology but there are definately some drawbacks.

First, Th reactors use liquid lead and Ur reactors use water. Liquid lead is really expensive compared to water, it is harder to manage in the opperating system, and it can be a huge mess if there is a spill. If there was a spill of liquid lead and it got into the ground water that would just be a nightmare for everybody and it could be very lethal. Water, in the other hand, is very cheap and if it spills (as long as it is not use in the primary reactor system) is not as big of a problem.

Second, Ur reactors have already penetrated the energy market and operating companies have many lessons learned and have actually made these reactors very safe! And yes no matter what, there is nuclear waste but I will argue that they should focus more on fuel reprocessing if they want to reduce emissions because we have used rods just sitting in storage right now waiting for Yucca Mountian when they could be reprocessed and reduce the waste to 10%.

Finally, good luck with getting this past the red tape and politics! One thing that is always constant is red tape and paperwork! But if enough people focus on this new technology and make it cheap, efficient, and safe for the environment and the public then they will use it. It will be nice to burn a different mineral than Ur because the prices have just sky rocketed!

One last thing... from a previous question on the post board... Th is not renewable because it is used up in the production of energy and it cannot be readily regenerated like solor or wind power.

This is a great!

George Bush is mad dumb!

Hi Morgan, you mention lead as a drawback for tho