Instapundit has recently been noticing a little buzz concerning thorium, as an alternative energy source to put all the other alternatives in the shade. I have no idea how this works, or could be made to work.
Others seem also to be somewhat uncertain about the details. I shudder whenever I hear anyone recommending a new Manhattan Project to accomplish whatever it is they want. All they could be sure about when they embarked on the original Manhattan Project was a huge bill. I prefer the kind of technology that can start in a small, rough and ready way, in a hanger or a laboratory somewhere, and then spread gradually, improving all the while in cost and efficacy as it gathers viable applications, and only being rolled out big time, with big money, once it is clear that it has worked on a smaller scale. This thorium thing sounds to me like people taking refuge from huge difficulties in an even huger impossibility. If these thorium reactors are going to be so tiny, why can’t the first one be built in a shed?
But what do I know? And more to the point, what can our more tech-savvy commenters tell us about this?
I’m not an expert, but I think proliferation is a big issue here. You can make an atomic bomb out of U-233, and the line between civil and military uses is very thin or even nonexistent, unlike with U-235. We won’t see any of those things in sheds any time soon.
For what it’s worth, Edward Teller was advocating thorium-based fission reactors in later life. Basically thorium reactors work, there’s lots more of it than there is uranium and as a bonus, they can’t meltdown. India’s got a thorium reactor running, the Kakrapar 1 reactor. Against thorium reactors is the fact that you can’t get U235 or Pu for nukes from them…
I would have thought that not being able to get stuff for nuclear weapons from thorium power stations was a huge mark in their favour.
But commenter 1 above, lukas, says you can. Which is it?
It seems to be a tried and tested system and the way to go in this energy conscious era. Check out this article:
http://energyfromthorium.com/2006/04/22/a-brief-history-of-the-liquid-fluoride-reactor/
Actually I have always thought that the better nuclear option might be to produce something like the later SNAP units which rely on thermoeelectric conversion; (Link) basically you stick a radioactive source near a thermocouple and get electricity. This allows you to have quite small, reasonably safe, powerful energy sources, avoiding a lot of that tedious messing about with transmission lines and consequent power loss. Of course energy suppliers governments etc have a lot invested in transmission lines and similar infrastructure. These devices are sometimes called nuclear batteries and hit the news last year…(Link)
Private industry should be developing the technology, especially if the process is already proven (per comments 2 and 4). Indeed, that’s what Aker Solutions appears to be doing. The Manhattan Project was needed only because they were developing a military device (a bomb) without commercial application in a very short period during wartime. That’s simply not necessary here; if thorium reactors are commercially feasible and ecomonic in practice then private interests will figure it out. It’s telling that the first thought of the reporter in the article linked is to call for a government project. Government involvement is necessary only when a process is not economically viable (which, of course, is precisely when it should not be pushed, such as with ethanol-based fuel, since it only leads to corruption and waste).
Private industry, as a rule. tends to shy away from ANYTHING with the moniker of atomic, or nuclear simply because of the legal morass created in the nuclear industry by hand wringing do-gooder enviro nuts who, in most cases haven’t the faintest idea what they are worried about beyond what they saw on The China Syndrome.
Try building a reactor OF ANY KIND in this country and you are in for a L O N G haul with absolutely NO guarantee or even favorable odds of success.
The instant nuclear is mentioned, lawyers and lawsuits come out of the woodwork. Doesn’t matter the type of fuel, the design, the saftey systemes, nothing matters, IT NUCLEAR, OH GOD WE”RE ALL GONNA DIE.
I wish this idea well but think that this approach will be no different.
Good think Aker is a Norwegian company!
It got so bad in the 1970’s that people changed the name of NMR to MRI.
So the next time you hear a doctor or other mention MRI, tell them the correct name is “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging”. Dropping the ‘N’ leaves the term rather meaningless.
And if some anti-nuclear twat pees their knickers over it, who the hell cares? Screw ’em.
Disclosure: my summer job the first year of Grad school was designing and building a controller circuit board and the software drivers for a PDP-8 to control an NMR Spectrometer at Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh.
Oh, just write a book already!:-)
It got so bad in the 1970’s that people changed the name of NMR to MRI.
When it was privatised, the British company that owned all the country’s nuclear power plants was simply named “British Energy”, too, without saying anything more. (It’s now part of the French company EDF).
Brian Micklethwait, I was being somewhat snarky – one of the main reasons for the initial phase of fission power in the west was to produce weapons-grade fissile material for nukes as a byproduct. The UK’s Magnox reactors were particularly good at producing Pu, for example. As for lukas’s comment, U233 is a byproduct of some thorium reactors and you could, as a pinch, use it in a nuke, though it’s far from ideal. Much better to use it as fuel for other fission reactors, which is what the Indians plan to do.
Dave wrote:
http://energyfromthorium.com/2006/04/22/a-brief-history-of-the-liquid-fluoride-reactor/
They’re putting fluoride in our energy! 😉
Nuclear power doesn’t need government assistance, it just needs the government to stop punitive regulation and taxation, and allow fossil fuel plants to be sued for the CO2 damage they cause.
Edward, sure, U-233 is not very easy to handle and certainly not the ideal starting material for a nuke. The crucial difference between U-235 and U-233, as I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong) is this: Due to the different production process, reactor grade U-235 enriched uranium is useless for nukes, while a sufficient amount of reactor grade U-233 can be used without much further refining to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
Which means that even if it were possible to build a thorium breeder reactor “in a small, rough and ready way, in a hanger or a laboratory somewhere” (which I doubt, FWIW), governments won’t allow it.
LFTRs — that is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will be produced and deployed in the private sector soon. In addition to the Swedish enterprise there is a new Japanese enterprise focused on thorium in molten salt reactors, plus the massive laser-based thorium reactor pursued by the Indians. Those of you serious about energy would do well to understand the practical advantages of LFTRs.
They will be the rule within our lifetimes for cheap energy — especially in the developing world, while the developed one rids itself of environmental bigotry.
My understanding, which is limited, is that Uranium reactors were given the priority for R&D, and therefore production, way back when precisely because they could produce material for the production of weapons. Thorium, as a fuel source, was depreciated and starved of funds because the resultant materials could not.
Interesting point, CC, if true. Can anyone else comment on it?
Don’t forget to brush it!
Lukas, U233 can theoretically be used for fission weapons in place of U235 but it has serious drawbacks. It is a very energetic gamma emitter, making it very hard to handle safely, or in fact at all if you’re trying to concentrate it for weapons. Secondly it has some apparent mechanical or other not well understood problems, the US did produce I believe 1 U233 weapon, and it failed to explode, apparently it “poisons” very quickly amongst other things. All in all it is difficult material to work with, and one very easily detected due to its gamma “signature”. Far less a potential issue than U235 & Pu in general.
Thorium has real potential, the US did run a thorium reactor for some years quite effectively before it was closed down. I’d need to look at some sources, but I believe the stated reason to prefer U235 was indeed to maximize Pu production for weapons.
My understanding is that Thorium reactors were not developed because the government was concerned about leakage. Specifically, they were afraid someone would disclose that the technology originated with hardware recovered from crashed UFO’s.
Of course, I could be wrong about this. 😉
Somewhat predictably, I’m going to chime in with the comment that it’s over-regulation that kills nuclear energy.
Every year, Royal Navy and US Navy personnel, who know everything about operating compact, encapsulated, thermonuclear power sources, retire.
Why are they not setting up in business and selling that expertise?
“if thorium reactors are commercially feasible and ecomonic in practice then private interests will figure it out.”
All energy industry all over the world doesn’t live in a free market. Price subsides, taxes in this and not in that , governement ownership/protection, regulations make it almost impossible to have something new possible that deosn’t have some post-civilization broad appeal.
Alisa, you need the flouride in the energy so you can clean your teeth properly after eating all that yellowcake! (Do I have to explain everything?)
