How Much Thorium would it Take to Power the Whole World I have claimed on here that thorium, if efficiently utilized in a liquid-fluoride reactor, is an energy source of such magnitude that it is not difficult to conceive of an entire planet powered by thorium. The Calculation So let me lay out the calculations […]
Does Reprocessing Nuclear Waste Make Sense? Recent statements at the federal level indicate that the concept of “reprocessing” nuclear fuel is ready to be looked at again. This controversial decision was originally made by President Ford in the twilight days of his administation in October 1976, and then reiterated by President Carter shortly thereafter–that civilian […]
When talking to folks about thorium, I often mention as one of the basic advantages the fact that you can “burn” thorium in a thermal spectrum reactor, and don’t need a fast spectrum reactor. Which usually elicits the question, “What the heck is a “thermal spectrum reactor” and why should I care that you can […]
20 Years Ago Twenty years ago, the worst nuclear power accident in history took place in the Ukraine at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. The details of the accident are described extensively on a number of different websites, and I will not go through them here. But I will take the opportunity to talk about […]
Dual Fluid LFTR’s are easy to Reprocess The nuclear materials of a properly-designed, two-fluid (LFTR) Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor are extremely easy to process. This is because the fuel (one-fluid) and the fertile blanket (the other fluid) are already liquids. This immediately eliminates the first step in typical solid-fuel reprocessing, which is converting the fuel […]
When I learned that the entire National Defense Stockpile of thorium (3216 metric tonnes) was slated for burial in the Nevada desert, that was bad enough. But the destruction of our U233 really breaks my heart and hurts so much worse. Uranium-233 is the ideal fuel to start a liquid-fluoride reactor, and there is a […]
Another semi-recent story concerns the use of thorium as a “fuel” in typical, light-water reactors. I put “fuel” in quotations because the only way to truly utilize the thorium resources of the world is to follow the three-step process I have outlined. First, convert the thorium to protactinium-233, isolate the protactinium until it decays to […]
In 2003, an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Between MOX and a Hard Place, described the difficulty of disposing of the vast amounts of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium left over from the Cold War. “Weapons-grade” material generally means plutonium that consists predominantly of the isotope plutonium-239, and uranium that consists predominantly of […]
LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor Development of an Innovative Thorium Reactor The LFTR is an innovative design for a thermal breeder reactor that was developed from the 1950s through the 1970s at ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The reactor utilized a fluid-fuel form, with uranium and thorium fluoride salts dissolved in […]
In the late 1940s, excitement and enthusiasm about all things “atomic” was common among military planners. Having “harnessed” the energy of the atom for nuclear weapons, naturally they began to imagine how this energy could be used to drive other military activities. About this time a young Navy captain, Hyman Rickover, was beginning to think […]