See my avatar? It looked dark brown and black and gritty dirty when I found it. Washed it with handsoap and it turned a creamy-light tan color and now it's changing back to dark brown and black streaks. Could it have thorium in it?
the problem is that there are many technical challenges so address, and it's not possible to produce nuclear fuel to be used in nuclear weapons out of it.
but we'll see in the future, i know india is developing some thorium reactors.
Very good summation of all aspects of the thorium question.
When an old destinquished scientist tells you something is possible, believe him. When an older scientist tell you something´s impossible, ignore him.
@Tincuradan yea, but if the older scientist has an english accent i've gotta default to what he says is being true:)...seriously tho, the english guy is saying we shouldn't try it because "it has problems"...really...sounds like a great rational to give up...problems? OMG, lets just quit. i just heard about this today,sounds exciting...
cem ses et, anyone aware of iridium oxide solar panels (Ir upper2n-2lower standard isotope radiation stability 3.2, molecular travel purple range of EM spectrum light oxide reaction a3.2 trillion/ per second per photon capture, if you want to know what the -Oupper?? lowere??? et sem??? ask me
@rramosbaez Fusion works perfectly fine. There are dozens of working fusors in the world today. Money needs to be spent on development of fusion and not fission.
The research should be done as a not for profit company. That will create joint ventures 50/50 joint ventures with developing countries. The Not for profit research companies should seek funding from Credit unions which are not for profit banks. That can issue money in the form of loans just as regular banks. Since they have no cost of passive ownership they give cheaper loans, pay more to depositors ,charge less fee, and general pay there worker more. Having the Thorium research as ...
as a not for profit would eliminate the cost of passive ownership. it can solicit donates from charitable organization such as the gates foundation. Government would be more willing to fund research if it can share in technology developed internationally. development cost could be reduced. Places like China, India, and indonesia would like be interested in this type of deal. over flow from joint venture could be used to fund greater manufacturing capacity. and capital to reinvest.
@williamb293 as wonderful as this may new material may be, I strongly doubt any progress will be made soon. And the main reason for that is that it is cheap and abundant in other words the greedy corporate bastards wont be able to make good money from it.
Hi, I have recently created a petition to fund Thorium research in the united states, I hope you will sign it if you agree. the website is at the Hi, I have recently created a petition to fund Thorium research in the united states, I hope you will sign it if you agree. the website is at the whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/fund-research-thorium-nuclear-reactors/pgznKpKP
That anti-nuke shill (John Large) @ 2:30 is either ignorant or a hypocrite. This dude NOT a scientist (he is an engineer... BIG difference!) He's also worked as a hired gun for GREENPEACE on several occasions. (Never mind that Greenpeace would like to see society return to the lice-infested, plague-ridden, hell-on-earth Middle Ages.) I'll take the words of a REAL scientist like Alvin Weinberg - who helped developed thorium nuclear technology in the 1960's - over this clown any day of the week.
"Thumbs up" if you agree that this technology will never be developed due to political reasons, the world ends up dumping all of its research money into the twin sirens of wind and solar, civilization collapses due to critical energy shortages and we have a mass return of slavery (the REAL "green energy!) by 2100. (Thanks for nothing, Greenpeace!)
@Typhoon10UK Also, a power source which gave mankind 100,000 years of clean, cheap energy would deny the ruling elite the opportunity to enslave the rest of us, as they intend to do after Peak Oil causes civilization to break down in energy wars, social chaos and mass famine (which of course the elite will be insulated from.) Whoever coined that phrase "power corrupts" had NO idea of how supremely right he was!
I think the reporter left out some very important details just to make it seem like there's a debate here. Kirk is a very open supporter of molten salt reactors and dislikes solid fuel designs specifically for the reasons Mr. Large was talking about. Thorium's breeding cycle is tricky and requires frequent fuel reprocessing to work, something solid fuel reactors have never had an easy time doing. MSRs on the other hand are capable of reprocessing fuel even while the reactor is online and running
Thorium used in solid fuel reactors would create transuranic wastes that last thousands of years, run ineficiently, be very difficult to reprocess, and end up being worse than uranium.
Thorium in a molten salt reactor would create only short-lived wastes in small amounts and in fact transmute usable medical/aerospace isotopes and rare elements like Palladium, run at near 100% efficiency, offer simplistic and cheap fuel reprocessing while the reactor is running, all while being cheaper than coal
@OfficeThug Hello there. You seem to know what this issue is about... whereas I do not. I did just read something that made me come looking for the topic of thorium, which is that CANDU reactor (Canadian, currently in use). The quote I saw was "The good neutron economy of CANDU reactors permits them to exploit a thorium fuel cycle that is exceptionally efficient in its use of nuclear fuel." The quote is from 1978. Does this mean we could have been using thorium the whole time but chose not to?
@MsColdCanada That is correct. We could have used Thorium in CANDU reactors if we needed to, and this is precisely what India is doing with the CANDU reactors it has and then CANDU-like ones it's building. However unlike India we have access to Uranium, which is much easier to burn and can achieve higher efficiencies than Thorium in solid fuel reactors. CANDU can do a lot of things, but it only really shines when it comes to enriched uranium where it can achieve up to 1.2% efficiencies.
@OfficeThug Thanks, hopefully you won't mind one more question. Now I understand we could use thorium and I think I understand why we are using uranium instead of thorium (available, efficient, less cost, industry already in place for it, ect) but is what the report said about thorium being greener correct and is thorium any safer? (by safer I mean if something catastrophic were to happen to the cooling such as happened in Fukushima)
@MsColdCanada It depends how you use it. Thorium itself isn't what's "burned" in a reactor, thorium is just your starting material which can be bred into U-233, which is quite burnable. However there's a catch, after thorium absorbs a neutron it will transmute into Pa-233, not U-233. That Pa-233 can do 1 of 2 things: decay into U-233 (what you want), or catch another neutron and become Pa-234 (what you don't want). So you need to isolate Pa-233 as it's being made.
@MsColdCanada Continued: The need to isolate Pa-233 means that you need to reprocess and purify your fuel on a regular basis. Reprocessing solid fuel is extremely expensive and time consuming, if even allowed due to proliferation concerns (more on that later). The nature of Pa-233 means you will need to do it regularly, several times a month, otherwise you will lose a lot of potential fuel, on top of losing neutrons which could have split U-233 for energy or bred more Th-232 into Pa-233.
@MsColdCanada Continued: There is a solution, the molten salt reactor, more specifically a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Such a reactor was actually built back in the 60s at Oakridge while trying to put a reactor on a plane (Fireball reactor). In a salt medium, it was easy to seperate thorium, uranium, and Pa-233 via simple chemical reactions, and it could be done anytime while the reactor was running. You could reach near 1 to 1 conversion of thorium into U-233, near 100% efficiency.
@MsColdCanada Thorium becomes very clean at 100% efficiencies: No Pa-234 which means no transuranic wastes, and all your thorium is becoming U-233 which is fissioned into short-lived products that stabilize very quickly. You also need to use magnitudes less fuel compared to solid fuel reactors, 1 tonne instead of ~200 tonnes. 18% of the products are only dangerously radioactive for 300 years, which sounds pretty bad, but that's 18% of 1 tonne which is very manageable.
@MsColdCanada As for safety, LFTRs are all but impervious to environment release of radiotoxic substances. The fluoride salts are chemically stable and insoluble in water, and they "freeze" very quickly if allowed to expand. LFTRs have a passive safety system built in. If everything fails then the salts will just drain into a containment tank underneath the reactor through gravity. Molten salts also operate under near atmospheric pressures and use no water, so explosions are impossible.
@MsColdCanada You can read more about LFTR and the thorium cycle on the Energy from Thorium blog or on wikipedia.
