Blue Ribbon Commission learns about thorium

The NRC favors light water reactor technology only by default. The LWR is the only thing they know. The unfortunate truth is that the regulators there will need to be educated (add approval time) about other technologies, at the expense (add money) of those who propose those technologies. It will take a combination of industry pressure, government direction (from outside the NRC), and government funding to get the NRC out of its LWR comfort zone. I hate to say we need more government funding for something, but our energy needs are too important to just "kick the can down the road" until we face a crisis. But since government has set itself up as one of the major roadblocks to the development of advanced nuclear energy sources, it needs to share the pain that these roadblocks cause by providing appropriate funding.

A few nits: "Cut...to zero by 2058". Please delete "to zero". There will still be lots of CO2 emissions, and you shouldn't imply otherwise. "Check growth" should be "Check population growth". "Avoid weapons proliferation" should be "Avoid nuclear weapons proliferation". Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a hope of limiting conventional weapons. "Consume world fissile stocks" needs rewording. One of the problems with light water reactors is that they are consuming the only stock of fissile material we have inherited, which is U235. We need to consume more of the fertile material, and less of the fissile. Maybe just "Reduce/consume radiotoxic waste".

@Robert - I am with Jim on this issue. Though a majority of people - who often do not understand the technology - may think that fissile materials are bad, the technical reality is that they are simply materials that are more readily converted into useful energy than fertile materials. I call them the "kindling" or "seed corn" of nuclear fission. If they are not actually formed into a weapon, they are not particularly dangerous and certainly are not something that this generation should actively destroy. That would not be fair to future generations that might want to start up a few thousand new reactors every year.

The initial fissile load might be 100 kg of U-233 for a 100 MWe power LFTR. It would consume about 100 kg of thorium annually thereafter.

50/50 U-235/U-238 would work, but transport of HEU (>20% U-235) to commercial reactors is virtually forbidden, for fear the material might be hijacked for nuclear weapons. We could not simply throw in the pellets of spent fuel; some preprocessing would be required, for example to remove the fission products.

Further on the presentation I will give, can anyone point me to a piece saying why thorium fast breeder is a whole lot better than uranium fast breeder? Starting with why uranium fast breeder has to be in the fast spectrum, which in turn dictates the size of the reactor blanket? And why it has to have a sodium coolant and that in turn dictates size considerations. If size is an issue, is the BN 600 a minimum size for this technology perhaps?

I do not have the educational background to understand half of Dr Robt Hargrave presentaion "Aim High" is all about, But I do hope that His suggesting of building a smaller Unit might be feasible & could start almost Immediately. Look at the Conditions in Haiti whereless less than 12.5% of the population have access to electricity. With Their recent Election Rusults exspected to 12/7/10 Get a conmittmrnt from New government there that they would allow a private Joint venture to develope a Thorium Powered Utility. Contact Every Non-governmental owned utility in the world for a pledge of funds to get the project moving, Offer them in exchange Units of Ownership in the venture as well as Lets say 50% Interest in all patents developed as a result of the implementation of the venture. It is obvious that the naysayers have to big a voice with US Gov't in developing an energy policy and research budget that is adequate to meet the cost outlined by DR Hargrave.

I now understand that the Blue Ribbon Commission will not endorse any specific technology, but will recommend new policies. I'd guess they would be about NRC fees and procedures for SMR licensing, and about responsibility for spent fuel disposition.