11 ms·
Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)
- mcritz 15y agoThus video just gave me something to research for the next few days.
- mrothe 15y agoThis cutted version feels like none of these persons said anything that is in the video, because the statements (or even words) are "out of context". I just can assume the author of the video has good intentions and did not change the context.
- tomelders 15y agoI really liked this. I doubt I would have had tie to watch the original, but yeah... it does rely heavily on the integrity of the editor.
- pyrhho 15y agoFWIW, I recently watched one of the talks this is spliced from, and it seemed fairly accurate.
- moreati 15y agoHere are the original videos: The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor: What Fusion Wanted To Be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8 Aim High: Using Thorium Energy to Address Environmental Problems http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKfS74hVvQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKfS74hVvQ Lessons for the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (from history) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8
- icarus_drowning 15y agoI've watched all of the videos-- this is a very good summary of them. Plus, it isn't like the editor/uploader doesn't make it easy to find the original videos anyway.
- Detrus 15y agoI watched one of the videos and seems accurate enough. The cut left out an important bit from the end of that video. Developing those kinds of thorium reactors would take the US five years with a Manhattan Project style investment. Ten or more years at a slower pace and lower price. This is by no means cheap and easy, "it's not THAT hard" is a quote that made the cut. I imagine the effort would be comparable to making uranium reactors for power stations which took around thirty years.
- seamonster 15y agoKirk Sorenson on Dr kiki’s Science Hour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd-jbw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd-jbw
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- api 15y agoI hear a lot about the LFTR, and I wonder what the problem is. Is there a major technical hurdle that prevents this from seeing widespread use? Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes a really good idea never gets used because... well... because nobody really picks it up and runs with it. It's that simple sometimes. But sometimes there's some hidden gotcha.
- jpk 15y agoMy understanding is that building the reactors are significantly more expensive. So until the price of Uranium increases enough to justify the total cost of the Thorium reactors, we won't see many of them outside research settings. The other issue is building a new reactor of any type right now is a giant pain in the ass, which doesn't help either.
- edkennedy 15y agoIn the video he states that the cost would be 30-50% lower because the reactors are very simple. The cost for uranium based fuel is also significantly more expensive (watch the vide). He states that the reason people don't build these is because they don't know about them, or they are stuck in the existing structure of legacy reactor thinking. The reason that anything new is a pain in the ass is simply because of bureaucracy.
- Symmetry 15y agoIt might be that you could make a thorium reactor much safer than current light-water reactors for cheaper, but the laws regulating our nuclear power were written under the assumption that all reactors were light-water reactors - so in practice you would end up with all the fancy 100% reliable control systems needed to keep the positive feedback loops in a traditional reactor from blowing themselves up as well as the special metallurgy needed by Thorium reactors.
- DennisP 15y agoThat is the case, and it's a big problem. NRC regulations for example require "fuel integrity," which doesn't exist with liquid fuel. Sorenson's company plans to market initially to the military, which has need of compact energy sources for remote bases and isn't constrained by the NRC.
- amalag 15y agoSince India has a lot of Thorium, they are actively pursuing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk&feature=relat...
- ugh 15y agoAny plans to build a reactor somewhere? I fear that mere engineering heavy talking has no chance solving nuclear’s PR problem. Actually building a reactor might help. Maybe. Maybe not.
- demian 15y agoMaybie with the generational shift things will change. For USA's sakes, let's hope it won't be too late.
- zobzu 15y agotext > video
- fredoliveira 15y agoA beautiful thing, opinions. Everyone can have one of their own.