As for proliferation concerns, it's very unlikely anyone is going to use reactor-grade material, be it fuel or waste, to make a bomb. To give an idea of what you need, 90%+ isotopic purities are considered bomb-grade. Reactor uranium is 3-4% U-235, Pu-239 from wastes is a mere 1% and can't be centrifuged. U-233 is never pure due to U-232, a decay product that emits gamma rays.
@OfficeThug I appreciate the wall of text. The problem lies in my possible inability to fully grasp the material presented. It's been 20 yrs since my last chem class. I think I understood what you said about LFTR type reactors but the CANDU is not one of those. (They are refitting a CANDU not terribly far from me atm) So if thorium were used in a CANDU then there would be U-233, Pa-233, and possibly Pa-234 and U-232 present (in a non-salt form) if catastrophic failure it could still go boom?
@MsColdCanada To address accident concerns though, say the worst of the worst happens. The transuranics inside the reactor are very likely to stay put, so you won't be worrying about those. Their decay products might not be as nice and may enter the atmosphere. Their danger will depend on a couple things: their half-life, and their bioactivity. For Uranium, Iodine and Caesium especially are the worst. Fortunately both can be purged easily from your body, and iodine doesn't exist for very long.
@OfficeThug Actually I'm going to make a second post :) To try to sum it up in lay terms. A CANDU reactor melts down with cooling failure no matter if you use uranium or thorium as a starting point. The only main difference is a uranium starting point makes fancier byproducts that can cause a larger explosion than thorium's but both would be equally "dirty" if a CANDU fails? Meaning no real benefit unless your reactor is LFTR.
@MsColdCanada For meltdowns, CANDU reactors are pretty good at never doing that, unless someone deliberately tries to make it meltdown ala Chernobyl. In normal operation however, CANDU uses up more Uranium than typical light water reactors, so it's producing less waste for the same bang basically. It can also use Thorium but nowhere near as efficiently as LFTRs (think <1% efficiency vs ~100% efficiency). So CANDUs are indeed dirtier than LFTRs in terms of Thorium.
Likewise when Mr. Large says "thorium reactors" what does that mean exactly? Not specific enough. If he is referring to solid Th reactors, I would agree.
If he's referring to LFTRs, I strongly disagree on the grounds that he does NOT know what he's talking about and is simply ignorant of the mechanics and history of molten salt reactors.
This is not a knock against Mr. Large, simply pointing out that a seemingly well-qualified critic is unnecessarily confusing the issue.
Mr. Large's assertion that "the thorium reactors don't really work" is oblivious to the 1954 Weinberg & team's ORNL aircraft reactor which ran for 100 hrs at highest temps ever for a nuclear reactor (1150 K) with gaseous fission products removed naturally thru pumping action.
A key difference is a process using liquids and gases as opposed to solid fuel reactors. "Nuclear power" is NOT just 1 monolithic idea; there are many ways to achieve fission: some good, some suck.
HOWEVER - people who have PhDs in nuclear engineering (and are even ardent students of nuclear history) have never been exposed to molten salt reactors and thorium as a fuel.
Mr. Large is primarily a risk mgt consultant. His company provides analytics, forensics, and expert testimony. He's partial to failure you could say ;). Seriously... so as well-qualified as he might seem, he's like anyone else: he doesn't know everything and LFTRs are simply out of his realm.
Unfortunate choice of a "critic" to balance out the reporting (2:27). Though just a soundbite, John Large CLEARLY is not aware of LFTR design and process. For example, he states that there are "insurmountable" problems to "split the fuel from the waste in the reactor", etc. Actually managing the fuel cycle is done by 100+ yr old, well established, fairly simple chemical processes.
Mr. Large is a seemingly reputable source and I do not mean any disparage of his credentials.
All modern wars will be fought using computers and sophisticated technology and we need massive amounts of cheap electricity. Why would countries like China get involved in the development of Thorium fuelled reactors? Look around you and tally up how many things you can see that is not made in China or do not use Chinese components? It’s scary. We don’t know it but the war has already begun! The winners will be those countries that have the ability to develop using cheap electricity.
Thorium - The only reason that Uranium was given the go ahead in preference to Thorium was its ability to produce plutonium needed to produce weapons of mass destruction. Get real guys! There was the cold war on! Now that doesn't exist - we don't need such weapons anymore. We need the ability to produce cheap electricity to run our lives economically –and renewable energy is definitely not it. There is only one answer and that is Thorium.
Firstly, Thorium is not an obscure metal.. .look at the elements chart. More importantly, who on earth would call themselves a nuclear engineer without some knowledge of the fact that a molten salt reactor was already biuilt and tested by ORNL (do we really newed to expand this for pretend nuclear engineers?) You don't have to be a brain surgeon to research these facts - there are even youtube referenced evidence and a ton of papers one could wade through about the subject. John Large really?
Each home should have a back up power source, and even one that could replace the normal grid source of power. You'll see electricity rates come down a bit, if half of the homes could disconnect from their grid with no inconvenience. Actually, that is a pretty tall order, in this economy. Even building your own generators for wind power and batteries to purchase and inverters. DIY is cheaper, but not free. Plus it is a lot of work. If one wants freedom from the grid badly enough, find a way....
And the same corner cutting, lying, and enslaving fat cats will own these. This would be the worst solution. I say lets us, become the grid. Solar panels on every roof, giving us millions of jobs and helping to pay our mortgages. Sink the big ships. Build many canoes.
@firebombclipper that's retarded. a small thorium reactor in your home would power everything.the only reason its not being used now is because U CAN"T MAKE WEAPONS WITHE THE USED FUEL. they have had Thorium power plants in the 50's. weapons manufactures fund nuclear power. go figure.
@Mannycom420 So I guess you don't want to debate here, eh genius ? Anyone who disagrees with manny is a retard, eh ? My, aren't we the god. Sorry I expressed my opinion here. I won't again.
Speaking of plumbing problems, we have quite a problem with the water rising into the cooling pools of Ft Calhoun and what about the Missouri and the three dams in jeopardy of collapse? There is so much more water to come from spring melt. What about the coal plants and other nuclear plants along the river? Do you really think the Thorium Plants will be placed and kept better than we are now?
@LibertyTreeBud Nuclear plants today need to be near a large source of water first for cooling the reactor and second for running the steam turbines. A LFTR doesn't use water to cool the reactor and can use a Brayton cycle gas engine which uses no water to generate electricity. Therefor the LFTR doesn't need to be placed near water. Also, LFTR doesn't need cooling pools.
Thorium will work if you give it a chance. Early prototypes proved its potential, and computer simulations are still proving it. All we need now to silence the baseless dissenters of thorium and nuclear in general is to build a physical prototype reactor, and it will work.
"The MSRE had achieved 17,655 hours of critical operation, equivalent to 13,172 hours at full power, over five years of operation. Approximately 2/3 of this operation was on uranium-235 fuel and 1/3 was on uranium-233 fuel.". Plans to build a reactor that could breed Thorium-232 into Uranium-233 were underway but the whole project was shut down in 1970. Breeding U-233 was challenging back then due to plumbing problems but today we have the chemical and flow control technologies to make it happen
Exposure to an aerosol of thorium can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation. Exposure to thorium internally leads to increased risk of liver diseases.
Powdered thorium metal is pyrophoric and will often ignite spontaneously in air. Natural thorium decays very slowly compared to many other radioactive materials, and the alpha radiation emitted cannot penetrate human skin meaning owning and handling small amounts of thorium, such as a gas mantle, is considered safe. The decay of thorium does, however, create radon gas so caution should be exercised when thorium decays in closed spaces.
India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2011, following which five more reactors will be constructed.[32] Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India's new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons.
The thorium fuel cycle creates 233U, which, if separated from the reactor's fuel, can be used for making nuclear weapons. This is why a liquid-fuel cycle (e.g., MSR or molten salt reactor) is preferred only a limited amount of 233U ever exists in the reactor and its heat-transfer systems, preventing any access to weapons material
Although not fissile itself, 232Th will absorb slow neutrons to produce, after two beta decays, 233U, which is fissile.[14] Hence, like 238U, it is fertile. Also, preparation of thorium fuel does not require isotopic separation.
