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Thorium Nuclear Reactors

Threads - Thor - Potential God of Electrical Generation, Nuclear Not Solar, EroEi for Nuclear Power
Thorium Not Being Considered, Is Nuclear Energy Cleaner than Fossil Fuels
On 6/3/2006 Garry Dalrymple posted:

In the past you may have marched against Uranium mining, but surely this was a proxy for marching against the nuclear weapons cycle?

In this day and age, with plutonium stockpiles etc. can there be much linkage between additional Uranium mining and nuclear proliferation? The supply of weapons grade enriched Uranium seems to be more of a Government to Government (overt or covert) transaction than a commercial mining operation.

A solution, if any is possible between the two debates (Anti Nuke and Energy resource) may be to cease the demonizing of 'Uranium' and stressing that Plutonium is too valuable an (alternate) energy resource to be left sitting at the pointy end of missiles?

In what passes for the 'Anti-Nuke' debate of the past I have always been puzzled by the dead silence on Thorium, apparently India has lots of this (monzanite beach sands in Kerala?) and has used it in some Nuke reactors (for electrical power?).

I believe that the fuel cycle of Thorium reactors cannot produce Plutonium, hence India had to get Uranium for its Atomic Bomb project.

I invite better informed list members to correct the above if I have made errors of fact in the above.


Jim Edwards retorted:

If India does not need Uranium for the production of nuclear energy then why would John Howard consider selling Australia's Uranium to India (which is not a NPT signatory) as he announced today?

On 30/3/2006, in the thread "Nuclear Energy", Toby Fiander wrote:

Tony said:

 If we invested in renewable alternatives, then by the time breeder reactors become a reliable technology we may not even need them.

This assertion does not seem to be based on a lot of evidence, although I am prepared to assert on economic principle that it is often a good idea to be looking at new technology.

I said I would read and I have (almost) the book of which we spoke some time ago by James Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia, ISBN0713999268).  It is scathing of the so-called renewable energy sources and suggests that placing faith in their future development is unwise.  The logic for this becomes clear later. Lovelock's approach is to put forward a case for construction of new nuclear power stations with some urgency.

Lovelock claims that this is not a change of approach or conclusion for him and that he has always thought that there was a limited time to make renewable energies work economically.  He says time is up.  He further suggests that is no longer possible to foresee a future in which the present world economy will survive and perhaps the human species is also in danger. He says it may be possible to save part of the civilisation, but not all of it.  The only technology he argues which can provide energy at the scale required is nuclear technology.

The basis of Lovelock's argument is that 80% of the world's sea water has a surface temperature above 10degC at which temperature, a warm surface layer forms which does not mix with the nutrients below.  Waters which are warmer than the threshold are in effect a desert (which is why tropical waters appear so clear) and that the proportion of water above the threshold is rapidly increasing.  To my mind there is too little discussion of this important point, but perhaps he has done this elsewhere.

Lovelock then argues that the risks of nuclear fuel are greatly over-rated. He goes into considerable detail as to why he thinks this, and eventually compares the risks of doing nothing (continuing on our merry way), waiting longer while new technologies are developed or building nuclear power stations.  Incidentally, he is particularly critical of wind turbines which he says are unreliable and can only ever be a small part of any electricity system at great environmental cost.

It is a good and readable book with some background reference material I will eventually read, I think.  Lovelock as a background in research, some of it involving medical isotopes, to which he refers.

My recent spate of reading is due to the emergent sickness of Cate Fiander who spent much of last weekend in hospital.  Appendectomy is apparently out of fashion, although I think this may be due to the lack of theatre time in major teaching hospitals.  Cate still has her appendix, something about which I have mixed views.  But I digress....

Tony, what do you think about the Thorium fuel cycle which does not involve Plutonium-239?

Apparently Australia has large deposits of Thorium as well as Uranium.  The richest deposits of the mineral mozanite, a phosphate mineral, are apparently in India.  There is a whole series of articles in the current COSMOS about this, which is worth the read (and the purchase if you are going to the newsagent and have not yet subscribed).

