Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

Slightly related? : Nuclear battery

China enters race to develop nuclear energy from thorium | Duncan Clark | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Thorium: Green Friendly Nuclear Power

Some more background on this (posted elsewhere by JRP3)

I vote that we rename this thread so that it shows up when someone looks up nuclear. Seems like this should have a higher priority than Solar and Wind.

I must say that this technology has my vote for most likely to succeed. I believe that China will lead this in five years and like Sputnik , we will follow and surpass in ten years. 2022 to 2035.

There is a great google lecture on this topic at YouTube - don't have the cite, but it should be easy enough to find.

Here is the most relavent:

I think I posted this article in another thread quite some time ago. Although it probably was a direct link to American Scientist's website, instead of this copy.

If I remember correctly, it is an interesting, well written, history of thorium reactors.

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/AmSci_LFTR.pdf

GSP

This thread just made my day. Or night, rather. Completely fascinating. I am now left with hope for mankind's future. After all, with enough energy, we can solve climate change, hunger, and possibly perfect cheese cake.

On the other hand I've found this critical look at MSR's/LFTRS that is not as encouraging: Part 8 The Molten Salt Reactor concept | daryanenergyblog

Checkout this blog by Dr Barry Brook, a well known AGW activist and nuclear scientist. Lots of information on LFTR, nukes & energy in general.

BraveNewClimate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw&feature=youtube_gdata_player Here is a good TED's talk of 10 minutes about Thorium reactors and it does sound like very good technology.

The great thing about nuclear power production is it looks great on paper. So did Uranium fission. The problems are 1) building reactors that last long, are inherently safe (even in case of operator error), need little maintenance 2) run a nuclear fuel cycle 3) safe disposal of nuclear waste.
Sorry guys. Nuclear had it's change. All these objectives could have been achieved with 1960 nuclear technology. None of them were. Why do you think changing the fuel type will change this?
There is one nuclear reactor, inherently safe, maintenance free, million years fuel included, no waste. It comes at NO cost and its energy is easily distributed to all consumers, although the reactor is located some 90m miles away from all inhabited regions. I don't see viable competition to that one.

Nuclear power sources should be reserved for interstellar travel not for running your AC.

VolkerP said:

TWhy do you think changing the fuel type will change this?

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LFTR's don't just change the fuel type, it's a completely different reactor design, construction, and operation.

VolkerP said:

Sorry guys. Nuclear had it's change. All these objectives could have been achieved with 1960 nuclear technology. None of them were. Why do you think changing the fuel type will change this?

Click to expand...

Same thing can be said about EVs - it was tried a hundred years back and was overtaken.

There is simply no other option for baseload electricity generation that is emission free.

There are reactor designs that have closed fuel cycles and that will make known reserves of fuel last millenia that have never been given a proper chance, beyond the prototype stage. The reason why we have a legacy of nuclear waste is political and military - producing weapons grade plutonium, for one.

What worries me is that by not taking such technology forward when we had a chance last time, we will end up with yet another generation of once-through, standard fission reactors producing yet more waste. However, remember, waste is only radioactive because it contains a vast amount of energy and thus is just new reactor fuel. Where there's muck, there's brass.

dpeilow said:

remember, waste is only radioactive because it contains a vast amount of energy and thus is just new reactor fuel. Where there's muck, there's brass.

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Right. Strictly speaking, every element heavier than iron contains nuclear energy that could be freed. Even lead which is one of the final elements of radioactive decay chains. The problem is building a reactor which can sustain a nuclear reaction and harvest the energy. For example the Rubbiatron/Energy Amplifier - inherently safe reactor suitable to burn up Th, all our nuclear waste, and cut the time of hazardous waste to mere centuries.

I do not question the desirability or feasibility of alternative nuclear fuels or reactor designs. I question the feasibility of organizational and technical challenges around a nuclear plant: fuel preparation, waste handling, containment of volatile actinides, energy distribution. If solved, we are still stuck with a centralized power generation system that cannot support large amounts of renewable energy.

For German readers: Reaktorpleite - Erfahrungen mit dem Pleitereaktor THTR 300 - History of the German THTR (high-temperature Thorium Reactor, a 300MWel experimental plant). The approach with nuclear fuel enclosed in graphite spheres did not work well and finally wrecked the reactor.

Why hasn't someone built a commercial version in the last 40 years? It seems like a promising path for nuclear energy. I remember reading about pebble bed reactors a few years ago which is also a different take.

The German THTR-300 was a Thorium pebble bed reactor - OK that's the correct term. With 300MW(e) and 750MW(th) power it was designed for commercial use. It was closed down for good in 1989 after only 6 years of operation, due to frequent downtime, cost overruns, high maintenance/repair efforts, etc. Plans for a successor with 500MW(e) and 1250MW(th) were abandoned, as were most of all planned pebble bed reactors world wide with the exception of China.
The wikipedia article on Thorium Fuel Cycle gives a comprehensive list of all past and future Thorium reactors, experimental and commercial.