Thorium is a very effective radiation shield, although it has not been used for this purpose as much as lead or depleted uranium. Uranium-thorium age dating has been used to date hominid fossils,[3] seabeds and mountain ranges.[14] Environmental concerns related to radioactivity led to a sharp decrease in demand for nonnuclear uses of thorium in the 2000s.[14]
Thorium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of thorium-232 is about 14.05 billion years. The formerly widespread uses of thorium, for example as a light emitting material in gas mantles or as an alloying material in several metals, have decreased due to concerns about its radioactivity.
Anyone who spends even 30 minutes Googling thorium and LFTR knows what this can do. It is inexcusable that we've gone this long running LWR, coal or natural gas plants. Tell everyone about LFTR, write every politician, vote out everyone against it. Thorium is the answer.
Google "artificial leaf" - THAT is the answer. By the time ONE LFTR could be built, this new technology will have already swept the world - especially the developing world
@BeondaPale This artificial leaf is inefficient, doesn't last very long and doesn't produce enough power for an industrial world. You can't develop the developing world using tiny power sources. We need power. Lots of power. More than we currently produce and cheaper than we currently produce it. We could recycle more if the energy to do it didn't cost more than the end product. Want hydrogen? Potable water from the oceans? LFTR can do this with excess energy and waste heat.
@BeondaPale I will cede the part about longevity. But the 43 TW of power you cite assumes 100% efficiency, which is impossible (see thermodynamics). In short, what you call a revolution is nothing more than a way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. What exactly do you plan to do with it then? Burn it in a generator? Grossly inefficient. Fuel cell? Grossly expensive. I congratulate Norcera on finding a way to break water with a PV cell. Wake me when we have a way to use hydrogen for power.
"But the 43 TW of power you cite assumes 100% efficiency, which is impossible"
- I didn't cite it, one of the foremost biochemists on the planet did. Please attempt to tell HIM that his assertions are impossible.
"what you call a revolution is nothing.."
- Yes, cheaply, via photonic energy - a holy grail of science since the beginning of the century. This is the major scientific discovery you are attempting to diminish - from your armchair.
@drright71 Nocera said one Olympic size pool could supply 43 TW of hydrogen for one second. Therefore, we would need over 31 million Olympic size pools per year. One Olympic size pool half full of thorium could provide 43 TW years of energy (electric-twice that in heat).
@BeondaPale If you watched the whole video, then you know that Daniel Nocera praised France for is foresight in nuclear power. Nocera also acknowledges that this leaf is not as efficient as industrial methods of deriving hydrogen from water. Nocera does not claim this to be the answer to the word energy problems, on the contrary he believes we need every energy source we can develop. If Nocere isn't claiming this to be the answer, you shouldn't be either.
This leaf is not as efficient as industrial methods of deriving hydrogen from water.
- Industrial methods are not designed to produce power
"If Nocera isn't claiming this to be the answer"
Oh but he is.
Watch this lecture
watch?v=D3HNrAGWoAI
Where he calls present power sources "legacy" power sources and talks about destroying the grid. Like all revolutions, this one will take a bit of time. THIS revolution will start in the developing world and will work itself back to us
Yes I know that he currently believes that nuclear is unavoidable - I believe he doesn't take the speed of "Moores law" into account in his equations. I'd love the chance to talk to him about it
"John Large is either grossly misinformed, or he has a vested interest in keeping thorium reactors off the market. Or both. Contrary to his contention that thorium reactors do not work, the test reactor at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee worked absolutely flawlessly, non-stop, 24/7/365, from 1965 - 1970. The scientists who operated the reactor used to say that the biggest problem they had was finding something to do. They even tried to make it melt down twice, and failed."
@BeondaPale No _commercial_ thorium reactor has been built because right after WWII, the uranium fuel cycle path was chosen specifically because it had a common infrastructure with the creation of atomic bomb fissile materials. However, research thorium reactors were built and worked perfectly.
@BeondaPale the IRS claims the right to tax American any where in the world. They even claim the right to Tax people married to American than have never even been to the USA. Communist China and the USSR never did either of those things. I hope to get enough money so i can immigrate toNorway or Sweden and give up my American citizenship. When that happens a person must pay income tax on the value of all of their assests. Fine atleast then I will be free.
@williamb293 that is to show you how desperate the Obama administration is in solving the economic debt crises of it's own making and that they have run out of options though several options are available but their Oligarchial Wall Street Masters won't allow them to do it and Obama and his fellow politicians are so corrupt that they are more than willing to turn a blind eye on financial-economic crimes committed by Wall Street who controls their campaign funding and mass media propaganda machine
@BeondaPale Actually there is a good point here, I would much rather see a whole new industry develop around the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor then to have our existing nuclear industry try to develop them. LFTRs are so different from the LWRs we use today, that their expertise would be of little use, in fact it could be a hindrance (experts locked into a particular way of thinking).
"I would much rather see a whole new industry develop around the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor then to have our existing nuclear industry try to develop them. "
So would I. Good luck though. The power structure of nuclear are stratified and well entrenched
@BeondaPale Yes, we will probably end up buying lftrs from china. I think it will require a broad public support. Not likely, but more likely when the big energy crunch hits.
"Yes, we will probably end up buying lftrs from china. "
This would require a lot of faith in the build quality of Chinese products (not a good track record so far) and faith in the intentions of the Chinese government (also not a good track record so far)
In a light water reactor, constant active cooling by complex water and pumping systems is required, even when the reaction is shutdown, to keep the fuel from heating up and melting or damaging the fuel assemblies. In a thorium molten salt reactor, NO action is needed to keep the the fuel from damaging the plant. If the fuel overheats, freeze plugs at the bottom of the reactor vessel melt and the fuel drains into tanks where it is passively cooled.
Thorium “fuel” has been proposed as an alternative to uranium fuel. This might be ok if thorium reactors existed now - They do not
Thorium is not currently being proposed for thorium reactors. Rather, nuclear industry wants to "fit" thorium as a "fuel" in existing (and very old) high pressure light-water reactors (including GE mark 1 reactors - like Fukushima) and fast breeder designs because of the price of natural uranium is going up
@BeondaPale I'm advocating the thorium molted salt reator, not boiling water reactors or fast breeders. The risk assessment studies for LWR estimate the meltdown risk at once ever 2000 to 10000 reactor years. There is no plausible meltdown scenario for a TMSR.
@BeondaPale "Yep, we can all see how that worked out in Japan. They were estimated to have a core damage frequency between 10−4 and 10−7" You completely missed my point. According to the 2000 assessment we are overdue for a meltdown (we have almost 4000 reactor years). A meltdown is a LWR in not that unlikely. In a LFTR, there is no plausible scenario where the fuel melts through the vessel or the storage tanks.
@BeondaPale "Tell me, where in the US is a LFTR currently being proposed?" Boy your are childish, why don't you grow up and make your point without asking these stupid rhetorical questions?
I assume you are implying that there is no substantial research being done in the US on LFTR. Yes, that is true. Your point?
"I'm advocating the thorium molted salt reator, not boiling water reactors or fast breeders. "
Yes I know you are. And when I see one proposed (much less being built) I'll be impressed
"There is no plausible meltdown scenario for? a TMSR."
Then it should be able to get the things PRIVATELY insured. If so, I'll definitely throw in with you. But if it must go the socialist route taking my and my kids (and their kids) tax dollars - as it has been... No way.
No more than I would rather me and my kids tax dollar spent on Nuclear build cost and eternal waste management. But I'm not talking about a solar power plant.
If I BUY increasingly efficient and cheap nanosolar panels to power MY OWN home, the only tax I'd pay is sales tax - and the value of my property would actually go up.