Kevin McKern responded:

Having Just read Revenge of Gaia its clear to me that "sustainable energy" is a great solution, if the worlds opulation was 2 billion. Fission has enormous potential as a power source and thorium and breeders and improved extraction echnologies will revive nuclear power. Its not for everyone, Indonesia probably isn't the place for nuclear power, they should stick to hot rocks.... Nuclear power is the only way out of the greenhouse dilemma. If you look at the direct and indirect costs of conventional power, nukes look better all the time.
This article is a bit of a meander, but it should demonstrate how cheap nuclear power is these days.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2006/0403b.html

Ray Stephens replied:

...ever come across any science fiction involving individual non-political nor national nutters having made their own backyard nukes?

Now that is something to look forward too.

Exactly how commonplace do you want uranium fission?
Better off thinking thorium, since the only reason uranium is the preferred substance of fuel is Eisenhower's requirement of military grade uranium.

And in the thread EroEi for Nuclear Power, on 2/6/2006, Ray Stephens wrote:

I'm not against nuclear energy, believing that 3-mile Island, Chernobyl and a few disgraceful incidents in India, are excellent lessons in what NOT to do.

Does Australia have to settle for nuclear energy via uranium, or could we become instead a leading international light in thorium?

As I understand it uranium became the choice for fission because of its side product in weaponry under the approval of Eissenhower, but that thorium has always been an energy contender.

I'm not well enough informed to be pragmatic about it, but its ease in turning off, its reduced long-term nuclear waste, and its inability to be used directly in nuclear bombs, makes Thorium a worthy contender even if it is non-fissionable material without a neutron bean initiator. (so I believe?)

Australia also has ample supplies of thorium, and I've heard it isn't as energy intensive to obtain as uranium oxide (yellow cake), but more like the sand mining of titanium through rutile, but I guess this would depend on the form and location of the primary mineral ore.

Toby Fiander noted:

What a shame we have a thin line of talent in the nuclear industry.  If we had built up the expertise a bit more, we might be able to build a suitable reactor.

You might note we imported a tiny nuclear reactor for Lucas Heights from well-known technological leaders, Argentina.


Ray Stephens replied:

Argentina for tech support in Lucas Heights?  Well I'll be silvered. 

I guess then Toby, than synchotrons and nanotechnology aren't going to meet particle accelerators and nuclear technology in Australia any time soon.

I suppose providing momentum to a neutron would require something more than do proton or electron accelerators, because at least both of the latter have a charge to work with.

How exactly does one make a neutron beam generator, and can I build one in the shed?

I assume, rightly or wrongly, that magnetism provides the force toward acceleration somehow?   An assumption based mostly on charge or gravity seeming unlikely.

Ray

Who wouldn't know what to do with a neutron beam generator if he had one, only to think it would be heavier than a taser.


On 9/6/2006, in the thread Electricity Generatin Fuels, Toby Fiander posted:

I was looking around for more information on the Thorium-based process that is much discussed and potentially usable for electricity generation. There is even an article in today's SMH with someone apparently eminent holding a container of Thorium oxide - a nice touch, I thought. The recent COSMOS article was helpful, but now seems a bit basic. Are you planning more of this sort of thing, Wilson da Silva?

Here is another article:
http://www.cavendishscience.org/bks/nuc/thrupdat.htm

I cannot tell what its date is. It seems to predate India's decision to build a 500MW Thorium powered machine, which is years ago, now:
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/npps/co-operation/31261.html

I suppose a more friendly process is available (than the three stage process described in the article about India's decision). Perhaps list experts can fill in the details.

For those discussing this at work, or something similar, as I have been, here is an article on thorium, the element:
http://www.periodic-table.org.uk/element-thorium.htm
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/th.html
http://www.facts-about.org.uk/science-element-thorium.htm

Here is a periodic table:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dayah.com/periodic/Images/periodic%2520table.png&imgrefurl=http://www.dayah.com/periodic/&h=1480&w=2084&sz=91&tbnid=0VVvXVkQCVztRM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dperiodic%2Btable&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1
or
http://tinyurl.com/zybxw

A (probably) useless fact:
Thorium has been used in the production of gas mantles (as in lighting).

