5 ms·

Thorium anyone? http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1

by xpose2000 15y ago

ChuckMcM 15y ago
Would be awesome wouldn't it? The weird thing is that we have to excise, as a species, this notion that nuclear power's risks are unmanageable. That takes time, and a lot of people dying. Not from nuclear accidents but just dying of old age and with old fashioned ideas and an inability to get past their emotions and back into reasoning about something. For all its promise, investment in Thorium is a non-issue until we can prove that we can license and build new nuclear plants. Sure Larry or Sergei could fund it but the challenge is in the deployment. The comment above about how they cost $2B for the Chinese and $7B for the US is indicative of that challenge. That and a liability cap which makes them insurable in the first place. If you're government gets to just say what is going to be true then you only pay the cost of building it, which is much much less.
- afterburner 15y ago
  You're commenting on a article that states a nuclear reactor of current design was approved, so what's your complaining for? Your "side" seems to be winning, despite the current crop of designs not being the blessed thorium reactor...
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    I'm only observing. The AP1000 design was originally proposed by Westinghouse in early 2004, based on entirely understood physics and components. Here we are 8 years later seeing the approval. I attribute much of that delay to a requirement that Westinghouse prove it would never fail. Meeting such a standard has been, for many years, effectively impossible, even for designs with a known history. Thorium reactors don't have any of the 'known' history to rely on and so they have to prove something which cannot be proven without building one. In order to get past that cognitive stall, one has to 'take the risk' of actually building one with the promise that should the risk pan out as being Ok, the reactor will be allowed to continue to exist. It has been politically impossible to do that with a new nuclear technology in the US for some time. Some cynics have suggested that the only reason the NRC licensed it in the US is because China is going to build them and the US wanted a local copy so that they could use as a model should they want to take the Chinese reactors offline "the hard way." I don't subscribe to that level of cynicism. So ultimately I believe that Thorium reactors are worth pursuing, however any work beyond theoretical requires a different political climate than the one we've existed in to this point. Fortunately that is changing. I would love to find ways to help people with their emotional response to nuclear power, that will be a necessary part of putting us back on to a path of a sustainable future.
    - DennisP 15y ago
      Fortunately for the cynics, China is making a big investment in liquid thorium reactors as well. I've actually had a lot of success advocating liquid thorium to people who are otherwise strongly anti-nuclear. Having a completely different fuel, with small amounts of short-lived waste and easily-understood safety features, goes a long way.
      - ChuckMcM 15y ago
        Me too, however I have thoroughly unsuccessful in getting anyone in the legislature past the word 'nuclear.' Once, during a moment of lucid depression about the energy picture, someone pointed out that the Indiana legislature once tried to change the value of Pi to 3.2 to make it "easier to deal with." [1] It was suggested that if we could get a liquid thorium process redefined as a 'fossil fuel' then perhaps we could get permits to build 'new' fossil fuel power plants. The UK has an interesting thorium program as well and that may yet yield the needed 'proof of concept' that we don't have in the US (nor can we get funding to build). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Thorium looks interesting, as does Bill Gate's Terrapower traveling wave reactor. http://gigaom.com/cleantech/terrapower-how-the-travelling-wave-nuclear-reactor-works/ http://gigaom.com/cleantech/terrapower-how-the-travelling-wa...

Thorium anyone? http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Would be awesome wouldn't it? The weird thing is that we have to excise, as a species, this notion that nuclear power's risks are unmanageable. That takes time, and a lot of people dying. Not from nuclear accidents but just dying of old age and with old fashioned ideas and an inability to get past their emotions and back into reasoning about something. For all its promise, investment in Thorium is a non-issue until we can prove that we can license and build new nuclear plants. Sure Larry or Sergei could fund it but the challenge is in the deployment. The comment above about how they cost $2B for the Chinese and $7B for the US is indicative of that challenge. That and a liability cap which makes them insurable in the first place. If you're government gets to just say what is going to be true then you only pay the cost of building it, which is much much less.

afterburner 15y ago
You're commenting on a article that states a nuclear reactor of current design was approved, so what's your complaining for? Your "side" seems to be winning, despite the current crop of designs not being the blessed thorium reactor...
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I'm only observing. The AP1000 design was originally proposed by Westinghouse in early 2004, based on entirely understood physics and components. Here we are 8 years later seeing the approval. I attribute much of that delay to a requirement that Westinghouse prove it would never fail. Meeting such a standard has been, for many years, effectively impossible, even for designs with a known history. Thorium reactors don't have any of the 'known' history to rely on and so they have to prove something which cannot be proven without building one. In order to get past that cognitive stall, one has to 'take the risk' of actually building one with the promise that should the risk pan out as being Ok, the reactor will be allowed to continue to exist. It has been politically impossible to do that with a new nuclear technology in the US for some time. Some cynics have suggested that the only reason the NRC licensed it in the US is because China is going to build them and the US wanted a local copy so that they could use as a model should they want to take the Chinese reactors offline "the hard way." I don't subscribe to that level of cynicism. So ultimately I believe that Thorium reactors are worth pursuing, however any work beyond theoretical requires a different political climate than the one we've existed in to this point. Fortunately that is changing. I would love to find ways to help people with their emotional response to nuclear power, that will be a necessary part of putting us back on to a path of a sustainable future.
  - DennisP 15y ago
    Fortunately for the cynics, China is making a big investment in liquid thorium reactors as well. I've actually had a lot of success advocating liquid thorium to people who are otherwise strongly anti-nuclear. Having a completely different fuel, with small amounts of short-lived waste and easily-understood safety features, goes a long way.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      Me too, however I have thoroughly unsuccessful in getting anyone in the legislature past the word 'nuclear.' Once, during a moment of lucid depression about the energy picture, someone pointed out that the Indiana legislature once tried to change the value of Pi to 3.2 to make it "easier to deal with." [1] It was suggested that if we could get a liquid thorium process redefined as a 'fossil fuel' then perhaps we could get permits to build 'new' fossil fuel power plants. The UK has an interesting thorium program as well and that may yet yield the needed 'proof of concept' that we don't have in the US (nor can we get funding to build). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

SkyMarshal 15y ago

Thorium looks interesting, as does Bill Gate's Terrapower traveling wave reactor. http://gigaom.com/cleantech/terrapower-how-the-travelling-wave-nuclear-reactor-works/ http://gigaom.com/cleantech/terrapower-how-the-travelling-wa...