The obscure metal is 3-5 times more abundant than uranium. In a Thorium molten salt reactor, all of it can be "Burned" instead of 0.7 percent as with uranium. There is no market for it because there are no thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium is considered a waste product, a by-product of rare-earth mining. There is 12 times as much retrievable energy in the thorium found in coal then in the coal itself?
@BeondaPale Government, with its endless, irrational, cumbersome and expnsisve regulations wich do little to nothing to improve safty, hurts nuclear power far more then it helps.
@BeondaPale Without government regulation, a nuclear plant could be built in a fraction of the time for a faction of the cost. Waste could be disposed in an abyssal plain for a few hundred thousand dollars a ton. If terrorists stole nuclear waste, the wouldn't get very far. The idea that terrorist could build a bomb from nuclear wastes is absurd - it would be a major industrial process. No industry could withstand the liability standard imposed on nuclear (by the government).
@bogusnachos The coal industry would have to shut down if it had to meet the liability standard of nuclear. (so would the oil and gas). Nuclear would thrive in a truly free market, one which isn't grossly over regulated.
"the coal industry would have to shut down if it had to meet the liability standard of nuclear."
LOL - the "liability standard" is so high with nuclear is because the RISKS ASSOCIATED with nuclear are so high. It is the SAME reason private insurance won't touch it
As it stands now, nuclear has ZERO liability in the event of a major accident - the TAXPAYERS shoulder the responsibilities while industry fat cats would walk away
@BeondaPale "LOL the "liability standard" is so high with nuclear is because the RISKS ASSOCIATED with nuclear are so high." Really? If the same energy generated by nuclear had been generated by coal, according to Epstein - Harvard study, there would have been 200,000 deaths and 2 trillion in indirect costs. Who pays for that?40 years of nuclear power an zero injuries to the public. That doesn't sound like high risk to me.
Really - Not defending coal, but when has even coal threatened to make a major metropolitan area uninhabitable for the next eon?
"40 years of nuclear power an zero injuries to the public."
Yes, this is what the industry attempt to sell. It's dishonest crap. Harms due to Cancers and alterations to germ cells may not be immediately clear, but this does not make them any less real.
In fact damage to germ cell DNA is inter-generational
@BeondaPale" Not defending coal, but when has even coal threatened to make a major metropolitan area uninhabitable for the next eon?" So it is better to kill people then to run an extremely small risk rendering an area uninhabitable. The nuclear industry is not dishonest, the anti nuclear crowd is - they rank among creationist in their dishonesty.
"The nuclear industry is not dishonest, the anti nuclear crowd is - they rank among creationist in their dishonesty."
Do they now, If you will, please show me the dishonesty in these observations:
1. The death rate among babies is up 48 percent since Iodine-131 was found in Philadelphia’s drinking water.
2. Children in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers from the plants are suffering nosebleeds, diarrhea, and lack of energy since the accident
@BeondaPale Both anecdotal. The deaths is philadelphia are 7 a week instead of 5. All sort of things could be responsible, including just plain ol statistical fluctuation.
The increase in deaths and infant mortality in Philadelphia is NOT anecdotal - it is observed and a correlation has been made. true the I-131 might not be the cause but it has not been rule out as a cause either
@BeondaPale There is no correlation. A correlation requires two sets of data. There is no data on how much radiation the babies were exposed to. There a thousands of reasons baby deaths could increase for 5 to 7 a week. The most likely is statistical fluctuation.
@bigpchamber A correlation requires two sets of data.
There are two sets of data:
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities: Boise, Seattle, Portland, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley, reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
@BeondaPale You obviously don't know what a corrolation is. A simple correlation tells you how well a straight line explains the relationship between TWO variables. The two variables would be morbidity and radiantion exposure. You have no data on radiation exposure, therefor there is no reason to think radiation caused any deaths.
" You have no data on radiation exposure, therefor there is no reason to think radiation caused any deaths."
Incorrect.
Amounts of I -131 (variable #1) were found in the drinking water and/or milk supplies of the areas mentioned over a set time frame. The morbidity data (variable #2) directly corresponds to this time frame.
I-131 has a half life IN NATURE of 8 days, but has a BIOLOGICAL half life of 11 days in an infant to 23 days in a child of 5 to 80 days in adults.
@BeondaPale "As it stands now, nuclear has ZERO liability in the event of a major accident - the TAXPAYERS shoulder the responsibilities while industry fat cats would walk away"
Not true, they have 10 billion dollars in the insurance pool. And they can come up with more.
"Without government regulation, a nuclear plant could be built in a fraction of the time for a faction of the cost."
Easy enough to SAY. Now inform us as to how this could be accomplished were it not for government loan guarantees or government insuring every nuclear endeavor
"No industry could withstand the liability standard imposed on nuclear (by the government). "
LOL What a JOKE!! - with nuclear, TAXPAYERS shoulder the costs of all major liabilities
@BeondaPale If the coal industry had to pay for the 24,000 deaths is causes each year it wouldn't survive.
If a nuclear plant could be built in 2 years, there would be plenty of investors and lenders. It is the over regulation of government which drags out construction time and multiplies the cost. The insurance argument has nothing to do with the safety of reactors it has everything to do with our tort system - the possibility of absurdly high rewards for radiation exposure.
@BeondaPale Who said anything about the subduction zone? I said abyssal plains. Huge areas of the ocean 14,000 feet deep with soft sediment with canister could burrow into. There are no currents, sediment is even for up to 3000 feet thick. Of all the risk to humanity, this would be very, very low on the scale.
This is not "dust under the rug" this is nuclear waste in the abyssal plain.
@BeondaPale " WTF??? Whose scale is that? Oh my god - Did you just pull a scale out yer butt. That must have been really painful." -- There is an intelligent response. Why don't your grow up?
"Approximately 40% of the planet's ocean floor is covered by abyssal plains, so you clowns could flip a coin and take a dump just about anywhere." Is there a point here ? Flip a coin?
"There is an intelligent response. Why don't your grow up?"
-- I think it is the height of childishness to invent scales on the spot and expect to be taken seriously
"Is there a point here ? Flip a coin?
-- My point - the one that you missed, has to do with ACCOUNTABILITY. If 40% of the oceans are abyssal plains and in international waters, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the stuff doesn't just get dumped any where you feel like dumping it?
@BeondaPale "I think it is the height of childishness to invent scales on the spot and expect to be taken seriously" You don't know what a figure of speech is? You have never heard the expression used? or are you just have a few screws loose. I think your probably being dishonest, though you do sound like something of a kook.
@BeondaPale "If 40% of the oceans are abyssal plains and in international waters, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the stuff doesn't just get dumped any where you feel like dumping it? " Actually, we can't dump nuclear waste anywhere in the ocean now. The treaty is up for renewal in 2018 and its extremely unlikely dumping will be allows. As i said, the waste problem is political, not technical.
BTW a LFTR could burn the transuranics (the long-lived wastes)
"Actually, we can't dump nuclear waste anywhere in the ocean now. "
Thank goodness.
"As i said, the waste problem is political, not technical."
You SAY that simply dumping it in the ocean (in abyssal plains) is an totally safe alternative, but offer only your personal opinion as to the validity of this claim. Has there ever been a study performed to verify the validity of your claim? If not, how can you make the claim with such complete (many would say arrogant) certainty?
@BeondaPale I NEVER say ANYTHING is totally safe. NOTHING is totally safe. I'm not even saying we should dispose of our nuclear wastes in the abyssal sediments. If we did, however, i can't think of a plausible mechanism which would expose people to any substantial amount of radiation. Come up with one and you will change my mind. In my opinion, the fear of radiation is far out of proportion to its danger. The same goes for nuclear waste.