Ray Stephens replied:


What is special about thorium?
(1) Weapons-grade fissionable material (uranium233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from the thorium reactor than plutonium is from the uranium breeder reactor.
(2) Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors.
(3) Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7% fissionable U235.
(4) Because thorium does not sustain chain reaction, fission stops by default if we stop priming it, and a runaway chain reaction accident is improbable.>>

end quote
*******

Be nice if Australia were less the herd sheep following in physics than it is, but I guess we make up for this shortcoming, and then some, in medical science.


Richard John added:


Also, article in Scientific American, December 2005, titled "Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste". Sort of gave me a few pointers to dig deeper.
On 9/6/2006 Kevin McKern wrote in the thread "Nuclear, not Solar":


That's a great idea Garry! I would recommend Chinese 110KW Pebble Bed reactors, they wouldn't take up that much space and you could still play sports on the roof if you buried them. Seriously, much as I dislike JH, he is correct for once. Energy security must be the main topic in Washington. The thing to watch will be the recommended designs. We could have CANDU reactors, that use unenriched uranium, ESKOM's PBMR's or even General Atomics HTR, although we should wait and join with China and develop mass produced PBMR's for export. If we get stuck with a big BWR, LWR or PWR built by Bechel, you know the economic hit men are at work.

The fact that the fission products in the OKLO natural reactors moved so little in 2 billion years tells you that the concerns about disposal are total paranoia, the plutonium moved about ten feet and most fission products didn't move at all.

"The ability of natural geologic barriers to isolate radioactive waste is demonstrated by the Oklo reactors. During their long reaction period about 5.4 tonnes of fission products as well as 1.5 tonnes of plutonium together with other transuranic elements were generated in the ore body. This plutonium and the other transuranics remained immobile until the present day. This is quite remarkable in view of the fact that ground water had ready access to the deposits and they were not in a chemically inert form, such as glass."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

The Helium 3 in the mantle strongly suggests fission in the past, if not currently. The massive amounts of uranium in the earth implies that it was a supernova shockwave choco with radioactive material that collapsed the bok globule that became the solar system. We have to deal with peak oil as well as climate change we need heat for forming hydrogen and carbon dioxide from water and methane and for hydrogen production. We need high temperature helium cooled reactors.

As explained in a prior post, taking into account the indirect costs and especially carbon emissions, nuclear, at 3 grams per KW/HR is better than wind or solar, according to Vattenfall, who produce power by biomass, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear and are legally required to produce full cycle carbon accounting for all production methods. They have no axes to grind, as Sweden have committed to phasing out nuclear power and the accounting to sound.

http://www.environdec.com/page.asp?id=130&epdId=24

Nuclear power generated by Vattenfall emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 than any of its other energy production mechanisms including Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass.

Its fashionable in Australia, especially on the left, to be anti-nuke, but you can't make any rational scientific case. As the zone around Chernobyl shows, the best thing to do with waste, environmentally speaking, to is lightly contaminate a large area because it keeps those nasty humans away and wild life gets a chance to recover. In practice, you can fuel CANDU reactors with used PWR rods and in the long run waste is a precious resource that needs to be recycled.

We should be demanding digital meters, so we can price power by demand, and calling for 200% surcharges for air conditioning and the phase-out of those monsters in the hunter valley which are a massive cancer hotspot and responsible for 200 million tons of carbon a year, 20 million tons of ash and a few thousand tons of heavy metals, not to mention the oil for the trucks and coal mining machines.

All our fears about boogiemen and ghosts and invisible hazards have been projected onto the only technology that in the long run can stop the rot in world energy consumption per capita and save the planet. Anyone who says otherwise is, in the end, only voting for business as usual. The coal exporters are against it, that's all you need to know!

Judging from the fact that so few households step up to the plate and pay extra to Energy Australia for Green power, as I do, tells you all you need to know, when it comes to energy policy lefties are hypocrites and wankers. All you hear is "The Gub mint gotta solve the problem but we don't need any nasty nukes." Meanwhile we are happy as Larry to sit in our own carbon shit drinking latte's and weaving baskets while we dream about "renewable" technologies that even if perfected, would support a world population of less than 2 billion.

