Trying to Make Nuclear Power Less Risky

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The liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor LFTR, a design in which the thorium is dissolved id molten fluoride is by far the best reactor Design (Ralph Moir, Edward Teller, Alvin Weinbeg agree). A small research LFTR (also called Molten salt Breeder Reactor (MSR Or MSBR) was built and operated in the 60's and 70's at oak ridge lab. It preformed superbly. There are no major problems involved in developing this reactor into a power plant.
THe advantages are Simplicity, No Complex fuel rod, or pellets. No high pressure reactor vessel, no possibility of a meltdown (fuels is already melted). No chance of a runaway reaction ( Good negative temperature coefficient). Inherent safety means no need for a pressurized containment building).
A LFTR would produce less than 1% of the waste of a conventional plant and could "burn" current nuclear wastes.
Because of its simplicity, there are no major development obstacles with LFTR (unlike fusion and most of the generation IV nuclear plants.)
LFTR should be able to produce energy at less the 3 cents a kwh, perhaps much lower. At this price, we could make fuels (methanol and DME) out of air and water- this would result in a zero net c02 fuel cycle for our cars and trucks.
Development cost should be much less than for any of the generation IV reactors. Perhaps 1-2 billion for a demonstration plant. If we were to put LFTR development on a fast track, we could develop it just a few years. This could be paid for by closing Yucca Mountain, or eliminating the useless wind or ethanol subsidies.
I urge people to research LFTR themselves by googling Energy Thorium

Paul Chamberlain of CA 7:23PM August 21, 2010

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Aboutypdhn of KY 2:15AM July 16, 2009

What do you think of the Intergral Fast Reactor? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html It seems to have everything,fast spectrum for breeding and actinide waste "burning", passive safety, high temp/ high efficiency coupled with a process to remove the fission products on site for security, safety and recycling. I think when the Sweedes learn that Al Gore ( and Clinton ) strangled it in it's crib they'll take back his Nobel Prize!

Stephen Child of MA 8:03PM May 19, 2009

Aim High is a proposal presentation to address global warming and other environmental hazards by producing energy "cheaper than from coal" with thorium. It isa tutorial introduction to the liquid fluoride thorium reactor.
http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh

Robert Hargraves of NH 3:33PM March 28, 2009

We have to become self sufficient in the production of energy for the needs of our country....we are spending too much for oil that is controlled by OPEC and making the islamists and others too rich and too powerfull even for their own good....the screwballs in North Korea and the dingbats in Iran may find out too soon that if you want to play with fire you may also get burned....my view is that self sufficiency should be our goal and we should get our armed services out of the Middle East and go back to the Monroe Doctrine and concentrate on North and South America.....we do not have to fight wars for asiatics or europeans either.....and we should go back to Free american capitalism with competition..not cartels trusts and monopolies......Congress should listen to the taxpayers and voters not the greedy self centered Lobbyists for corporate America....

Steve S Roisman of CA 6:10PM March 27, 2009

I am a fan of investigating new reactor designs, and I find thorium reactors well worth pursuing, but I caution against letting your enthusiasm run away with you and lead to overstating the positives and ignoring or understating the problems. That has been a failure of the nuclear power community from the beginning.
The proliferation hazard from separating plutonium from commercial reactor fuel has been overstated by the anti-nuke crowd, who will come out against thorium reactors as soon as someone starts building one. The plutonium from fuel that has been in a neutron flux for a long time has Pu isotopes that both make the product more difficult to deal with, because of greatly increased radioactivity, and less effective as weapons material. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program demonstrates that using such Pu you get a fizzle, orders of magnitude less than with weapons grade Pu. So this is not a selling point for thorium, and to use it plays into the hands of those who will lie to try to stop you.
The way they will attack thorium reactors is by pointing out that U233, which is bred from Th232, can be extracted from the fuel chemically. U233 has a high enough specific activity that it is not optimal for nuclear weapons that you plan on keeping on the shelf, but if you don’t really care about how much dose your techs receive, it will do nicely. This is not to say that thorium is an unacceptable proliferation risk, but it is not a zero risk, either. Claiming that it is will get you in trouble later.
I like many of the aspects of the molten salt reactor, and I agree that it is worth pursuing, even to the point of making a prototype power reactor. But there are non-trivial technical issues. Very exciting reactions are possible if such a molten salt contacts the wrong thing, such as water. The components of reactors, heat exchangers, and pumps with molten salt running through them will have to be monitored closely, as I suspect that unanticipated corrosion issues will occur. As I understand it, some fluorine will be needed to balance the chemistry of the molten Th-Li salt, and some tritium will be generated as fission fragments. It would be better to get out front with how the boiling hot, radioactive, gaseous hydrofluoric acid will be dealt with, rather than try to finesse the problem.
Good luck and much success to all who are working on thorium reactors.