"In my opinion, the fear of radiation is far out of proportion to its danger"
That is what the industry has claimed ever since they built the very first commercial reactors, reactors that have been proven unsafe and made thousands of square miles uninhabitable. An enormous amount of secrecy, PR and collusion with government has taken place since then.
You, yourself have been caught in 3 lies so far
You can see where people might not trust people like you
There is a 19 mile radius "zone of alienation" that exists around Chernobyl where nobody can venture (much less inhabit) without a permit. That would be 1133 square miles. (Pi * R squared). Chernobyl deeply contaminated tens of thousands more.
The Japanese government CONSERVATIVELY states that 600 square miles, around Fukushima are now uninhabitable. Equivalent in size to 17 Manhattans.
@BeondaPale Chernobyl is irrelevant to western nuclear power. How much radiation exposure does it take to make an area uninhabitable? You use a lot of wiggle words.
@BeondaPale A bq is a rate not a dose - you don't seem to understand radiation. I asked you what the amout of radiation would render an area uninhabitable not the rate of radiantion is a perons body. Is India uninhabitable, or Colorado, or the "Stans". your answer should be in milligrams per year or millisieverts per year. And how about a source - your 50 ba/kilogram sound like leftest lies.
"how about a source - your 50 ba/kilogram sound like leftest lies."
Here ya go:
Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488–490 · smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease
the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
"We live in a radioactive world. The life we have on earth wouldn't be here without radiation."
Partially true (in keeping with your penchant for not telling the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.)
The vast majority of the radiation in the world is IONIZING radiation from Radon (a major public health concern). Radon is responsible for the majority of the public exposure to ionizing radiation.
Radiation exposure from hot particulates is rare in nature
@BeondaPale " Seriously, point me to this nonexistent scale " Make a list of threats to humanity and rate them by the chances they will cause massive distruction and death. You will have your scale. Compared to peak oil, overpopulation, Storing waste is not much of a problem.
LOL!! Please show me where are you getting this UTTER CRAP??
In 2010, a company called Heatline REVOLUTIONIZED geothermal heat transfer. 5MW MY ASS!! The Heatline system is about 1/600 the size of the traditional loop system
In a mere 40 years, the U.S. could develop 100 gigawatts via Adv. GeoT. This year, 31 geothermal projects broke ground in California and Nevada alone
@BeondaPale "LOL!! Please show me where are you getting this UTTER CRAP??" Rude and childish as always. I got it from the mit report you recommended by obviously didn't read. Never heard of heatline, but i've heard lots of claims of "breakthrough' technologies. The vast majority never amount to anything.
It took nuclear 25 years to reach 100 gigwatts capacity.
"I got it from the mit report you recommended by obviously didn't read. "
Ya did? tell me WHAT PAGE.
Speaking of rude, the following is from the MIT report I recommended that you wrongly claimed I did not read:
"EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) systems are versatile, inherently modular, and scalable from 1 to 50 MWe for distributed applications to large “power parks,” which could provide thousands of MWe of base-load capacity" page 1-5
@BeondaPale "Ya did? tell me WHAT PAGE." Read the report yourself.
"inherently modular, and scalable from 1 to 50 MWe " They are talking about the power station not the wells. you can easily run 10 wells into a power station.
I am fine with geothermal, I think its better than natural gas, not quite as good a LWRs. It does involve a lot of drilling and a lot of rock fracturing and a risk of blowouts and earthquakes.
John Large, the guy who comes on to criticize thorium at 2:27, is not independent, he works for greenpeace and is paid to slander nuclear power.
MrJivePirate 2 weeks ago in playlist Favorite videos
See my avatar? It looked dark brown and black and gritty dirty when I found it. Washed it with handsoap and it turned a creamy-light tan color and now it's changing back to dark brown and black streaks. Could it have thorium in it?
Licmycat 2 weeks ago
the problem is that there are many technical challenges so address, and it's not possible to produce nuclear fuel to be used in nuclear weapons out of it.
but we'll see in the future, i know india is developing some thorium reactors.
sabu85 3 weeks ago
Why can't we do both?
IfureadthisURdum 1 month ago
watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
LFTR, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor.
Very good summation of all aspects of the thorium question.
When an old destinquished scientist tells you something is possible, believe him. When an older scientist tell you something´s impossible, ignore him.
Tincuradan 2 months ago
@Tincuradan yea, but if the older scientist has an english accent i've gotta default to what he says is being true:)...seriously tho, the english guy is saying we shouldn't try it because "it has problems"...really...sounds like a great rational to give up...problems? OMG, lets just quit. i just heard about this today,sounds exciting...
rabudman 1 month ago
If I was President of the United States, id divert 20% of the Defence budget to developing Nuclear Power plants that run on Thorium!.
TheFooob 2 months ago
@TheFooob if the US diverted 20% of its Defence budget to anything, it would probably change the world.
that amount of money could put a thorium power planet on almost every corner of the globe, including all the money for R&D as well,
airsoftmanic 3 weeks ago
Even if Thorium would be a bit better than Uranium – Renewables are much better than both!!!
Boehri5vor12 2 months ago
@Boehri5vor12 not really.
matsutakneatche 2 months ago
cem ses et, anyone aware of iridium oxide solar panels (Ir upper2n-2lower standard isotope radiation stability 3.2, molecular travel purple range of EM spectrum light oxide reaction a3.2 trillion/ per second per photon capture, if you want to know what the -Oupper?? lowere??? et sem??? ask me
miko6667 2 months ago
Fusion is better
darklord595470 3 months ago
@darklord595470 Fusion is better, but it doesn't work yet. Thorium works.
rramosbaez 2 months ago 8
@rramosbaez Fusion works perfectly fine. There are dozens of working fusors in the world today. Money needs to be spent on development of fusion and not fission.
antiprotons 2 months ago
The research should be done as a not for profit company. That will create joint ventures 50/50 joint ventures with developing countries. The Not for profit research companies should seek funding from Credit unions which are not for profit banks. That can issue money in the form of loans just as regular banks. Since they have no cost of passive ownership they give cheaper loans, pay more to depositors ,charge less fee, and general pay there worker more. Having the Thorium research as ...
williamb293 4 months ago
as a not for profit would eliminate the cost of passive ownership. it can solicit donates from charitable organization such as the gates foundation. Government would be more willing to fund research if it can share in technology developed internationally. development cost could be reduced. Places like China, India, and indonesia would like be interested in this type of deal. over flow from joint venture could be used to fund greater manufacturing capacity. and capital to reinvest.
williamb293 4 months ago
@williamb293 as wonderful as this may new material may be, I strongly doubt any progress will be made soon. And the main reason for that is that it is cheap and abundant in other words the greedy corporate bastards wont be able to make good money from it.
meatfactory 3 months ago
Hi, I have recently created a petition to fund Thorium research in the united states, I hope you will sign it if you agree. the website is at the Hi, I have recently created a petition to fund Thorium research in the united states, I hope you will sign it if you agree. the website is at the whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/fund-research-thorium-nuclear-reactors/pgznKpKP
WenliangMa 4 months ago
That anti-nuke shill (John Large) @ 2:30 is either ignorant or a hypocrite. This dude NOT a scientist (he is an engineer... BIG difference!) He's also worked as a hired gun for GREENPEACE on several occasions. (Never mind that Greenpeace would like to see society return to the lice-infested, plague-ridden, hell-on-earth Middle Ages.) I'll take the words of a REAL scientist like Alvin Weinberg - who helped developed thorium nuclear technology in the 1960's - over this clown any day of the week.
bjggjb 5 months ago
"Thumbs up" if you agree that this technology will never be developed due to political reasons, the world ends up dumping all of its research money into the twin sirens of wind and solar, civilization collapses due to critical energy shortages and we have a mass return of slavery (the REAL "green energy!) by 2100. (Thanks for nothing, Greenpeace!)
bjggjb 5 months ago
Like all new ideas, it'll be killed off because the ruling elite won't make enough money from it.
