5 ms·

reminds me of the good advice, that: maybe we should learn to appropriately manage fire in the landscape, before we start messing with nuclear fission. you can

reminds me of the good advice, that: maybe we should learn to appropriately manage fire in the landscape, before we start messing with nuclear fission. you can't have your yellowcake and eat it too : if the propeller heads want to feed uranium-cycle waste to thorium reactors, there's an implicit WMD risk, both the risk of diversion for weapons production as well as providing a rationale for the ongoing operation of dual-use enrichment and reprocessing plants. Thorium fuelled reactors could also be used to irradiate uranium to produce weapon grade plutonium. And the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel alone doesn't solve the WMD proliferation problem. Irradiation of thorium indirectly produces uranium-233, a fissile material which can be used in nuclear weapons. The US has successfully tested weapons using uranium-233. France is suspected of it. India's thorium program prolly has a WMD component - given they refuse to allow IAEA safeguards to apply. but the worst threat of the thorium reactors is that we'll be fooled into judging the real threats and impacts currently posed by the uranium fuel cycle on the ambitious standards promised by the thorium advocates. The nuclear industry has been over-promising and under-performing for too long - we can't afford to allow their promises for tomorrow to deter focus from today's bitter realities.

sliverstorm 15y ago
You're honestly suggesting we abandon one of the most promising sources of fuel in history because you're afraid someone might be able to weaponize it? I got news for ya bud. There's weapons everywhere, and governments have the resources to make them, thorium reactor or not. Extremists have the drive to source them, thorium or not. Hell, Brevik proved that. Should we ban fertilizer too?
- justatdotin 15y ago
  not quite what I said; no 'might be able to' about it. As I described, the nexus between fission power (including thorium) and nuclear WMD is well defined. There's enough examples of thorium-based nuclear WMDs, and the perversion of civilian power programs to further nuclear weapons programs, to justify extreme caution. No, I'm not aware of fertilizer WMDs that leave behind sacrifice zones of contaminated wastelands.
rmason 15y ago
Thorium was the clear choice for nuclear power from the beginning. That is it was the engineers choice but Gen. Curtis LeMay convinced the politicians it should be rejected because he wanted a large supply of uranium material that could be easily used for weapons. The disadvantage of Thorium is that it cannot be easily weaponized. I've been a Thorium advocate for a long time and have commented about it on HN. You know what the single largest impediment to rapid adoption of Thorium to solve some of our energy problems? It's the existing nuclear power industry. Since 2008, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada., have introduced bills that would direct thorium research begin at the Idaho National Laboratory. We had prototype plants built in the fifties that ran as late as the seventies. There was even a Thorium powered jet fighter in the early fifties. They need $200 million to commercialize the technology and produce a sample pilot plant blueprint and have been met by a wall of lobbying by firms such as General Electric opposing the bill.
- dalke 15y ago
  As an example of how early, the SF story "Rocket Ship Galileo", published in 1947, is based around a rocket ship powered by "a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo

sliverstorm 15y ago

You're honestly suggesting we abandon one of the most promising sources of fuel in history because you're afraid someone might be able to weaponize it? I got news for ya bud. There's weapons everywhere, and governments have the resources to make them, thorium reactor or not. Extremists have the drive to source them, thorium or not. Hell, Brevik proved that. Should we ban fertilizer too?

justatdotin 15y ago
not quite what I said; no 'might be able to' about it. As I described, the nexus between fission power (including thorium) and nuclear WMD is well defined. There's enough examples of thorium-based nuclear WMDs, and the perversion of civilian power programs to further nuclear weapons programs, to justify extreme caution. No, I'm not aware of fertilizer WMDs that leave behind sacrifice zones of contaminated wastelands.

rmason 15y ago

Thorium was the clear choice for nuclear power from the beginning. That is it was the engineers choice but Gen. Curtis LeMay convinced the politicians it should be rejected because he wanted a large supply of uranium material that could be easily used for weapons. The disadvantage of Thorium is that it cannot be easily weaponized. I've been a Thorium advocate for a long time and have commented about it on HN. You know what the single largest impediment to rapid adoption of Thorium to solve some of our energy problems? It's the existing nuclear power industry. Since 2008, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada., have introduced bills that would direct thorium research begin at the Idaho National Laboratory. We had prototype plants built in the fifties that ran as late as the seventies. There was even a Thorium powered jet fighter in the early fifties. They need $200 million to commercialize the technology and produce a sample pilot plant blueprint and have been met by a wall of lobbying by firms such as General Electric opposing the bill.

dalke 15y ago
As an example of how early, the SF story "Rocket Ship Galileo", published in 1947, is based around a rocket ship powered by "a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo