One of the central principles of the modern environmental movement is the simple mantra: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Most people associate those words with aluminum cans and cardboard boxes. But they apply with equal — and far greater — force to nuclear fuel. In this essay I want to show that the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor makes it possible to achieve all three of these goals to a degree that no other approach to nuclear energy can match.
Introduction
Liquid-fluoride reactors are based on the use of dissolved actinide fluoride salts in a carrier medium of low-neutron-absorption fluoride salt solvents. The most thoroughly studied formulations use solvents based on low-melting-point mixtures of beryllium fluoride (BeF₂) and lithium fluoride (LiF), isotopically enriched in the more abundant isotope lithium-7. The actinide fluorides most commonly employed are thorium tetrafluoride (ThF₄) and uranium tetrafluoride (UF₄). LiF-BeF₂ mixtures have very low neutron absorption, excellent heat capacity, remarkable stability under intense radiation, and the ability to dissolve substantial quantities of thorium or uranium tetrafluoride.
LiF-BeF₂ mixtures provide some neutron moderation but are not efficient moderators, so liquid-fluoride reactors generally employ a solid moderating material to slow neutrons to thermal energies. Graphite is the standard choice: it is abundant, relatively inexpensive, chemically compatible with fluoride salts, and it is not wetted by the salt. Graphite can also be sealed in ways that limit the intrusion of fission product gases — particularly xenon — into its structure.
Thorium is less familiar than uranium as a nuclear fuel, but its properties are exceptionally well suited to the task. It is the most abundant naturally occurring actinide, making up approximately 10 parts per million of the Earth’s continental crust — three to four times more common than uranium. It occurs as a single natural isotope, thorium-232, and is entirely non-fissile in that form. But thorium-232 can be converted into a fissile fuel by neutron absorption followed by two successive beta decays. After absorbing a neutron, thorium-232 becomes thorium-233, which beta-decays with a half-life of 22 minutes into protactinium-233. Protactinium-233 then beta-decays with a half-life of about 27 days into uranium-233, which is fissile and has remarkable neutronic properties. In a thermal neutron spectrum, uranium-233 produces enough neutrons per fission to sustain the continued conversion of thorium into energy — even accounting for normal neutron losses — provided the reactor is designed with sufficient neutronic efficiency.
Thorium has a number of drawbacks as a conventional nuclear fuel, but the fluoride reactor form eliminates or strongly mitigates nearly all of them. What follows is an examination of how the thorium liquid-fluoride reactor fulfills the environmental promise of reduce, reuse, and recycle — applied not to household waste, but to the most energy-dense fuel humanity has ever used.
Reduce: Cutting Transuranic Waste at the Source
One of the most serious concerns about today’s approach to nuclear power is what it leaves behind. Conventional light-water reactors use low-enriched uranium (LEU) in solid uranium oxide fuel rods. That fuel is composed of roughly 3-5% uranium-235 — the fissile component — and 95-97% uranium-238, which is fertile but not itself fissile. When a neutron strikes uranium-238, it does not cause fission. Instead it is absorbed, and through a short series of decays, it produces plutonium-239. From plutonium-239, further neutron captures produce other plutonium isotopes, and then higher actinides — americium, curium, neptunium — collectively known as the transuranics.
After three to four years of irradiation, a conventional fuel rod is removed and placed in a spent fuel pool. It still contains large quantities of unused fuel — both uranium and transuranics — but because the U.S. does not reprocess spent fuel, that material is destined for disposal in a deep geological repository. The transuranics in the spent fuel are the primary drivers of repository design: they generate the bulk of the long-term decay heat that determines how densely fuel can be packed into the repository, and they carry the overwhelming share of the radiotoxicity that repository planners must account for across the next ten thousand years.
The thorium approach attacks this problem at its root. Thorium-232, with an atomic mass of 232, begins the nuclear fuel cycle five neutron absorptions removed from the first transuranic isotope that could possibly be generated. The chain runs as follows: thorium-232 absorbs a neutron to become uranium-233, which is fissile. In a thermal spectrum, uranium-233 fissions approximately 90% of the time it absorbs a neutron — the other 10% produces uranium-234. Uranium-234 can absorb another neutron to become uranium-235, which is also fissile and fissions about 85% of the time it absorbs a neutron. The remaining 15% produces uranium-236, which has a low neutron absorption cross-section. Only after absorbing yet another neutron does uranium-236 produce the first transuranic isotope in this chain: neptunium-237.
By contrast, in a conventional uranium reactor, the majority fuel component — uranium-238 — is only a single neutron absorption away from producing the first transuranic, plutonium-239.
The arithmetic of this difference is stark. In the thorium approach, roughly 98.5% of the original fuel is destroyed by fission in the course of those five absorptions before any transuranic can be produced. And neptunium-237, the first transuranic that does appear, can be readily removed from the fluoride salt by fluorination: it converts from neptunium tetrafluoride in solution to neptunium hexafluoride, which is gaseous, and simply separates itself from the salt.
The result is a dramatic reduction in the production of long-lived transuranic waste — not by treating waste after it is created, but by choosing a fuel cycle that produces far less of it in the first place.
Reuse: A Fuel That Never Wears Out
Conventional nuclear fuel is a one-time proposition, in practice if not in principle. Uranium oxide is fabricated into ceramic pellets, loaded into zirconium-clad rods, assembled into bundles, and inserted into a reactor. Over three to four years of irradiation, several things happen simultaneously: the fissile uranium-235 is consumed, fission products accumulate in the ceramic matrix, radiation damage causes dislocations and swelling in the fuel structure, and gaseous fission products — particularly xenon and krypton — inflate and crack the pellets from within. One xenon isotope, xenon-135, has an enormous appetite for thermal neutrons and complicates reactor power management during load changes. Eventually the fuel rod is too damaged and depleted to continue, and it must be removed before cladding failure releases radioactive material into the reactor coolant.
The spent fuel still contains enormous quantities of unused energy — both in residual uranium and in the transuranics that have accumulated. But accessing that energy requires aqueous reprocessing: dissolving the solid uranium oxide in concentrated nitric acid, then separating uranium, plutonium, fission products, and other actinides through an elaborate series of chemical steps in aqueous and hydrocarbon solvents. The process is chemically aggressive, generates its own waste streams, and is expensive enough that most spent fuel in the United States has never been reprocessed at all — it sits in cooling pools and dry casks, waiting for a repository that has not yet been built.
The liquid-fluoride reactor operates on an entirely different logic. Because the fuel is already a liquid — a fluoride salt in which the actinides are dissolved — it is inherently immune to the failure modes that end the life of a solid fuel rod. There are no pellets to crack, no cladding to fail, no centerline temperature gradients to manage. Radiation damage, which accumulates inexorably in solid crystalline fuel structures, has essentially no effect on an ionic liquid: the salt remains chemically unchanged regardless of the radiation dose it receives.
The most important consequence of the liquid fuel form is what it makes possible in reactor operation. Gaseous fission products — including xenon-135, the most troublesome neutron poison in a solid-fueled reactor — simply come out of solution in the pump bowl as the salt circulates through the system. They are collected and removed without interrupting reactor operation. This not only keeps neutron economy clean, it allows the reactor to change power output rapidly without the xenon transients that constrain conventional reactor operations.
A modern liquid-fluoride reactor design employs two distinct salt streams. The fuel salt is a solution of uranium tetrafluoride — predominantly uranium-233, with uranium-234 and uranium-236 at equilibrium concentrations — in the LiF-BeF₂ carrier solvent. The blanket salt is a solution of thorium tetrafluoride in the same carrier, surrounding the fuel salt with a graphite barrier between them. Neutrons born in the fuel salt pass into the blanket salt, where they are absorbed by thorium-232, initiating the conversion chain to uranium-233. That newly bred uranium is continuously extracted from the blanket by fluorination — converting it from tetrafluoride in solution to gaseous hexafluoride, which separates from the thorium salt effortlessly, since thorium forms no gaseous hexafluoride. The extracted uranium is then converted back to tetrafluoride by contact with hydrogen and fed into the fuel salt, completing the cycle.
When the fuel salt accumulates enough fission products to affect reactor performance, it can be purified in place: uranium is first removed by fluorination, then the LiF-BeF₂ carrier is distilled away from the fission product fluorides in a high-temperature still. The clean carrier salt is recombined with the uranium and returned to the reactor. The concentrated fission product fluorides that remain are the reactor’s high-level waste — compact, chemically stable, and representing only a small fraction of the mass that conventional spent fuel entails.
The thorium and carrier salts are used over and over, indefinitely. The fuel is never discarded; only the products of fission are removed. This is what genuine fuel reuse looks like.
Recycle: Turning Waste Into Resources
Every fission event produces two fission product nuclei — one heavier, one lighter — in a characteristic double-humped distribution. Most of these fission products are neutron-rich and radioactive immediately after production, but they decay relatively quickly toward stability. The question worth asking is: once they are stable, are they valuable?
The answer, in several important cases, is yes.
Xenon. Xenon is a noble gas and one of the more abundant fission products by mass. Its longest-lived isotope, xenon-133, has a half-life of only 5.2 days. After roughly fifty days of storage — ten half-lives — the xenon from fission is essentially non-radioactive. In a solid-fueled reactor, this xenon is trapped inside the fuel rod and is inaccessible without reprocessing. In a liquid-fluoride reactor, xenon comes out of solution continuously and is collected at the pump bowl. Rather than venting it, the xenon can be separated from krypton by cryogenic distillation and sold.
Xenon is not a commodity material. It is used in ion propulsion systems for satellites and deep-space probes, in high-intensity lighting, in medical imaging, and in semiconductor manufacturing. Global xenon supply is limited and geographically concentrated. Fission-derived xenon from a fleet of liquid-fluoride reactors could represent a meaningful addition to world supply.
Neodymium. Neodymium is the third most abundant fission product by mass. Its longest-lived isotope, neodymium-147, has a half-life of 10.9 days, meaning that after aging the high-level waste stream for a few months, essentially all the neodymium present is stable and chemically extractable.
Neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets are among the most powerful magnets known, and demand for neodymium has grown substantially as electrification has expanded. Electric vehicle motors, wind turbine generators, and industrial motors all depend on rare earth permanent magnets, and neodymium is a critical component. The global supply chain for neodymium is heavily concentrated in China, a dependency that has become a strategic concern for the United States and its allies. Fission-derived neodymium, extracted from the waste stream of liquid-fluoride reactors operating across the country, could reduce that dependency while simultaneously generating revenue that offsets reactor operating costs.
Molybdenum-99. Not all valuable fission products need to be stable. Molybdenum-99, with a half-life of 66 hours, decays to technetium-99m — the most widely used radioisotope in diagnostic nuclear medicine. Technetium-99m is used in tens of millions of medical imaging procedures annually, helping diagnose cancers, heart disease, bone disorders, and organ function problems. The global supply of molybdenum-99 has historically been fragile, dependent on a small number of aging research reactors whose periodic shutdowns have caused genuine medical supply crises.
In a solid-fueled reactor, the molybdenum-99 produced by fission is locked inside the fuel rod. By the time reprocessing could access it, it has long since decayed. In a liquid-fluoride reactor, molybdenum forms a volatile hexafluoride — just as uranium does — and is continuously extractable from the fuel salt by fluorination. The molybdenum stream can be separated by fractional distillation, and the molybdenum-99 fraction shipped directly to medical facilities, where it decays to technetium-99m on demand.
A liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is not merely a power plant. It is simultaneously a xenon producer, a rare earth source, and a medical isotope generator — with electricity as the primary product and these others as co-products from a waste stream that conventional reactors simply bury.
Summary: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
The environmental principle of reduce, reuse, and recycle finds its most complete expression not in household recycling programs but in the thorium liquid-fluoride reactor.
Relative to a conventional solid-fueled uranium reactor, the thorium liquid-fluoride reactor dramatically reduces the production of transuranic actinides — the long-lived isotopes that drive repository design and carry the bulk of spent nuclear fuel’s radiotoxicity — by choosing a fuel cycle that begins five neutron absorptions from the nearest transuranic rather than one. It reuses its thorium and uranium fuel continuously, removing only fission products while returning cleaned salt and freshly bred uranium to the reactor cycle, never discarding fuel. And it recycles its fission product waste stream into xenon for spacecraft propulsion, neodymium for electric motors and wind turbines, and molybdenum-99 for cancer diagnosis — turning what every other reactor technology buries into products the world needs.
The thorium liquid-fluoride reactor merits serious attention, sustained investment, and the kind of committed national program that its potential — and our circumstances — demand.
When can I get a 25KW LFTR for my backyard? If I charge the electric power company for my unused power, how soon would I break even on my investment?
very encouraging research. Good luck with further writings! Too bad we wasted so much cash on nuclear fusion when thorium is such a cheap and abundant fuel.
What is the cost of isotopic seperation of Lithium?
Thanks for such insight and clarity regarding this technology. As an adjunct instructor of Physics I try to encourage my students to be open minded about nuclear power.
It is unfortunate that the media is so biased against nuclear power that the average citizen is afraid of this technology.
Our leaders lack the courage to educate the herd and move forward with technologies that can assure our energy independence. I continue to promote your writings and send letters to my government representatives.
My longstanding objection to nuclear power has always been its inherent danger, not least in the reprocessing or storage of radioactive waste. My daughter alerted me to the possibilities of Thorium by sending me a link to a recent article in The Daily Telegraph, the UK newspaper. It was the first I'd ever heard of this type of reactor, and I can see how important a development this would be. I shall be writing to members of our government to suggest that as we are about to commission new nuclear reactors, this is the way to go. I shall also be writing this month's blog (View From Trevadlock Cross) on the subject, though I don't think many people read it!
I think, though, that if you could come up with a really simple explanation that a baby could understand, it would be helpful in getting the message across.
Japan (FUJI) and China both appear to be pursuing LFTR reactors
This sounds like a great idea that solves some of the problems with the current light water technology. However, the devil is in the details, and this idea creates some new problems. For instance, non-recyclable fission products, with high dose rate and long half lives will be created. This material will need to be solidified and stored (where?) using remote handling, shielding, and licensed shipping container.
Injection rate of U233 into the reactor can affect the reaction rate. It needs to be proven that this can be controlled.
Old problems remain, such as the removal of decay heat under all conditions including 9.0 earthquakes and tsunami.
It is important to prove the concept in a methodical way. We need a small, relatively inexpensive, short project(s), find out what the problems and solutions are, and then build from there. Keep it simple using proven technology where ever possible.
I agree with the idea of the retro-fitting of the existing coal-fired powerplants and converting them over to this technology. But, get ready for the fight from to coal industry, as well as the existing nuclear power industries–both generation and support–because you are basically phasing out an antiquated and danger riddled technology (look at the recent reactor disasters in Japan) This alone should be the driving force to move into the 21st century with our nuclear power, as well. I agree with Rod Clemenson–FOR ONCE, LETS BE THE FIRST WITH THE BEST!!!!!
Kirk and All
I first caught Kirk Sorensen on Dr. Kiki Science Hour on the Twit Network http://twit.tv. I've completely read read thru this site less some of the ORNL Documents as well as Barton's Nuclear Green Revolution site. I live in West Virginia now so LFTR would surely go over like a Lead Balloon in this Coal Producing State. I am a Navy Veteran who has served on a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier so I'm comfortable LIVING ON A NUKE!!
To address this thread I'm afraid the AEC/ERDA is not the answer especially as Industry/Government will attempt to introduce the Next Generation of Reactors. They will just botch it. Everyday I'm becoming a little more Libertarian, but I haven't drunk all that Cool Aide yet. Kirk's Market Place orientation is a great solution. Since GE and Westinghouse like the Razor / RazorBlade analogy to market and sell their Reactor/Refueling concept they're not in the LFTR game. It would be to their to their benefit to get behind this as Plutonium Breeding is a Multi-Human Generational process time wise and just plain too expensive. If the Westinghouse / GE Mathematical Strategic Business Forecasters plugged into the Sorensen vision they would make a lot more money. Capitalism is a Entrepreneurial process, it punishes the poor Entrepreneurs by failure and rewards the ones who forecast better the use of Capital and the Means of Production. It may very well be a case of Creative Destruction. These companies are just to deep into PWRs. The present/future companies will take on LFTR's for profit. If we go back to the Original Wigner/Weinberg we will see LFTRs as a Chemical Engineering/Company opportunity. (Kirk kudos to you for talking to anyone and everyone about this, so forgive me if I am stating any lobbying you've already done but haven't share with us). I'm talking about Union Carbide, Monsanto and Petroleum Refiners and all their associated Trade Associations. Just the extraction of Fluorine from stockpiles of Uranium Hexafluoride would be a dream business from all the above. Next Potential Brayton Cycle Turbine Manufacturers. Honeywell, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney and Williams. If General Electric/SNECMA Jet Engine group is semi independent to pursue Brayton Cycle Engines they would be wise to jump onto this as well. GE is well known for their Natural Gas Compressor/Turbines to pump Natural Gas. Waste Management to transport the Stockpiles of Nuclear Wastes to Processors. Airplane Manufacturers and their suppliers are Ideal to Build LFTRs as well as General Motors Electro Motive Division, their Locomotive Building Division. Governor Elect Rick Snyder of Michigan an executive from Gateway Computers is open for business(High Tech Guy too). Greens such as Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute should love this pitch. Kirk I do know you're not a fan of his. But Lovin's does have a concept of Small is Beautiful in Electric Power Generation. Small efficient generators mass produced for economic reduction of costs and placing them close to their Loads to reduce transition losses and bypass the building of more Transmission Lines. His misguided hate of Nuclear can probably turned around with your LFTR vision. Give Lovin's his due, he's one heck of a Promoter. If the Quads of World Energy Needs, Losses and Efficiency are brought to bare along with the Processing of Nuclear Wastes for LFTR fueling, safe sequestration I'm sure even he will get on board. If we revisit General Electric along with the United States Navy, just think about this. Propulsion Systems on Almost all Large Cruisers Ticonderoga Class, Destroyers Kidd Class,Destroyers Spruance Class are General Electric Gas Turbine with General Electric Reduction Gear Sets to turn the Propellers. Imagine all the JetFuel these ships burn and they burn a lot!!! It's certainly a lot more expensive now. LFTRs on these vessels would revolutionize the Fleet. Kirk in Ship Yards they use torches to open these ships all the time to take Big Things Out and put Big Things in. LFTR anyone!!! Hello GE….. When I was on the USS Nimitz CVN 68 we use to serve JP-7 to some of our gas turbine Destroyer Escorts all the time during underway replenishment, even the steam powered ships. In 1980 when Russian Gas Turbine Combatant Ships were following us around the Indian Ocean our Nuclear Powered Battle Group Rang Up 30 plus knots. Gas Turbine ships can go fast but not far and fast. We ran for 12 plus hour and we ran them out of gas then walked away. Now how's that for fuel/power density! The Nimitz Class has two 500 Megawatt Thermal Output Reactors. The Carrier Enterprise had a Thermal Output of 1.2 Gigawatts using 8 smaller submarine reactors about 140 Megawatts Thermal apiece. Kinda of like a Sorensen mini park of Electric Power LFTRs. A LFTR initial Fissile load would be an improvement by at least 35 times on the Uranium 235 alone not to mention all that Uranium 238 we lugged aroud, the Oxide, the Pressure Vessel that a PWR Nuke has. So the GE business for LFTR Naval Propulsion is compelling, or a GE Competitor. My last point of Naval History. In the 1930's General Motors Bid at a loss to develop and produce Diesel Engines for the United States Navy to put into Fleet Boat Submarines. GM was smart, these same diesels also were perfectly sized to go into the bread and butter business of Diesel Engines for Diesel/Electric Trains. Sooooo…. two-to-three 100 megawatt electric LFTRs retrofitted to a Gas Turbine Cruiser/Destroyer. Fulfill the Naval Propulsion contract. Assembly line the LFTRs for Power Generation.
Thanks Mr. Shapiro! LFTR application to naval propulsion has long been an interest of mine and I think it is a compelling application.
I failed to see any discussion of reducing our energy requirements through conservation. If the US reduced its energy use to that of Europe, the whole nuclear industry could be shut down tomorrow. However, that is just dreaming; Americans will not voluntarily reduce their energy consumption. "The American way of life is non negotiable" has been the mantra of those who wish to maintain the situation where about 5% of the world population uses 24% of the worlds resources. I am not suggesting that the US reduce its standard of living to that of the Third World, but some perspective is in order. However, I do think that Thorium fueled reactors offer advantages and that they need to be considered.
Rob carroll, while i agree with you that conservation is crucial, I disagree with your statement 'the whole nuclear industry could be shut down tomorrow'. United states energy conservation isnt on trial here; viable energy production is.
Dear Kirk,
I am really amazed about this technology. I discovered it almost 3 years ago and I only want to say, keep up the good work. Will try to get the technology known to friends, neighbours politicians as well.
