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> Can other elements, except uranium, be used for power generation Plutonium, Thorium and a few others yes > I thought uranium is used in reactors because it
by dtx1 5y ago
> Can other elements, except uranium, be used for power generation
Plutonium, Thorium and a few others yes
> I thought uranium is used in reactors because it also produces A-bomb material as a by-product.
It doesn't and it's used mostly because it was easiest to work with and best researched when the majority oft reactors Werke build
- maratc 5y agoBut wasn't it "best researched" because of the potential for military use, and all the military R&D money?
- p_l 5y agoNo, it was just easiest to get running. You can make natural uranium reactor with no enrichment of fuel needed, even - it's how Manhattan Project could get fissile material in the first place. Thorium was actually more of military-only solution than Uranium->Plutonium chain, as unlike Uranium it doesn't have obvious "easy" energy use path, but early on it was researched as mix of uranium and thorium fuels due to uranium availability concerns.
- kalnins 5y agoIt's so easy, it even occurred naturally in past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
- panick21_ 5y agoThorium for military kind of sucks. If you want to build a substainable long term program you dont want U-232 around. The only real advantage of Thorium is that you can use it in a thermal breeder. If you are not building a thermal breeder using thorim is mostly pointless.