- texas-saluki 15y agoI think the video is really interesting but it seems strange that it is highly edited and sliced together? Whenever I see something so hacked together I question the context that some of the message was cut out to benefit someones agenda
- Create 15y agoThis is project pursued by many[1]. The main hurdles are: 1. political [2], which Kirk mentions (it is no coincidence, that the pellets that the rods contain are as standard as the NATO bullet) -- the industry and power has a very different interest 2. technical: Kirk always mentions, that the fuel is not solid. It is liquid. The latter means, that you do have higher concerns about corrosiveness, hence (useful) reactor lifetime... Also, the issue of scale, which tends to lie between 1. and 2. Uranium "won", because you got the real stuff with it (weapons as in actual projection of power, or the capability of threat to project power) and because you could make it work on a massive scale (current reactors are an order of magnitude larger than any LFTR design, and capitalism is based on the leverage of and concentration of power). [1] http://energyfromthorium.com/ http://energyfromthorium.com/ http://www.thorenergy.no/ http://www.thorenergy.no/ http://thoriumenergy.com.au/ http://thoriumenergy.com.au/ ... besides China, India, France and (even) Czechs. [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.... -> see Seaborg interview part
- DennisP 15y agoCorrosion is one of the main objections people bring up, given that the fuel is a liquid salt. Sorenson says there's an alloy that solves the problem.
- Create 15y agoI do not think that corrosion is the showstopper. It rather seems to be the lack of irresponsible megalomania, which actually fuelled the GE/Westinghouse frenzy. And I can hardly blame anybody for the lack of it, because for all the better... Our planet has became smaller in the last 50 years, and running (tea)pot operations would be a tough sell, even on Fox. But obviously (offshore) oils rigs and gas are no better either, though people are still happy with oil running their cars and data-centres. But useful lifetime/economics of scale/TCO does matter, because ROI in the strict and sole monetary sense is the only metric of success. Note, that most reactors have been rubber-stamped to operate beyond their design lifetime.
- 15y ago
- delinquentme 15y agoTailor made idea for the "reverse VC pitch" VC >> find engineers >> provide $$ >> GO.
- iwwr 15y agoYou can still make bombs from the thorium cycle, with U233.
- shabble 15y agoMany people claim you can't, due to fact it's generally a mixture of U232 as well, which will decay rapidly and cook your detonator/firing mechanism, but a couple of interesting comments I found suggest a liquid fuel would be amenable to continuous separation: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/question.html#comment-80043 http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/question... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/question.html#comment-80243 http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/question... The MET test of Operation Teapot being the first example of a successful U233 firing: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Teapot.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Teapot.html
- InclinedPlane 15y agoThe MET test was not a pure U-233 design, it was a mixture of Pu-239 and U-233, it also had 1/3 lower yield than the equivalent design using U-235.
- shabble 15y agoAh, thanks, I didn't notice the 'mixed U/Pu' bit originally. On the second point, not only was it 1/3 of the equivalent (and specified) 235 design, it was also 1/3 less than predicted for itself, if I'm reading it correctly. I wonder if that was an error in the prediction, or a fault of the weapon/design. I've forgotten most of the nuclear chemistry involved in producing Pu, but iirc it can be done with natural uranium and a neutron source. But then again, if you have those, and can produce plutonium, why not just use that? Maybe it'd be helpful as a filler if you've got some, and only limited Pu resources, or to simplify weapon design (Any idea if the MET was gun-type or implosion-type, sources being unsurprisingly hard to find)?
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
- daniel-cussen 15y agoI read an American company is trying to make one in the north of Chile. It's because they really need energy (they're currently using coal and diesel to keep the lights on in the north) and there's not a whole lot of bio-anything to protect there. I think it's a great idea, but a lot of people don't.
- rmason 15y agoI've studied this for years and haven't found any credible reason why we couldn't do this today. But there are a lot of forces allied against Thorium in both the government, energy companies and the current nuclear industry. Senator Hatch (R) Utah with support from Harry Reid (D) Nevada has introduced a bill annually for five years to fund $200 million to research to commercialize Thorium power. Yet every year the bill never even gets voted on. http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=releases&ContentRecord_id=25d9273f-1b78-be3e-e03d-75506902df40&ContentType_id=7e038728-1b18-46f4-bfa9-f4148be94d19 http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=releases&Cont... What is stopping Google itself from funding this I don't know? Our country should make this a major initiative similar to the race to the moon and get us off coal, oil and gas.
- shailesh 15y agoAnother data point: Even in India (which has 25% of world's Thorium reserves), it is a mystery to many, as to why the Govt. chose not to invest more heavily in Thorium based research, rather than going for traditional ones. Edit: grammar.