Greetings from Europe, Brussels.
Roeland
The "american way of life is not negotiable" is for me a political dud. By 1942 your grand-grand parents perfectly succeeded to save energy, materials, recovered scrap and so on. You in US are not only capable to do so but you will perform this when costs will arise. As an ordinary western european I do not feel bad with our local european no-waste pressure: When I live in US for some weeks, living like americans, I do not feel better because I waste far more energy and materials per day as before.
Your economic optimization will simply change towards more efficient tools and ways of life just because of economical pressure. This occurred in Europe because governments imposed this for decades via taxes.
LFReactors, whatever thermal of fast neutron, would anyway face same post-reaction radioactive power decay from fuels.
By th way, all our LWR have the same common weakness, put in evidence during RBMK Tchernobyl accident: Whenever core control is fully lost, only chemical forces govern situation development.
With its 1,700 tons of graphite, this reactor had a built-in reserve of chemical energy about 5 times greater than the overall fuel heat decay (integraed over several months). This is why about 70% of radioactive core content have been dispersed by graphite burning in air.
Now let us look at the two light water reactor accidents, Harrisburg and Fukushima: No graphite, just about 25 tons of zirconium; When burning in steam, there is no further gas volume delivered, just heat therefore there were no significant energy and gas reserves to provide the momentum dispersing more than 6% of cores radioactive content. The best for region's population!
But the story is not closed: zirconium generated hydrogen, equivalent to max 13,000m3, cannot be condensed and HAS to excape, not by breaking a pipe but convincing plant operators to open valves and self-break the second confinement barrier integrity, ie reactor vessel. Thence unlike lucky Harrisburg it has also to escape thru same "convincing power" to break the last barrier integrity and goes in Nature. Subsequent external explosions are of no matter.
So, all our LWR suffer from the same design flaw: they house their own vicious self-destruct power, zirconium.
Imaging a minute, just theoretically, that fuel cladding be made of platinum or af any good-will metal unable to react with water steam whatever temperature is? Fukushima BWR would have been also deprived of water cooling, rods would have fused, temperature would have been rising out of control excepts that external water showering would have been able remove heat without hydrogen pressure: Nett result is that NO contaminated steam would have been released.
Back to our LFReactors: I rise two questions:
1- I am unsafe with graphite moderator inside. Better use really inert moderators even if less performant: magnesium oxyde, ceramic or… none as it has been demonstrated in CEA,
2- Fluoride phase permanent cleaning & processing allows to split fission products, recycle active materials but do not change the global "fuel heat decay" problem, it just splits it into several different parties. Therefore which are the devised processes destinated to cool, store and isolate from outside these very powerful heat generator ? Rather to re-invent a (square!) wheel, I wish someone to explain us, thanks,
Herve Duperray
Dear Kirk,
I have seen some of your videos which are very interesting (i would even say revolutionary)and I have been shocked. It reminds me to the story of FM radio broadcasting versus AM broadcasting in the 30's (which of course was times less important than this issue, but the analogy may be useful).
I am an economist from Spain so I am not a technician on this matter. As far as I can understand one of the main problems here is the reactor piping that has to deal with high temperature molten salts. From my view oxigen from atmosphere is a real fear as it can rapidly oxidize high temperature metal piping. Perhaps xenon is a solution to this as it could remove oxigen from atmosphere in the containment. This reactor should be safer in a xenon containment atmosphere. Additionally xenon seems to be a powerful neutron absorber. It could also isolate hot graphite from oxigen in an emergency situation.
Another drawback may be dealing with a kind of "refining" factory needed to separate/add different elements from/to the salts. As it is widely known refining is an industry where accidents may take place. Human or technical errors are often made and the results are explotions and/or leakages. For example an error dealing with hidrogen or fluorine involve chemical risks in the non nuclear part of the reactor. I can imagine these problems are real chalenges.
Thanks a lot for spreading this knowledge.
Benjamin Serrano.
I do not understand how the Bible does not support responsible, environmentalist behaviour on Spaceship Earth. As one who loves this world and my family – I am a Companion of the Society of St Francis and an environmentalist – I am comforted in the knowledge we may still live quite well without continuing to render our planet uninhabitable by humans. The hard part is going to be getting it all up and running.
Thanks so much for doing all you have done.