Yes, Nuke, apparently you do:-)
Thorium in a shed
It appears possible to assemble a small neighborhood thorium reactor if one is sufficiently motivated.
“It is a very energetic gamma emitter, making it very hard to handle safely, or in fact at all if you’re trying to concentrate it for weapons. ”
Also it turns your skin green. In fact its only real advantage is that it somehow (scientists are still not sure of the mechanism) prevents your trousers from ripping apart at the seams.
Get rid of the regulations – especially “health and safety” regulations (they do NOT promote health and safety) and restore rational tort law – i.e. people should only pay damages for real damage that is their fault (not finctional “damage”, or damage that had nothing to do with them).
Also get rid of Capital Gains Tax and other taxes that undermine investment – not “for one year” or some other stunt. Just get rid of them (they collect little revenue) so that long term investment can proceed.
It the above things are done then we will see what energy sources are developed. Thorium may be one of them or it may not.
As for a government project – absurd, utterly absurd.
Even by the standards of governments around the world (a very low standard) the American government is wildly incapable of such a project.
Especially since the 1960’s (when the Federal government got unionized – thanks to a thoughtless Executive Order signed by Jack Kennedy) the Feds have collapsed into a black hole of bureaucracy and corruption.
As for Barack Obama having a “Roosevelt moment”…..
Well I am no admirer of F.D.R. – but he was an experienced State Governor (of New York – then the most important State in the nation) and had long experience in the Federal government also gtoving back to the Wilson Administration (which led him to the opinion that unionization would be an utter disaster for the Federal government – a view rather at odds with his views on unionization of private industry, but then he had little experience of private industry).
Barack Obama is experienced also – but not in management and administration (and neither are any of his friends), he (like they) is an experienced agitator and wreaker. The sort of person who would have been arrested in the Palmer Raids (not that I am defending the Palmer Raids, athough the terrorism they were the response to should not be defended either), not the sort of person who would have managed something like the Manhattan Project.
Sorry General Groves he is not. And neither are his pals from academia.
On “public works” and “public investment”:
Sometimes the left are helpful in spite of themselves – if one listens carefully and knows their history.
Lots of media and academia people are calling for yet more “public works” projects – but listen to the terms they use.
They call for “another WPA” or “something like the WPA”.
Now there were two big public works organizations under F.D.R. – and they were rivals.
There was the Works Program Administrion (headed by Harry Hopkins).
And there was the Public Works Administration (headed by Harold Ickes).
Why are the modern left calling for another “WPA” not another “PWA” – why do the letters “WPA” pop into their minds (and then their mouths) not the letters “PWA”?
What were the differences between the two organizations – after all they both spent a lot of money in line with Keynesianism.
Well the WPA was well known for corruption – and the PWA was not.
The WPA was well known for political activity (pumping money where it would be most useful to win elections) – and this was much less a feature of the PWA.
And the head of the WPA was Harry Hopkins – who was a Soviet agent.
And the head of the PWA was Harold Ickes – who was not a Soviet agent.
“Paul you are being paranoid and bigoted…..”
But it is not me who calls for a new “WPA” rather than a new “PWA” – will someone please offer an alternative explination of why the letters “WPA” come from the leftists (the media and academia) not the letters “PWA”.
When someone says “we should have a new WPA” they are saying a lot more about themselves than just that they support Keynesian doctrines.
“your trousers from ripping apart at the seams”
To be honest, it is THAT which makes me angry.
I wonder, though, if there may not be a more general reason why thorium reactors will not be developed, or if developed privately will meet with government indifference or interference: government thrives on ‘handling’ problems, and something that makes a big problem go away entirely may be, um, unwelcome to it.
U-233 can theoretically be made to explode, but no one has done it yet.
You need over 100 kg of it, and it is hard to handle.
If you extract U-233 from a Thorium reactor, it will shut itself down, as U-233 production and fission is part of its energy cycle.
Asa others noted, the tech was dropped because you can’t easily make bombs with it.
Hopefully the Indians will make something of this, as they don’t have luxury of paying for political correctness.