Thorium has tremendous promise as a future source of nuclear energy. It is the only material whose fissile product (uranium-233) produces sufficient neutrons in thermal fission to sustain its own consumption. The important implication is that a properly-designed thorium-fueled reactor, once started with fissile material, can continue to produce energy without additional fissile material. Inherent […]
For many years now I have been interested in the work being done at UC-Berkeley in the modeling of molten-salt reactors using a simulant fluid. Prandtl number matching between salt and simulant fluid: (1) Dynamic viscosity is often a strong function of temperature while specific heat and thermal conductivity are generally weak functions of […]
This spring I completed a master’s thesis at the University of Tennessee on the history of thorium research during the Manhattan Project. The thesis ran 476 pages, most of which was primary-source appendices — Seaborg’s Met Lab history volumes, the MUC-LAO meeting notes from April and May 1944, the Wigner-Young paper of May 1945, and […]
Every few years, a story makes the rounds on social media claiming that a thorium-powered car is just around the corner — or already exists and is being suppressed by the oil industry. The story is irresistible: 8 grams of thorium, about the weight of a few paperclips, could power a car for a million […]
We went to CERN in Switzerland! Or was it France? It’s easy to get confused…when the border between the two countries runs right through the middle of the CERN campus! Our perspective as a company is the industrial perspective. When we are talking to those who are generating electricity these are the things they’re worried […]
I recently attended the 8th International Symposium for Targeted Alpha Therapy (TATS 2013) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The conference presenters confirmed that alpha-emitting radioisotopes derived from the thorium fuel cycle are very promising agents in the fight against cancer, HIV, and other diseases. Scores of researchers from around the world assembled to present […]
I flew to Seoul, South Korea for a workshop at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) on the subject of thorium molten-salt reactors. I arrived Monday night and took a taxi from Gimhae International Airport in Busan to the Lotte Hotel in Ulsan, and being incredibly jet-lagged I pretty much collapsed into […]
Not really. Not if you’ve been paying attention to this field for years. But the thing that excites me is that the issue is beginning to percolate into the public consciousness a bit more than before. Could it be a bit of a backlash against the fear/uncertainty/doubt that the media drove upon us after the […]
Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is thorium and what makes it special? A: Thorium is a naturally-occuring mineral that holds large amounts of releasable nuclear energy, similar to uranium. This nuclear energy can be released in a special nuclear reactor designed to use thorium. Thorium is special because it is easier to extract this energy […]
We were visiting Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) yesterday and during a lunchtime discussion, the topic of the most recent reactor at ORNL came up. A little discussion ensued and we realized that, with its first criticality in June of 1965, the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was the second-youngest reactor (in terms of first criticality) […]