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Page added on August 4, 2012
A Detailed Exploration Of Thorium’s Potential As An Energy Source
Kirk Sorensen, NASA-trained engineer, is a man on a mission to open minds to the tremendous promise that thorium, a near-valueless element in today’s marketplace, may offer in meeting future world energy demand.
Compared to Uranium-238-based nuclear reactors currently in use today, a liquid flouride thorium reactor (LTFR) would be:
- Much safer – no risk of environmental radiation contamination or plant explosion (e.g. Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three-Mile Island)
- Much more efficient at producing energy – over 90% of the input fuel would be tapped for energy; vs <1% in today’s reactors
- Less waste-generating – most of the radioactive by-products would take days/weeks to degrade to safe levels, vs centuries
- Much cheaper – reactor footprints and infrastructure would be much smaller, and could be constructed in modular fashion
- More plentiful – LFTR reactors do not need to be located next to large water supplies, as current plants do
- Less controversial – the byproducts of the thorium reaction are pretty useless for weaponization
- Longer-lived – thorium is much more plentiful than uranium and treated as valueless today. There is virtually no danger of running out of it given LFTR plant efficiency
Most of the know-how and technology to build and maintain LFTR reactors exists today. If made a priority, the US could have its first fully-operational LFTR plant running at commercial scale in under a decade.
But no such LFTR plants are in development. In fact, the US shut down its work on thorium-based energy production decades ago. And has not invested materially in related research since.
Staring at the looming energy cliff ahead created by Peak Oil, it begs the question – why not?
As best Kirk can tell, we are not pursuing thorium’s potential today because we are choosing not to – we are too wedded to the U-238 path we’ve been investing in for decades. Indeed, the grants that funded the government’s thorium research in the 50s and 60s were primarily focused on weapons development; not new energy sources. Once our attention turned to nuclear energy, we simply applied the uranium-based know-how we developed from our atomic bomb program rather than asking: is there a better way?
This is an excellent and thought-provoking interview. I highly recommend you also visit Kirk’s website [10] and its FAQs [11] to familiarize yourself with the thorium cycle, as I predict we will be revisiting the thorium story again in the future.
And we encourage our readers with engineering and nuclear expertise to share their insights in the Comments thread below. We are looking for ways to light the path ahead as we begin to descend down the global energy cliff. Will thorium shine brightly for us?
6 Comments on "A Detailed Exploration Of Thorium’s Potential As An Energy Source"
dissident on Sat, 4th Aug 2012 10:56 pm
Too much hype. The actinides produced by fast neutron breeder reactors last centuries and not decades. This is independent of whether the fuel is Uranium or Thorium or the design of the reactor (at least any of the ones proposed).
Norm on Sun, 5th Aug 2012 12:47 am
Too much negativity Mr. Dissident. These types of reactors, typically burn up their actinide byproducts. A “complete burn up” yields so much, basically, radioactive lead as the final byproduct.
They are talking about getting 90% of the energy out of the source fuel, vs 1% today. That is the real difference, and that factor of 90 improvement, is that the actinides get burnt up too. With todays junky water-uranium reactors, the neutrons dont move fast enough to bust up the actinides and thats why standard nuclear power is a junky system.
I would be all for the thorium style reactor and I bet most of what this article says, is accurate. This is a good thing to get out some cheerleader pom-pom’s and rally.
Of course ‘Peak Oil’ website is loaded with negativity that nothing whatever will solve the problems we face. That might be the case…. or might not.
MrEnergyCzar on Sun, 5th Aug 2012 1:55 am
We need cheap liquid transport fuels….We’ll see what the Thorium reactors look like in China in a few years…
MrEnergyCzar
BillT on Sun, 5th Aug 2012 2:27 am
Another example of ‘too little – too late’. No matter how safe, efficient, or cheap the Thorium energy may be, the cost to build the plants will make sure they are never a high percentage of energy production. Just like car hybrids or electric models are possible and produced in small numbers, they require people with money to buy them and natural resources to make them possible.
Since it took 40+ years to build out our nuclear energy system, when money was plentiful and the government subsidized the insuring of those units, why would you think it will take any LESS time and money to build a Thorium system? MONEY is the key, not technology. And money is the problem today that never seems to get into energy articles except to compare fuel costs. NOTHING will exist if there is no money in huge quantities to make it happen, and that includes all of the ‘alternatives”.
I will give you a clue. We do NOT have another 40 years to build a new system of anything. The financial system is on the verge of collapse and in some instances may have already collapsed and is just being propped up by the Central Banks. I think the current system has a few years at best, and then it is total reset and a return to pre 20th century living.
DC on Sun, 5th Aug 2012 7:35 am
Ah, thorium, and fast-breeder reactors, and GenIV+. They will solve all of nuclear powers numerous problems, and satisfy our craving for endless expansion of the base power load, well, at least for a time, until we over-tax the power that all the nuclear wonder-plants will deliver, and then well want Gen II thorium, with lemon-fresh borax. Ya know, because Gen I thorium just isnt providing the power we need anymore….
But wait, thats going to happen because we cant afford any of those plants, even if all atomic sunshine there proponents keep blowing up everyones ass turned out to in fact, be actual sunshine. With thorium, its seems, we can have our radioactive cake and eat it too. Still, you gota wonder, weve know about thorium almost back to the start of nuclear age, with its 90% fuel efficiently(doubt it), but instead opted for U-235 with its 1% eff. and million year waste management problem. And not just in the ‘west’, but in the old soviet bloc too. Makes ya wonder dont it…
No one can ‘afford’ the problem fill plants were building now, an entirely new set of plants, forget it. Were too cheap to make spending on things that are proven and reliable now, like distributed solar and wind systems a priority. Cost a fraction of any nuke, and available now, and you dont need a PHD for over 95% of the work in renewables.
Are we building those renewables?, some, but barely. Nope, wed rather hold out for GenIV, fusion, or fast-breeders. Why? There high-tech, there nuk-le-ar, and expensive and toxic as hell, and leak…a lot. Whats not to love?
Robert Hargraves on Sun, 5th Aug 2012 2:59 pm
There is more information about liquid fuels from LFTR at
http://www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.com
http://energyfromthorium.com