Typhoon10UK 6 months ago
@Typhoon10UK Also, a power source which gave mankind 100,000 years of clean, cheap energy would deny the ruling elite the opportunity to enslave the rest of us, as they intend to do after Peak Oil causes civilization to break down in energy wars, social chaos and mass famine (which of course the elite will be insulated from.) Whoever coined that phrase "power corrupts" had NO idea of how supremely right he was!
bjggjb 5 months ago
I think the reporter left out some very important details just to make it seem like there's a debate here. Kirk is a very open supporter of molten salt reactors and dislikes solid fuel designs specifically for the reasons Mr. Large was talking about. Thorium's breeding cycle is tricky and requires frequent fuel reprocessing to work, something solid fuel reactors have never had an easy time doing. MSRs on the other hand are capable of reprocessing fuel even while the reactor is online and running
OfficeThug 6 months ago
Thorium used in solid fuel reactors would create transuranic wastes that last thousands of years, run ineficiently, be very difficult to reprocess, and end up being worse than uranium.
Thorium in a molten salt reactor would create only short-lived wastes in small amounts and in fact transmute usable medical/aerospace isotopes and rare elements like Palladium, run at near 100% efficiency, offer simplistic and cheap fuel reprocessing while the reactor is running, all while being cheaper than coal
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@OfficeThug Hello there. You seem to know what this issue is about... whereas I do not. I did just read something that made me come looking for the topic of thorium, which is that CANDU reactor (Canadian, currently in use). The quote I saw was "The good neutron economy of CANDU reactors permits them to exploit a thorium fuel cycle that is exceptionally efficient in its use of nuclear fuel." The quote is from 1978. Does this mean we could have been using thorium the whole time but chose not to?
MsColdCanada 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada That is correct. We could have used Thorium in CANDU reactors if we needed to, and this is precisely what India is doing with the CANDU reactors it has and then CANDU-like ones it's building. However unlike India we have access to Uranium, which is much easier to burn and can achieve higher efficiencies than Thorium in solid fuel reactors. CANDU can do a lot of things, but it only really shines when it comes to enriched uranium where it can achieve up to 1.2% efficiencies.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@OfficeThug Thanks, hopefully you won't mind one more question. Now I understand we could use thorium and I think I understand why we are using uranium instead of thorium (available, efficient, less cost, industry already in place for it, ect) but is what the report said about thorium being greener correct and is thorium any safer? (by safer I mean if something catastrophic were to happen to the cooling such as happened in Fukushima)
MsColdCanada 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada It depends how you use it. Thorium itself isn't what's "burned" in a reactor, thorium is just your starting material which can be bred into U-233, which is quite burnable. However there's a catch, after thorium absorbs a neutron it will transmute into Pa-233, not U-233. That Pa-233 can do 1 of 2 things: decay into U-233 (what you want), or catch another neutron and become Pa-234 (what you don't want). So you need to isolate Pa-233 as it's being made.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada Continued: The need to isolate Pa-233 means that you need to reprocess and purify your fuel on a regular basis. Reprocessing solid fuel is extremely expensive and time consuming, if even allowed due to proliferation concerns (more on that later). The nature of Pa-233 means you will need to do it regularly, several times a month, otherwise you will lose a lot of potential fuel, on top of losing neutrons which could have split U-233 for energy or bred more Th-232 into Pa-233.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada Continued: There is a solution, the molten salt reactor, more specifically a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Such a reactor was actually built back in the 60s at Oakridge while trying to put a reactor on a plane (Fireball reactor). In a salt medium, it was easy to seperate thorium, uranium, and Pa-233 via simple chemical reactions, and it could be done anytime while the reactor was running. You could reach near 1 to 1 conversion of thorium into U-233, near 100% efficiency.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada Thorium becomes very clean at 100% efficiencies: No Pa-234 which means no transuranic wastes, and all your thorium is becoming U-233 which is fissioned into short-lived products that stabilize very quickly. You also need to use magnitudes less fuel compared to solid fuel reactors, 1 tonne instead of ~200 tonnes. 18% of the products are only dangerously radioactive for 300 years, which sounds pretty bad, but that's 18% of 1 tonne which is very manageable.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada As for safety, LFTRs are all but impervious to environment release of radiotoxic substances. The fluoride salts are chemically stable and insoluble in water, and they "freeze" very quickly if allowed to expand. LFTRs have a passive safety system built in. If everything fails then the salts will just drain into a containment tank underneath the reactor through gravity. Molten salts also operate under near atmospheric pressures and use no water, so explosions are impossible.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada You can read more about LFTR and the thorium cycle on the Energy from Thorium blog or on wikipedia.
As for proliferation concerns, it's very unlikely anyone is going to use reactor-grade material, be it fuel or waste, to make a bomb. To give an idea of what you need, 90%+ isotopic purities are considered bomb-grade. Reactor uranium is 3-4% U-235, Pu-239 from wastes is a mere 1% and can't be centrifuged. U-233 is never pure due to U-232, a decay product that emits gamma rays.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada Sorry for the wall of text, I hope all this helped answer some of your questions.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@OfficeThug I appreciate the wall of text. The problem lies in my possible inability to fully grasp the material presented. It's been 20 yrs since my last chem class. I think I understood what you said about LFTR type reactors but the CANDU is not one of those. (They are refitting a CANDU not terribly far from me atm) So if thorium were used in a CANDU then there would be U-233, Pa-233, and possibly Pa-234 and U-232 present (in a non-salt form) if catastrophic failure it could still go boom?
MsColdCanada 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada To address accident concerns though, say the worst of the worst happens. The transuranics inside the reactor are very likely to stay put, so you won't be worrying about those. Their decay products might not be as nice and may enter the atmosphere. Their danger will depend on a couple things: their half-life, and their bioactivity. For Uranium, Iodine and Caesium especially are the worst. Fortunately both can be purged easily from your body, and iodine doesn't exist for very long.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
@OfficeThug Actually I'm going to make a second post :) To try to sum it up in lay terms. A CANDU reactor melts down with cooling failure no matter if you use uranium or thorium as a starting point. The only main difference is a uranium starting point makes fancier byproducts that can cause a larger explosion than thorium's but both would be equally "dirty" if a CANDU fails? Meaning no real benefit unless your reactor is LFTR.
MsColdCanada 6 months ago
@MsColdCanada For meltdowns, CANDU reactors are pretty good at never doing that, unless someone deliberately tries to make it meltdown ala Chernobyl. In normal operation however, CANDU uses up more Uranium than typical light water reactors, so it's producing less waste for the same bang basically. It can also use Thorium but nowhere near as efficiently as LFTRs (think <1% efficiency vs ~100% efficiency). So CANDUs are indeed dirtier than LFTRs in terms of Thorium.
OfficeThug 6 months ago
Well played UK government, you've missed yet another opportunity. Morons!
happyidiottalk 6 months ago
W00T
marineooo5 6 months ago
I just mined some of this in WoW yesterday lol.
quidnick 7 months ago
Thorium can be base level power now vs 20 years from now.
It's what fusion wished it was.
Membrane556 7 months ago
Likewise when Mr. Large says "thorium reactors" what does that mean exactly? Not specific enough. If he is referring to solid Th reactors, I would agree.
If he's referring to LFTRs, I strongly disagree on the grounds that he does NOT know what he's talking about and is simply ignorant of the mechanics and history of molten salt reactors.
This is not a knock against Mr. Large, simply pointing out that a seemingly well-qualified critic is unnecessarily confusing the issue.
3rdbillygoat 7 months ago
Mr. Large's assertion that "the thorium reactors don't really work" is oblivious to the 1954 Weinberg & team's ORNL aircraft reactor which ran for 100 hrs at highest temps ever for a nuclear reactor (1150 K) with gaseous fission products removed naturally thru pumping action.