No wonder we are doomed...

Toby Fiander responded:

I really don't get it... why does any one method of generation have to be the exclusive way forward, the future with no exceptions?  Surely, if we have learnt anything from the brief flirtation with coal these past 100 years to so, it is that one should be diversified in electricity generation as in some many other things.

If there is to be nuclear fuel for a clutch of power stations, there also needs to be a few running on hot rocks at some suitable places, a little more hydro, but probably as pump and store schemes.  There also needs to be more gas generation, more PV cells on rooves, more wind machines in local schemes, tidal stations, wave power and biomass fuel.... and probably some more coal power stations with carbon sequestration, or finer ground coal or whatever it is that is being worked on.  There also needs to be more demand management.

Now, in case you were hopeful at this point or you could hear the music in the background, you might observe that sponsorship of this list is spread across three tiers of Government and the chance of getting a list like that up are almost nil.

And on that cheery note, I have decided it is time to be horizontal.

Kevin McKern answered:

I was on a roll and went a tad too far. As far as it goes, it doesn't cost much and it's the only price signal I'm allowed to send that actually gives wind a little push, so give me a gold star for not able to successfully rationalise saving a few bucks. What I'm saying is that any credible analysis of world energy demand post oil peak, that doesn't include nuclear power big-time is a recipe for a quick planetary incineration and/or a ruthless game of large man standing and starving millions. There is no clarity to the debate. I visited some wonderful country houses a few weeks ago. Solar panels, nice stone and mud brick places passively heated and cooled, far from the grid. I'm hoping for that life, but it won't industrialise china it would take all the lead and money in the world.

The old debate was on during the cold war and mixed it all up with other stuff and as its my pet policy, so I tend to lose it.

Of course all "green power", including reactors, has a carbon debt, usually about 5% of lifecycle production, your point being what exactly?

Were going to be ground zero for the biggest energy boom in the history of the world and we should get used to it.

and:


Of course you're absolutely right Toby. I didn't mean to suggest I disagreed.


Ray Stephens commented:

...it is only hypocrisy (e) which bothers me Kevin/s.

The one in the fund raising social club of the green movement which values the cute and cuddly over the slimy and prickly.

Other than that, ignorance is a universal problem and not necessarily hypocrisy.

and:

As far as it goes, it doesn't cost much.

This, as it happens, is likely to be the argument clincher, one way or another (in one decade of moments or another).

There is already considerable debate as to whether nuclear fission by Uranium, including its processing costs, is as likely to be as inexpensive choice as many think.

Certainly, if we're not processing the yellowcake here (which afaik, we still do not), then we'll be paying someone else to do it.
Jim Edwards noted:

The recent hoo-haa about whether Western Mining would be taken over by a dodgy transnational called Xstrata, and the current seismic tremor going through the ALP about nuclear power and the "three mines policy" indicates, to me at least, that the underlying argument is not about CO2 or energy or the environment, it is about power, political/economic/military power, not electrical.

Mining, whether for coal or uranium, requires enormous investment of capital, as does the construction of power stations.  That sort of investment is beyond the capacity of a small country like Austalia to provide so we must therefore become beholden to transnational corporations.  These corporations, by law, have only one objective - to make their shareholders as rich as they possibly can.  If they purport to have any other aims, like caring for the environment, doing right by their employees, providing a service to the end users of their product, etc., then if they are not actually lying they have a hidden agenda which is to improve their image so that they can make bigger profits.

One of their favourite ways of generating profits is by persuading the government (of whichever country they are targeting) to borrow large sums of money from international banks to pay for the infrastructure the corporation will need if it is to build the nuclear power station or whatever.  They also expect the government to subsidise their construction costs and give tax cuts to their directors while cutting services to health, education and welfare to pay the interest on the loans.