- goombastic 15y agoIndia seems to only go for technologies that foreign companies have developed. Guess why? Kick backs are a nice way of living the good life. This, even as recent hikes in fuel prices across the country are putting paid to the dreams of a growing economy.
- vamsee 15y agoYou guys must be kidding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk
- goombastic 15y agoI would love to see this being scaled up and put into production. I've been hearing about thorium reactors for the last 20 years.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- suriyawong 15y agoGoogle... please save us.
- DennisP 15y agoFor anyone who wants to delve into this more deeply, Sorenson's videos (http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/06/04/adventures-with-gordon/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/06/04/adventures-with-gord...) are really great. I recently watched the two-hour one, which was edited from a longer talk to cut out the pauses. It's a rapid-fire, passionate technical introduction that I found very compelling.
- softbuilder 15y agoCan I look forward to a Google thorium salt reactor in the near future?
- zherbert 15y agoI go to school at Boston University and took an Energy class with a Nobel Laureate in physics, Sheldon Glashow, last semester. He spoke in great depth about Thorium reactors, and is very supportive of the technology. One of the main hurdles is that we have poured money into our modern-day reactors, and have constructed hundreds of plants. If we were to switch to thorium, we would have to essentially start from scratch - new research, new plant designs, new training, etc. It is very difficult to justify a complete switch from uranium, as it would be incredibly costly. In other countries, however, thorium reactors could be very beneficial. Countries using thorium would not be able to produce nuclear weapons, which would give the world great peace of mind. This could minimize risks in unstable countries - we wouldn't worry if Iran was building a thorium reactor, for example. There are also other types of reactor designs that use nuclear waste to create power. I believe our nuclear future lies with these types of reactors, rather than with uranium or thorium.
- DennisP 15y agoDon't switch from uranium. Switch from coal.
- ollybee 15y agothe UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) undertook a recent independent assessment, in which it assessed a number of claims made by proponents of thorium fuel. The report can be found at: http://www.nnl.co.uk/positionpapers http://www.nnl.co.uk/positionpapers
- bowyakka 15y agoI would be deeply skeptical about position papers from the UK, British Nuclear Fuel are a massive, partly government owned company that makes a lot of money from reprocessing. The government started dismantling BFNL into private companies one of which is is the NNL.
- fleitz 15y agoJust use CANDU reactors, it will burn raw uranium, and can use the waste product from PWR reactors, just leave the thorium in the raw uranium. It's been working for years, no Yucca mountain, Yucca mountain is a purely US phenomena, it doesn't exist in Canada or France. It's not a new technology, it's 60 years old. All you need is a little heavy water, and in event of a meltdown you just flood the tank with regular water and voila no reactions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor Here's the fuel cycle for a CANDU reactor which will support the thorium cycle as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CANDU_fuel_cycles.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CANDU_fuel_cycles.jpg
- brianbreslin 15y agoSlightly off topic, but could thorium be used for vehicle propulsion? as in nuclear submarines or even better: space craft? if the payload is efficient enough, it could solve the issues we have with getting rockets into space (fuel is heavy, and costly to transport).
- u48998 15y agoI have a whole lot of related links here making the case for thorium: http://webwanderings.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/thorium-based-energy-is-the-answer/ http://webwanderings.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/thorium-based-...
- earlyrise 15y agoIf the world was serious about nuclear non-proliferation, we would have thorium reactors everywhere already. They said a few times in the video that thorium reactors can't be used for weapons, and so they are not built. Governments have decided that we need nukes, so thorium reactors do not get funding. But if we are serious about non-proliferation, then switching to thorium reactors and controlling which new reactors get built is a much more effective strategy then the current weapon-counting efforts. Once a reactor is built and starts creating fissile material, then it is difficult to keep track of and control. But it is much harder to hide a reactor while you are building it - Iran tried and failed. So it seems to me that thorium reactors, in addition to their efficiency, low cost and low amount of radioactive waste, could also be a useful tool in enforcing nuclear non-proliferation. We've got these reactors that cannot be used to make bombs - why don't we sign treaties saying that they are the only reactors that can be built?