3 ms·
> If a town of 1,000 bought a 1-megawatt thorium reactor for $250,000, using 20 kilograms of thorium a year with almost no oversight, every family could pay as
by gamble 16y ago
> If a town of 1,000 bought a 1-megawatt thorium reactor for $250,000, using 20 kilograms of thorium a year with almost no oversight, every family could pay as little as $0.40 a year for all their electricity...
Are they really arguing that thorium power would be too cheap to meter?
Uranium is a pretty small part of the cost of generating nuclear power. (<10%) What makes nuclear power expensive is the tremendous upfront cost of building a safe reactor.
Thorium reactors aren't magic; they're still nuclear reactors. They produce plenty of radioactive waste. A thorium reactor might not be as susceptible to certain types of failure as a uranium reactor, but they're still dangerous enough that it will be necessary to build them to a similarly high standard.
In some ways, thorium could be more expensive. Thorium reactors need a kick-start from a uranium reactor, so they're inherently more complicated. Thorium waste decays faster, but more intensely. Some tasks that can be done by hand in uranium reactors would require robotics in a thorium plant.
Thorium may or may not be a good idea. But to assume that it will be cheaper than uranium is a bit foolish after witnessing what a graveyard uranium reactors made of such dreams over the past sixty years.
- malnourish 16y agoThank you for the skepticism. I think articles such as this need it. If it ends up working all the better but to be ignorant of the tribulations will only lead to dismay.
- MrDunham 16y agoI believe their argument is more on the lines of "why aren't we doing this? It's so damn cheap" Like you said, cost of fuel is a small part of generating energy. Besides, PG&E would mark up for the "privilege" of using their power. ;)
- amorphid 16y agoWe don't use thorium today because you can't make bombs from it. Uranium was chosen back in the 40s because you can bombs from the waste produced by a nuclear reactor.
- Adam503 16y agoNo nuclear energy is cheap. It's a big lie. The primary cost of nuclear power generation is decommissioning the reactor after the power generation is over. The Federal Government has 1 trillion dollars in nuclear reactor coming down the road. The nuclear power "industry" is long gone at that point. The decommissioned reactors get spun off into their own little corporation , and the parent corp has it declare bankruptcy, sticking us with the cost of clean up.
- nazgulnarsil 16y agoLFTR's don't meltdown.
- wtracy 16y agoThorium reactors need a kick-start from a uranium reactor That's something the Thorium proponents never told me.
- amorphid 16y agoThey don't need a kickstart from uranium. You stick thorium into the fluoride salt, the thourium absorbs particles (neutrons I think), it turns into uranium, and then goes through fission. The uranium left over is minimal.
- gamble 16y agoYou need a neutron source to start the transmutation of thorium into uranium. AFAIK, in every thorium reactor built to date that source is uranium mixed into the fuel.