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They should invest in thorium research, only then fission would become sustainable at human time scale
by The_rationalist 6y ago
They should invest in thorium research, only then fission would become sustainable at human time scale
- acidburnNSA 6y agoI mentioned this in another thread but this simply is not true. Thorium breeder reactors are indeed sustainable, but so are uranium breeder reactors. [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604898
- The_rationalist 6y agoI am obviously talking about the order of magnitude greater abundance of thorium on earth than regular uranium used for fission. In what way do your address the point?
- acidburnNSA 6y ago* There are 6.1 million tonnes of uranium in reasonably assured deposits (World Nuclear Uranium) * There are 6.3 million tonnes of thorium in reasonably assured deposits (World Nuclear Thorium) * Uranium exists in seawater at an average concentration of 0.003 ppm (also World Nuclear Uranium) * There are about 332 million cubic miles of water on Earth, 96.5% of it is in the ocean (USGS). At a density of 1 gram/cm3, this comes out to 1.4 yottagrams of water, or 1.4e21 kg) * At 0.003 ppm, this means there are about 4000 million tonnes of uranium in seawater There is effectively zero thorium in seawater. Seawater uranium extraction with breeder reactors is likely to be more economical than harvesting low-grade thorium from the crust.