A key difference is a process using liquids and gases as opposed to solid fuel reactors. "Nuclear power" is NOT just 1 monolithic idea; there are many ways to achieve fission: some good, some suck.
3rdbillygoat 7 months ago
HOWEVER - people who have PhDs in nuclear engineering (and are even ardent students of nuclear history) have never been exposed to molten salt reactors and thorium as a fuel.
Mr. Large is primarily a risk mgt consultant. His company provides analytics, forensics, and expert testimony. He's partial to failure you could say ;). Seriously... so as well-qualified as he might seem, he's like anyone else: he doesn't know everything and LFTRs are simply out of his realm.
3rdbillygoat 7 months ago
Unfortunate choice of a "critic" to balance out the reporting (2:27). Though just a soundbite, John Large CLEARLY is not aware of LFTR design and process. For example, he states that there are "insurmountable" problems to "split the fuel from the waste in the reactor", etc. Actually managing the fuel cycle is done by 100+ yr old, well established, fairly simple chemical processes.
Mr. Large is a seemingly reputable source and I do not mean any disparage of his credentials.
3rdbillygoat 7 months ago
All modern wars will be fought using computers and sophisticated technology and we need massive amounts of cheap electricity. Why would countries like China get involved in the development of Thorium fuelled reactors? Look around you and tally up how many things you can see that is not made in China or do not use Chinese components? It’s scary. We don’t know it but the war has already begun! The winners will be those countries that have the ability to develop using cheap electricity.
proy49 7 months ago
Thorium - The only reason that Uranium was given the go ahead in preference to Thorium was its ability to produce plutonium needed to produce weapons of mass destruction. Get real guys! There was the cold war on! Now that doesn't exist - we don't need such weapons anymore. We need the ability to produce cheap electricity to run our lives economically –and renewable energy is definitely not it. There is only one answer and that is Thorium.
proy49 7 months ago
Firstly, Thorium is not an obscure metal.. .look at the elements chart. More importantly, who on earth would call themselves a nuclear engineer without some knowledge of the fact that a molten salt reactor was already biuilt and tested by ORNL (do we really newed to expand this for pretend nuclear engineers?) You don't have to be a brain surgeon to research these facts - there are even youtube referenced evidence and a ton of papers one could wade through about the subject. John Large really?
proy49 7 months ago
Each home should have a back up power source, and even one that could replace the normal grid source of power. You'll see electricity rates come down a bit, if half of the homes could disconnect from their grid with no inconvenience. Actually, that is a pretty tall order, in this economy. Even building your own generators for wind power and batteries to purchase and inverters. DIY is cheaper, but not free. Plus it is a lot of work. If one wants freedom from the grid badly enough, find a way....
imayberight8 8 months ago
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vastell 8 months ago
And the same corner cutting, lying, and enslaving fat cats will own these. This would be the worst solution. I say lets us, become the grid. Solar panels on every roof, giving us millions of jobs and helping to pay our mortgages. Sink the big ships. Build many canoes.
firebombclipper 8 months ago
@firebombclipper that's retarded. a small thorium reactor in your home would power everything.the only reason its not being used now is because U CAN"T MAKE WEAPONS WITHE THE USED FUEL. they have had Thorium power plants in the 50's. weapons manufactures fund nuclear power. go figure.
Mannycom420 8 months ago
@Mannycom420 So I guess you don't want to debate here, eh genius ? Anyone who disagrees with manny is a retard, eh ? My, aren't we the god. Sorry I expressed my opinion here. I won't again.
firebombclipper 8 months ago
@firebombclipper do a lil reserch scrub.
Mannycom420 8 months ago
@firebombclipper Sorry I called you a retard, your opinion is a valid as anyone's. i was cranky and being a dick. im not that kind of person.
Mannycom420 8 months ago
Speaking of plumbing problems, we have quite a problem with the water rising into the cooling pools of Ft Calhoun and what about the Missouri and the three dams in jeopardy of collapse? There is so much more water to come from spring melt. What about the coal plants and other nuclear plants along the river? Do you really think the Thorium Plants will be placed and kept better than we are now?
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
@LibertyTreeBud Nuclear plants today need to be near a large source of water first for cooling the reactor and second for running the steam turbines. A LFTR doesn't use water to cool the reactor and can use a Brayton cycle gas engine which uses no water to generate electricity. Therefor the LFTR doesn't need to be placed near water. Also, LFTR doesn't need cooling pools.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
Thorium will work if you give it a chance. Early prototypes proved its potential, and computer simulations are still proving it. All we need now to silence the baseless dissenters of thorium and nuclear in general is to build a physical prototype reactor, and it will work.
OfficeThug 8 months ago
"The MSRE had achieved 17,655 hours of critical operation, equivalent to 13,172 hours at full power, over five years of operation. Approximately 2/3 of this operation was on uranium-235 fuel and 1/3 was on uranium-233 fuel.". Plans to build a reactor that could breed Thorium-232 into Uranium-233 were underway but the whole project was shut down in 1970. Breeding U-233 was challenging back then due to plumbing problems but today we have the chemical and flow control technologies to make it happen
OfficeThug 8 months ago
Exposure to an aerosol of thorium can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation. Exposure to thorium internally leads to increased risk of liver diseases.
The element has no known biological role.
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
@LibertyTreeBud and uranium is way safer? plutonium? alpha waves cannot penetrate the skin.
Mannycom420 8 months ago
Powdered thorium metal is pyrophoric and will often ignite spontaneously in air. Natural thorium decays very slowly compared to many other radioactive materials, and the alpha radiation emitted cannot penetrate human skin meaning owning and handling small amounts of thorium, such as a gas mantle, is considered safe. The decay of thorium does, however, create radon gas so caution should be exercised when thorium decays in closed spaces.
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2011, following which five more reactors will be constructed.[32] Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India's new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons.
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
The thorium fuel cycle creates 233U, which, if separated from the reactor's fuel, can be used for making nuclear weapons. This is why a liquid-fuel cycle (e.g., MSR or molten salt reactor) is preferred only a limited amount of 233U ever exists in the reactor and its heat-transfer systems, preventing any access to weapons material
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
Thorium fuel cycle
Although not fissile itself, 232Th will absorb slow neutrons to produce, after two beta decays, 233U, which is fissile.[14] Hence, like 238U, it is fertile. Also, preparation of thorium fuel does not require isotopic separation.
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
Thorium is a very effective radiation shield, although it has not been used for this purpose as much as lead or depleted uranium. Uranium-thorium age dating has been used to date hominid fossils,[3] seabeds and mountain ranges.[14] Environmental concerns related to radioactivity led to a sharp decrease in demand for nonnuclear uses of thorium in the 2000s.[14]
[edit]Thorium compounds
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
Thorium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of thorium-232 is about 14.05 billion years. The formerly widespread uses of thorium, for example as a light emitting material in gas mantles or as an alloying material in several metals, have decreased due to concerns about its radioactivity.
LibertyTreeBud 8 months ago
Anyone who spends even 30 minutes Googling thorium and LFTR knows what this can do. It is inexcusable that we've gone this long running LWR, coal or natural gas plants. Tell everyone about LFTR, write every politician, vote out everyone against it. Thorium is the answer.
drright71 8 months ago
@drright71
Google "artificial leaf" - THAT is the answer. By the time ONE LFTR could be built, this new technology will have already swept the world - especially the developing world
My advice to Teledyne? Diversify
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale This artificial leaf is inefficient, doesn't last very long and doesn't produce enough power for an industrial world. You can't develop the developing world using tiny power sources. We need power. Lots of power. More than we currently produce and cheaper than we currently produce it. We could recycle more if the energy to do it didn't cost more than the end product. Want hydrogen? Potable water from the oceans? LFTR can do this with excess energy and waste heat.
drright71 8 months ago
@drright71
"This artificial leaf is inefficient"
- Set Google for news on the artificial leaf in th last 2 weeks - It just became a whole lot more efficient.