The reason why alternative energy sources receive so little funding compared with coal, oil and uranium is that the return on investment, both economic and political, is minuscule by comparison. The proponents of wind, solar, geothermal or tidal energy generation do not have a fraction of the cash that the big fossil and nuclear fuel suppliers have to grease the wheels of politics to make things happen.  So it matters not how you vote, you will still elect a politician who has probably been paid, either directly or indirectly, by one of these corporations.

As to the uranium v thorium debate, I find it curious that the PM is keen to sell our uranium to India which is not a signatory to the NPT, has tested nuclear weapons which require enriched uranium, and has a nuclear power station which uses thorium.  What is going on here?


Kevin McKern added:

I'm actually sensitive to this view. Having recently read "Economic Hit Man", the actions of US companies overlending to Indonesia on the basis of wildly inflated estimates of electricity demand growth and then, when the project income falls short, using the leverage to gain access to political favours, UN votes or other natural resources is a given. The deals made in Saudi that guaranteed dollar hegemony, business for American companies and debt recycling are breathtaking. But your otherwise in denial.

The Hoo-haa over Xstrata and WMC was a bun fight over a single mine with 10% of the worlds uranium, Xstrata was about to pick it up for a song, when the spot price of yellowcake was about $10 a pound. (It was probably even less). Uranium spot is now about $42 a pound and this time next year it will $100.00 and shortly after $200 and then $500. At $500 a pound, fuel will still be only about 15% of operating costs. BHP Billiton won the prize, Xstrata are on the nose, so the gnomish traders who will shut down mines and plot world mineral market domination from Zug HQ missed out. They had already screwed a few Australia producers and didn't have the political support that BHP had.

That's why Australia should develop its own expertise and by leveraging on the supply agreement with China get involved in the development and construction of small pebble bed reactors with power densities low enough so damage of the core is impossible. The Chinese have cut coolant flow to their HTR three times, "dopper broadening" as the silicon carbide pebbles heat slows fission and prevents core temperature rising to the melting point of the pebbles. There are other advantages as well, you can refuel without shutting down and you can string them together and run them all from a
single control room.

Nuclear Engineering, materials science and computer hardware have completely revolutionised nuclear power. The days of massive multimegawatt monsters with hundreds of personnel, billion dollar stainless steel pressure vessels and 20ft thick concrete containment structures are gone. Those old units are great today, they produce today the greenest and cheapest electricy on the planet, but no one is going to build those anymore. The future of nukes is units with no containment structure, a small pressure vessel to contain the helium and gas turbines of high thermal efficiency that can be built anywhere and so lower transmission losses. We are looking at units the size of a three story apartment block.

Our relatively sound political institutions and public policy mechanisms and role as best buddy of the hegemon has meant we have generally benefited from any local infrastructure development and these days Macquarie Bank makes a lot of money managing power stations and airports throughout the world.

Howard, unlike Bush, didn't roll over completely with India and I'm ready to sell them the uranium if it means they don't burn coal.

As for our capital requirements, if Australians were a little less willing to throw every single dime we can save and borrow on home improvement and housing development and otherwise completely misallocate our capital due to absurd and perverse incentives like negative gearing and had we introduced Keating's compulsory super forty years before we did, we might have had the savings to fund the resource investments that keep the country solvent ourselves. We must all take responsibility for that neglect, should be surprised that the owners of our resources have priorities that differ from our ideals.

The Hegemon is on its last legs, the US markets will rally shortly, crash into October before turning down for the rest of the decade, there will be a massive repricing of assets worldwide as commodity prices stabilise before rising for another twenty years while the declining relative value of residential real estate in the US, UK and Australia drag on the economy for years to come.

We need to cooperate with China and develop a nuclear energy industry. As a nation we should be making strategic investments in Chinese companies like Suntech and Chinese power utilities.

We are per capita the carbon crims of the world, what we don't burn ourselves we flog off to people who burn it in small furnaces with crap efficiency. Jesus, I'm just listening to a guy on the science show talk rubbish about the greenhouse impact of nuclear power. Why otherwise intelligent scientists accept the shoddy work of Storm van Leeuwen and Smith truly defeats me. See

http://www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm

I'm done.
Toby Fiander commented:


According to the ABC article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1679911.htm
Thorium is not being considered by the Prime Ministerial Task Force.

