I've studied this for years and haven't found any credible reason why we couldn't do this today.<p>But there are a lot of forces allied against Thorium in both the government, energy companies and the current nuclear industry.<p>Senator Hatch (R) Utah with support from Harry Reid (D) Nevada has introduced a bill annually for five years to fund $200 million to research to commercialize Thorium power. Yet every year the bill never even gets voted on.<p><a href="http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=releases&ContentRecord_id=25d9273f-1b78-be3e-e03d-75506902df40&ContentType_id=7e038728-1b18-46f4-bfa9-f4148be94d19" rel="nofollow">http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=releases&Cont...</a><p>What is stopping Google itself from funding this I don't know? Our country should make this a major initiative similar to the race to the moon and get us off coal, oil and gas.
This is project pursued by many[1]. The main hurdles are:<p>1. political [2], which Kirk mentions (it is no coincidence, that the pellets that the rods contain are as standard as the NATO bullet) -- the industry and power has a very different interest<p>2. technical: Kirk always mentions, that the fuel is not solid. It is liquid. The latter means, that you do have higher concerns about corrosiveness, hence (useful) reactor lifetime...<p>Also, the issue of scale, which tends to lie between 1. and 2. Uranium "won", because you got the real stuff with it (weapons as in actual projection of power, or the capability of threat to project power) and because you could make it work on a massive scale (current reactors are an order of magnitude larger than any LFTR design, and capitalism is based on the leverage of and concentration of power).<p>[1] <a href="http://energyfromthorium.com/" rel="nofollow">http://energyfromthorium.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.thorenergy.no/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thorenergy.no/</a><p><a href="http://thoriumenergy.com.au/" rel="nofollow">http://thoriumenergy.com.au/</a><p>... besides China, India, France and (even) Czechs.<p>[2] <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom....</a> -> see Seaborg interview part
I hear a lot about the LFTR, and I wonder what the problem is. Is there a major technical hurdle that prevents this from seeing widespread use?<p>Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes a really good idea never gets used because... well... because nobody really picks it up and runs with it. It's that simple sometimes.<p>But sometimes there's some hidden gotcha.
I go to school at Boston University and took an Energy class with a Nobel Laureate in physics, Sheldon Glashow, last semester. He spoke in great depth about Thorium reactors, and is very supportive of the technology.<p>One of the main hurdles is that we have poured money into our modern-day reactors, and have constructed hundreds of plants. If we were to switch to thorium, we would have to essentially start from scratch - new research, new plant designs, new training, etc. It is very difficult to justify a complete switch from uranium, as it would be incredibly costly.<p>In other countries, however, thorium reactors could be very beneficial. Countries using thorium would not be able to produce nuclear weapons, which would give the world great peace of mind. This could minimize risks in unstable countries - we wouldn't worry if Iran was building a thorium reactor, for example.<p>There are also other types of reactor designs that use nuclear waste to create power. I believe our nuclear future lies with these types of reactors, rather than with uranium or thorium.
Since India has a lot of Thorium, they are actively pursuing it. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk&feature=related" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DiTPw3dk&feature=relat...</a>
Just use CANDU reactors, it will burn raw uranium, and can use the waste product from PWR reactors, just leave the thorium in the raw uranium. It's been working for years, no Yucca mountain, Yucca mountain is a purely US phenomena, it doesn't exist in Canada or France. It's not a new technology, it's 60 years old. All you need is a little heavy water, and in event of a meltdown you just flood the tank with regular water and voila no reactions.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor</a><p>Here's the fuel cycle for a CANDU reactor which will support the thorium cycle as well.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CANDU_fuel_cycles.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CANDU_fuel_cycles.jpg</a>
For anyone who wants to delve into this more deeply, Sorenson's videos (<a href="http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/06/04/adventures-with-gordon/" rel="nofollow">http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/06/04/adventures-with-gord...</a>) are really great. I recently watched the two-hour one, which was edited from a longer talk to cut out the pauses. It's a rapid-fire, passionate technical introduction that I found very compelling.
Any plans to build a reactor somewhere?<p>I fear that mere engineering heavy talking has no chance solving nuclear’s PR problem.<p>Actually building a reactor might help. Maybe. Maybe not.
If the world was serious about nuclear non-proliferation, we would have thorium reactors everywhere already. They said a few times in the video that thorium reactors can't be used for weapons, and so they are not built. Governments have decided that we need nukes, so thorium reactors do not get funding.<p>But if we are serious about non-proliferation, then switching to thorium reactors and controlling which new reactors get built is a much more effective strategy then the current weapon-counting efforts. Once a reactor is built and starts creating fissile material, then it is difficult to keep track of and control. But it is much harder to hide a reactor while you are building it - Iran tried and failed.<p>So it seems to me that thorium reactors, in addition to their efficiency, low cost and low amount of radioactive waste, could also be a useful tool in enforcing nuclear non-proliferation. We've got these reactors that cannot be used to make bombs - why don't we sign treaties saying that they are the only reactors that can be built?
I read an American company is trying to make one in the north of Chile. It's because they really need energy (they're currently using coal and <i>diesel</i> to keep the lights on in the north) and there's not a whole lot of bio-anything to protect there. I think it's a great idea, but a lot of people don't.
This cutted version feels like none of these persons said anything that is in the video, because the statements (or even words) are "out of context". I just can <i>assume</i> the author of the video has good intentions and did not change the context.
Kirk Sorenson on Dr kiki’s Science Hour: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd-jbw" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd-jbw</a>
the UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) undertook a recent independent assessment, in which it assessed a number of claims made by proponents of thorium fuel. The report can be found at: <a href="http://www.nnl.co.uk/positionpapers" rel="nofollow">http://www.nnl.co.uk/positionpapers</a>
Slightly off topic, but could thorium be used for vehicle propulsion? as in nuclear submarines or even better: space craft? if the payload is efficient enough, it could solve the issues we have with getting rockets into space (fuel is heavy, and costly to transport).
I have a whole lot of related links here making the case for thorium: <a href="http://webwanderings.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/thorium-based-energy-is-the-answer/" rel="nofollow">http://webwanderings.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/thorium-based-...</a>