Michael Burns
==> DOE seems to have become enthusiastic about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Here's the very best SMR design: Thorium-Fuel Molten Salt Reactors (TFMSRs), aka LFTRS. A functinal prototype LFTR will be built by Flibe Energy, founded by thorium nuclrear engineer, Kirk Sorensen, with a goal of 1 Jun 2015 for criticality, 50th anniversary of the first Oak Ridge MSR.
Everyone should be aware that as of 25 Jan 2011 the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) announced a development program for Thorium-Fuel Molten Salt Reactors (TFMSRs). Reps from the CAS visited Oak Ridge Labs last Fall (2010) to make a reality check, and have now decided to eat our collective lunch by going after the IP and patent rights to molten salt reactors. This is a true "Sputnik Moment" for U.S. energy development.
The rest of the world can go their merry way, boiling water, risking explosions, and straining to create reactor designs using solid-fuel uranium or thorium. Flibe Energy […] http://flibe-energy.com/ […] will create a better way to "burn" all the HEU, spent fuel rods, Pu239, and 99% of the TFMSR fuel, while reducing the nuclear waste storage/disposal problems by a factor of 1,000, and max storage time to 300 years. Think U.S. factories manufacturing small (100MWe), modular, standardized TFMSRs for clean nuclear energy. Think jobs!
LTFR don't need moderators including graphite one- the reaction is essentially self controlling due to expansion of the salts. Graphite wouldn't last very long in a fluorine environment as they reprocess the liquid salts using fluorine- carbon tetrafluoride is a gas under these conditions. Only Xe135 is a significant Neutron barrier and that's not the common isotopes of naturally occurring xenon so its no good as a neutron barrier. There is a real deficiency of proposed materials information- only suggested is Hastelloy N, Haynes 242 and a few other Nickel-Molydenum alloys. There is a real shortage of material choices- including ceramics.
Congratulations for bringing out wonderful concept where whole fuel cycle is made so compact, reducing not only seccondary waste generation levels significantly but long half life fp wastes as well.Eliminating prolong cooling and containment requirements seems good however, I am not sure hazards related with Graphite moderator, need to maintain homogeniety of liquid fuel in the solvent all the time to avoid unwarrented criticality hazards and U232 generated hard gamma shielding requirements can be dealt with.
I think it is our responsibility to educate the public about the benefits and safety of LFTR technology. It can be key to energy independence for America. This would be a tremendous benefit to the economy, as the trade deficit, exacerbated by the highs cost of imported oil, could transform to a trade surplus, as the weak dollar increases exports. We need to educate the public and to make elected officials aware that a solution to economic malaise is LFTR technology.
P.S. This is my third attempt to get past the CAPTCHA filter.
Hello,
Im in St.Pauls high school and i wanted to ask if i can use this image from your site. http://energyfromthorium.com/essay3rs/
I wonder if a LFTR coupled with hydrogen production on a site near an old coal mine (perhaps replacing a coal fired plant) could be used to power a Bergius process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process
Yes there would be CO2 emissions when the fuel was burned but a significant fraction of the fuel value of the resulting liquid fuel would come from the reactor.
What if a similar process could be developed using bio-mass as a carbon source?
Also,I know that oilsands in Alberta (where I live) are not particularly popular right now, especially with all the natural gas that needs to be burned for process steam and upgrading. Again, LFTRs coupled with hydrogen production could provide the hydrogen needed to turn heavy and/or partially oxygenated hydrocarbons into valuable liquid fuels. Not to mention the immense process heat needed for de-sulphuring/de-oxygenation, coking, cracking, etc.
Again a fraction of the heating value of that fuel would be carbon neutral. So it would be of similar carbon-reducing value as current efforts to blend ethanol into gasoline or bio diesel into diesel.
Radioactive Xenon produced in nuclear reactions decays into Caesium, not a stable isotope of Xenon. I supposed you could add an additional "blanket" layer to the reactor to expose the Xenon to neutron bombardment, that would produce stable Xenon, though it would also take neutrons away from the reaction (the whole point of removing the Xenon from the salt in the first place). Neodymium harvesting seems fairly sound (most produced isotopes are stable to begin with), as does the use of any radioactive byproducts, but not Xenon.
Other than that, very nice article. This technology is of great interest to me, and I would very much like to see it utilized.