Comments on: Should We Try Thorium Reactors?

By: Spin & Disinformation Prevention Centre

Spin & Disinformation Prevention Centre — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:34:01 +0000

We dig up our fragile outback ; they get the radioactive thorium and the taxpayer gets the ecocidal externalites.

Thorium pushers say their reactors will gobble up all the radioactive waste that’s been produced and then say thorium RA waste will “only” need to be isolated for three hundred years. Huh?

Same dog as nuclear, different haircut.

(27.06.2012) India’s Atomic Energy Commission reported that the country has to wait for a few more decades to use thorium as the base for nuclear reactors.

“Using thorium as the base for reactors will take time. We have to wait a few decades to make it possible,” AEC chairman RK Sinha said.

Beware the jabberwock.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:34:10 +0000

Thorium reactors are in use in India right now.

I don’t think this is true.

By: James Duhachek

James Duhachek — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:26:32 +0000

After viewing the video, I think that the issue relates to people being misinformed that solar and wind energy sources could ever replace the world energy needs. Thorium salt reactors are engineered to be much safer and Thorium reactors are in use in India right now. Only 5000 tons of Thorium would provide the energy needs of the of all the energy provided by natural gas, oil, and uranium in 2007. It comes down to fear of nuclear energy.

By: Wow

Wow — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:23:03 +0000

“Development on a 60MW thorium molten salt reactor is underway, with anticipated completion within 2 years.”

However, that’s been the case for over 40 years.

You’d think if it were so easy, they’d have done it by now.

And Finland’s nuke is new and over time and budget.

Whereas everywhere they’re building wind farms, they’re ahead of schedule and budget.

Lets sort out the short term problem of coal/gas with ideas that work now and can start now, and when we’re comfy work out what we’re doing to do besides that, hmm?

By: Steve Garcia

Steve Garcia — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:46:14 +0000

Greg – You are making statements here that you haven’t even done basic online research on. Evidently about all you’ve done is watch this one 10-minute video.

By: Andrew Dodds

Andrew Dodds — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:17:59 +0000

Greg –

Actually, the main reason we use PWR-style designs for commercial reactors is that they happen to be very useful for military applications – i.e Nuclear submarines/carriers. Very useful in those cases due to their high power density, probably not the best bet for commercial operation.

By: @OzThoriumEnergy

@OzThoriumEnergy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:09:10 +0000

Re: Greg Laden: Greg your scientist colleagues are correct in their description of the thorium technology. It is doable (sic) and what’s more, the Aust/Czech private company partnership IS DOING IT RIGHT NOW! Development on a 60MW thorium molten salt reactor is underway, with anticipated completion within 2 years. As for funding: the project is fully-funded by the JV. The scientific brains active on this project have already designed, built, operated thorium MSR previously, which is not a well known fact. Power to the grid in 2 years.

By: Dunc

Dunc — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:52:05 +0000

Yeah, there’s a very big difference between “this technology can almost certainly be made to work” and “this technology is ready for immediate large-scale deployment”. Whenever you hear somebody talking about how great New Energy Technology X is, the question to ask is “OK, suppose I’m sold and I want to roll out, say, 10GW of capacity ASAP – how long will that take and how much will it cost?” At which point they’ll usually hum and haw a bit, then hit you with a pitch for seed capital to develop a prototype.

Roughly speaking, the pipeline from “this technology can almost certainly be made to work” to “this technology is ready for immediate large-scale deployment” is usually somewhere between 20 and 40 years. Assuming that it actually can be made to work, of course…

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:44:06 +0000

I just spent several days in a remote area of the deep south somewhere with 450 scientists, science journalists, and science bloggers and some of had the conversation about Throium reactors that I needed to have to understand the situation a bit better.

The technology is doable, maybe even not a bad idea at some level, but it is virtually undeveloped and not easy to develop. Keep in mind that all those great moments in technology of energy or nuclear technology were like so many other first runs … the hardest, most complex, leading edge approaches take longer and are done later because they are harder. Uranium powered water cooled reactors are low hanging fruit compared to Thorium.

My understanding at this point is that to go from zero to Thorium reactors making energy for regular use would be very expensive and take 40 years plus/minus. What I’m hearing is that investing that same amount of money into building windmills, geothermal, solar, etc. would get the results we need now.

So, my current answer to my own question is “probably not.”

By: StevoR

StevoR — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:31:33 +0000

Great talk. Thanks for that. The guy there makes a very good case for thorium & liquid fluro-salts reactors which only leaves me wondering why we’re not hearing a lot more about them as an alternatiev energy source now.

Why not? Politics? Commercial problems? Lack of awareness?