Michael Bailes notedin the thread "Is Nuclear Energy Cleaner than Fossil Fuels":

The Prime Minister would like us to be distracted with this question at the moment.
So what does everyone think?

I am reading Karl Kruszelnicki's book "Sensational Moments in Science", ABC Press, 2001. He has an interesting take on this topic
"In 1982, some 111 (US)nuclear-fired power plants consumed about 540 tonnes of nuclear fuel. In the same year, coal-fired power plants released over 800 tonnes of uranium." into the atmosphere.
"If a single nuclear-fired plant released 8K of uranium into the bio-sphere. there would be . .an enormous outcry."
He says the nuclear content of coal has not yet reached general public awareness in the same way that* the greenhouse effect AIDs,* or the *ozone hole* have. There are no nuclear regulations about the disposal of coal ash

Coal apparently contains a heap of uranium and thorium He concludes that you will get three times more radiation from a coal fired power plant than a nuclear fueled power plant! That's if you include the complete nuclear fuel cycle mining, processing operating, disposal(!?) If you don't include these your average coal-fired power plant puts out 100 times more radiation than a nuclear-fired plant. p103-104

and replying to a query from Gavin:

As I remember Karl Kruszelnicki made a comment about this; he just said the public perception had not "caught up" with things just yet; . we are still battling about greenhouse etc. It is pretty scary.  I have a power station within sight of me so how much Uranium and Thorium is it pumping out into my backyard?

Then again Karl Kruszelnicki ignores the question of the disposal of nuclear waste The Nuclear industry has a pretty dire record about wastes  too.

John Winckle opined:

Basically because the nuclear debate is a political one like GM and global warming, and facts are used selectively.

Michael Bailes answered:

John all science is conducted in a social, political, historical and environmental context. Any scientist who says he is not effected by these is kidding himself.
That doesn't mean we have to give up discussing sensitive topics. The GM debate in particular has moral,environmental and economic issues that need society to reach some consensus before we move on safely. You can't dismiss every argument you see because it is political or "It's neo Marxist political bullshit."
We may never end up with objective "truth" -if it exists; but we may at least follow all the other lemmings knowing they agree with us (!? :))

John Winckle replied:


> John all science is conducted in a social, political, historical and
> environmental context.
> Any scientist who says he is not effected by these is kidding himself.

Any scientist who is aware that his outlook might be biased by the above needs to reconsider. Cases where bias has entered results are well documented and have had bad consequences for the scientist concerned. It's one thing to interact in the real worls as a normal human being, but it's another altogether to let your attitude affect results. The two just don't run together the way you imply.


> That doesn't mean we have to give up discussing sensitive topics.
> The GM debate in particular has moral,environmental and economic issues

That are separate from the scientific ones, but the science is drowned out by hysteria and polemic. The polemicists don't want the debate to be decided on scientific grounds.


that
> need society to reach some consensus before we move on safely.
> You can't dismiss every argument you see because it is political or "It's
> neo Marxist political bullshit."

The ones that are Markist political claptrap, if and when they are identified should be discarded. I think that was implied by what I said.

> We may never end up with objective "truth"

We can try a lot harder than some want to. The first step is to get politics out and science in.


Geoff Pain wrote:


I wonder if anyone has investigated the relationship between the uranium enrichment store of "depleted" uranium hexafluoride dating from WWII and the decision to get rid of (mainly USA) stockpiles by putting the uranium in munitions and firing it all around the place starting (I think but happy to be corrected) with the Gulf War and then extending into the Balkans and possibly Afghanistan and Iraq.

How much uranium has been converted to heavy munitions?

What has happened to the fluorine from the UF6?

Do they use thorium in munitions as well?

John Winckle answered:

<snip>
I have never heard of it. I suspect that it doesn't have the other necessary physical attributes. Its density is only about 11 gm/cm3 as opposed to about 18 gm/cm3 for U.