Mike Brennan of WA 1:55PM March 27, 2009

Charles Barton presented a great introduction to the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR). I will add a few more attributes of this promising reactor design.1) It is meltdown proof. The liquid fuel expands when heated so fewer neutrons find their mark causing the chain reaction to slow. 2) Shutdown for refueling is not required. 3) Very small fuel requirement and almost no waste. One ton of thorium will fuel an average size nuclear reactor for a year and it will produce only one ton of radioactive waste which will decay to a safe level in 300 years. In fact after ten years of storage 83% of the radioactive waste products have decayed to stable elements. At that time a processing procedure can reduce the quantity of radioactive components to only 350 pounds. Guess what, these remaining radioisotopes have value for use in medicine. We currently buy our medical isotopes from Canada. 4) LFTRs can play a role in solving the nuclear waste problem caused by our current reactors. The LFTR can fission the spent fuel produced by our current reactors thereby eliminating long-lived radioactivity and associated very long term storage. 5) The LFTR can follow load. Unlike our current reactors the LFTR can throttle up rapidly to respond to peaks in load. 6) LFTRs can be made in smaller sizes with little loss in efficiency. 7) They show promise of lower construction costs. Since they operate at ambient pressures the so-called billion dollar dome and extremely expensive reaction vessel can be replaced with less costly materials. LFTRs can be factory built and assembled on site in months rather than years. 8) LFTRs reactors have very low potential for support of nuclear weapons proliferation. 9) LFTRs can potentially play a role in narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor. We can dream of an essentially unlimited source of emission-free energy that can safely be put into the hands of poorest of the poor nations. With abundant power the poor will make goods for their own needs and goods to sell to others. Everyone will benefit. 10) A really exciting thought is that perhaps liquid thorium reactors can displace fossil fuels if they can produce energy more cheaply than dirty coal. Once again let’s give science the opportunity to better the human condition.
. The USA has the lead the world with liquid thorium reactor research since 1950. .Several nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry pioneers that have expressed the belief that liquid thorium reactors would be the better choice for domestic power production. Among those on the list are: Dr.Eugene Wigner, Dr.Alvin Weinberg , Dr.C.J. Barton, Sr., and Dr.Edward Teller. Our nation should follow through to complete development of this promising reactor technology.

John Tjostem of IA 9:53PM March 26, 2009

Building nuclear power plants is a very viable option to fighting wars over oil. We are killing too many of our young people -- and other country's young people for oil. We have known for decades that the oil crises would get steadily worse. The nuclear waste disposal issue (at Yucca mountain) has been a magnet for the anti nuclear crowd. These misdirected people have been allowed to direct national energy policy, by default, into oil and coal. The anti nuclear crowd has contributed greatly to the lack of nuclear power in the US, the rising CO2 and global warming issue, and the wars in the Middle East over oil. If using the Thorium cycle will make the anti nuclear crowd happy then we should do it. The stakes are simply to high for us to continue to wait and hope our energy problems will go away.

Jerry of MD 3:48PM March 26, 2009

My understandinf rom the few I know in the Nuclear power generation filed is the the Federal government is one of the reason that we have as much "deadly" nuclear waste stored as we do. The mandate by congress many years ago does not allow the total use of nuclear material in these plants, only 75%. This is due to soem scientist telling his favored politician that to use more than the 75% is dangerous, yet many more have reported that the stored material would be totally safe, especially in the U.S. because fo the restrictions on the building of nuclear power generatring plants in the U.S.. Our nation is one of the very few that requires a high grade steel containment vessel inside the concrete container for the nuclear reaction vessel. The Ruskies do not, and thereby the disaster at Grenoble. Three Mile Island did not release nuclear materials into the atmosphere, only steam from the generators cooling system.
One thing I would propose in new home and apartment construction to save power and thereby fuels of any type is the inclusion of a simple shutoff lever in those points to cut power to all the devices that we use that continue to use power when shut down but are still plugged into the wall sockets, much like a power strip or surge protector. This could be used by persons leaving their abode or business to "flip the switch" and cut all utility generated electrical power from outside the building. As to those devices such as clocks and items needing some power to keep dates, etc., current, they could be powered by temporary DC or battery power until the switch was again turned on.

D H of GA 3:03PM March 26, 2009