Posts Tagged ‘thorium’

February 3, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

The Chinese are going whole hog on nuclear technology. Not only do they have 20 uranium-fuel reactors under construction with 30 more in the planning stage, they are now diving into thorium research as well.
 
Many nuclear scientists have argued that thorium is really the way to go with civilian power. One story is that Enrico Fermi pushed thorium in the early days, but the military’s demand for plutonium from uranium reactors became the determining factor.
 
This report in Wired worries openly that America is going to get left behind in nuclear technology. “If the reactor works as planned, China may fulfill a long-delayed dream of clean nuclear energy,” says reporter Richard Martin. “The United States could conceivably become dependent on China for next-generation nuclear technology. At the least, the United States could fall dramatically behind in developing green energy.”  Wired is one of the few popular magazines in the country that understands nuclear technology and takes it seriously.
 
India, Norway and France are all exploring thorium technology. India is particularly interested because of its abundant thorium resources. The U.S. once had a thorium program but – like just about everything else in nuclear – it was eventually abandoned.
 
“According to thorium advocates, the United States could find itself 20 years from now importing technology originally developed nearly four decades ago at one of America’s premier national R&D facilities,” concludes the Wired report. “The alarmist version of China’s next-gen nuclear strategy come down to this: If you like foreign-oil dependency, you’re going to love foreign-nuclear dependency.”

Read more about it at Wired

You don’t have to be involved in nuclear very long before you start hearing about thorium. It’s the other naturally occurring radioactive element that exists in large supplies and can produce nuclear fission.

The story is that Eugene Wigner, Alvin Weinberg and other pioneers of the Manhattan Project era believed thorium offered a much better way to tapping nuclear energy.  We went the uranium route instead because uranium was the more practical option for the immediate task of building a bomb.

Nevertheless, thorium is three-to-four times as abundant as uranium.  It doesn’t require isotope separation – a huge cost saving.  When bombarded by neutrons, thorium doesn’t fission but converts to uranium-233 — which does.  With U-233, the production of transuranics is orders of magnitude lower.  This obviates any proliferation issues. (U-233 can be used to make a conventional weapon but is consumed all along within the reactor.). Depending on the reactor, the spent fuel can be much easier to handle.  India has large supplies and is developing a thorium-based nuclear cycle.

While it might be a potentially appealing package for the U.S. — and was actually pursued to some extent in the 1990s — there are significant hurdles.  The U.S. is obviously fully committed to the uranium fuel-cycle — as is the balance of the world — for the Renaissance.  We are heavily invested in the status quo, both to meet U.S. demands and to compete internationally.

Can or should a thorium fuel cycle play a side-by-side role in Renaisssance Rev 1.0?  Is there a plausible business case for the massive investment necessary?  Or do public acceptance and first-of-a-kind licensing issues make it impractical?  Are there other more appealing Generation IV options?  In short, what’s the best way to proceed — if any — with the Thorium option?

Did Milton Shaw, a 1970s member of the Atomic Energy Commission, try to subvert the fast breeder reactor and close down Oak Ridge?  Was thorium a better route toward nuclear?  Was Alvin Weinberg the victim of all this?

Charles Barton reviews the whole subject in a lengthy blog post, “Milton Shaw and the Road to Energy Failure.”  Much of it is old and forgotten arguments, but it is certainly interesting to hear President Richard Nixon telling Congress:  “Our best hope today for meeting the Nation's growing demand for economical clean energy lies with the fast breeder reactor.”

It’s hard to tell whether this kind of soul searching moves the ball forward. What’s done is done and it’s hard to go back and pinpoint a particular moment in time or individual and say this is where things went wrong. President Jimmy Carter’s canceling of fuel reprocessing was probably the most fateful decision in the long history of nuclear, but we still managed to complete more than fifty reactors after 1976 and we may get the chance to revisit reprocessing yet.

The important thing is the Nuclear Renaissance is moving forward. Rather than the “road to energy failure” we should be talking about the road to energy success.

Read more at Nuclear Green

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- William Tucker