"doesn't last very long"
- Nocera's model is actually self healing - much like real leaves.
"and doesn't produce enough power for an industrial world."
- Dr Nocera of MIT estimates that a single Olympic sized pool of water could yield 43 terawatts (that's 43 trillion watts). Not enough?
Better get ready for the revolution...
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Norcera said a Olympic size swimming pool PER SECOND could provide enough hydrogen to power the world.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
The water cycles through the system H2O > H2 + O2 > H2O
Zero emissions, zero waste
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale I will cede the part about longevity. But the 43 TW of power you cite assumes 100% efficiency, which is impossible (see thermodynamics). In short, what you call a revolution is nothing more than a way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. What exactly do you plan to do with it then? Burn it in a generator? Grossly inefficient. Fuel cell? Grossly expensive. I congratulate Norcera on finding a way to break water with a PV cell. Wake me when we have a way to use hydrogen for power.
drright71 8 months ago
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@drright71
"But the 43 TW of power you cite assumes 100% efficiency, which is impossible"
- I didn't cite it, one of the foremost biochemists on the planet did. Please attempt to tell HIM that his assertions are impossible.
"what you call a revolution is nothing.."
- Yes, cheaply, via photonic energy - a holy grail of science since the beginning of the century. This is the major scientific discovery you are attempting to diminish - from your armchair.
"Fuel cell? Grossly expensive."
- How?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@drright71 Nocera said one Olympic size pool could supply 43 TW of hydrogen for one second. Therefore, we would need over 31 million Olympic size pools per year. One Olympic size pool half full of thorium could provide 43 TW years of energy (electric-twice that in heat).
bogusnachos 8 months ago
The artificial leaf is now a reality. Look it up!
Nuclear is dead.
Sorry Kirk.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
Thorium is the answer?? HA!!!
THIS is the answer:
watch?v=D3HNrAGWoAI
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale If you watched the whole video, then you know that Daniel Nocera praised France for is foresight in nuclear power. Nocera also acknowledges that this leaf is not as efficient as industrial methods of deriving hydrogen from water. Nocera does not claim this to be the answer to the word energy problems, on the contrary he believes we need every energy source we can develop. If Nocere isn't claiming this to be the answer, you shouldn't be either.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
This leaf is not as efficient as industrial methods of deriving hydrogen from water.
- Industrial methods are not designed to produce power
"If Nocera isn't claiming this to be the answer"
Oh but he is.
Watch this lecture
watch?v=D3HNrAGWoAI
Where he calls present power sources "legacy" power sources and talks about destroying the grid. Like all revolutions, this one will take a bit of time. THIS revolution will start in the developing world and will work itself back to us
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
Yes I know that he currently believes that nuclear is unavoidable - I believe he doesn't take the speed of "Moores law" into account in his equations. I'd love the chance to talk to him about it
BeondaPale 8 months ago
Lets hope the tests from India turn out AOK
scottyea 8 months ago
How about SOLAR ROADWAYS
watch?v=Ep4L18zOEYI
Refute it if you can
BeondaPale 8 months ago
"John Large is either grossly misinformed, or he has a vested interest in keeping thorium reactors off the market. Or both. Contrary to his contention that thorium reactors do not work, the test reactor at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee worked absolutely flawlessly, non-stop, 24/7/365, from 1965 - 1970. The scientists who operated the reactor used to say that the biggest problem they had was finding something to do. They even tried to make it melt down twice, and failed."
EmmanuelGoldstein198 8 months ago
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BeondaPale 8 months ago
@EmmanuelGoldstein198
Wow, thorium reactors are GREAT. No fuel cycle problems AT ALL. And so much safer and economical.
That must be why not a single commercial reactor has been built - EVER!!
Blue skies! Clear sailing! No worries!. ...Nothing to see here. Move along please
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale No _commercial_ thorium reactor has been built because right after WWII, the uranium fuel cycle path was chosen specifically because it had a common infrastructure with the creation of atomic bomb fissile materials. However, research thorium reactors were built and worked perfectly.
EmmanuelGoldstein198 8 months ago
@EmmanuelGoldstein198
there are some current unresolved technical issues on both the front end and the back end of the cycle, right?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
"Nuclear power is hurt by government far more then it is helped."
If that is so why does nuclear power not exists in states with no government like Somalia
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale That is the dumbest question i've seen in a long time.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
Denigrating a question in not answer. What to try to actually answer the question? My guess is no
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale OK Somalia doesn't have the people with the expertise or the industrial base to build a nuclear plant.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
Yes I know. Things like an industrial base and any kind of significant education only comes with an adequate government.
This small observation is but one more piece of evidence that nuclear energy needs government.
But, of course, there is a balance. Too little government = Somalia Too much = The USSR, China and now the USA
I reiterate - Nuclear grows government via Security concerns, etc. Nuclear has never and will never and is wholly unable to work on the free market
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale
I should amend that - more and more the USA is looking like the regimes in China and the former USSR.
We're still pretty far from those regimes, but the newly installed security apparatus is drawing us closer to those heavy handed models
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale the IRS claims the right to tax American any where in the world. They even claim the right to Tax people married to American than have never even been to the USA. Communist China and the USSR never did either of those things. I hope to get enough money so i can immigrate toNorway or Sweden and give up my American citizenship. When that happens a person must pay income tax on the value of all of their assests. Fine atleast then I will be free.
williamb293 3 months ago
@williamb293 that is to show you how desperate the Obama administration is in solving the economic debt crises of it's own making and that they have run out of options though several options are available but their Oligarchial Wall Street Masters won't allow them to do it and Obama and his fellow politicians are so corrupt that they are more than willing to turn a blind eye on financial-economic crimes committed by Wall Street who controls their campaign funding and mass media propaganda machine
darthvader5300 3 months ago
@BeondaPale Actually there is a good point here, I would much rather see a whole new industry develop around the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor then to have our existing nuclear industry try to develop them. LFTRs are so different from the LWRs we use today, that their expertise would be of little use, in fact it could be a hindrance (experts locked into a particular way of thinking).
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"I would much rather see a whole new industry develop around the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor then to have our existing nuclear industry try to develop them. "
So would I. Good luck though. The power structure of nuclear are stratified and well entrenched
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Yes, we will probably end up buying lftrs from china. I think it will require a broad public support. Not likely, but more likely when the big energy crunch hits.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
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@bigpchamber
"Yes, we will probably end up buying lftrs from china. "
This would require a lot of faith in the build quality of Chinese products (not a good track record so far) and faith in the intentions of the Chinese government (also not a good track record so far)
BeondaPale 8 months ago
In a light water reactor, constant active cooling by complex water and pumping systems is required, even when the reaction is shutdown, to keep the fuel from heating up and melting or damaging the fuel assemblies. In a thorium molten salt reactor, NO action is needed to keep the the fuel from damaging the plant. If the fuel overheats, freeze plugs at the bottom of the reactor vessel melt and the fuel drains into tanks where it is passively cooled.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
Thorium “fuel” has been proposed as an alternative to uranium fuel. This might be ok if thorium reactors existed now - They do not
Thorium is not currently being proposed for thorium reactors. Rather, nuclear industry wants to "fit" thorium as a "fuel" in existing (and very old) high pressure light-water reactors (including GE mark 1 reactors - like Fukushima) and fast breeder designs because of the price of natural uranium is going up
This is problematic on several levels
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Bigp was talking about LFTRs and their superiority to LWRs. Your comment are completely irrelevant to his post.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@BeondaPale I'm advocating the thorium molted salt reator, not boiling water reactors or fast breeders. The risk assessment studies for LWR estimate the meltdown risk at once ever 2000 to 10000 reactor years. There is no plausible meltdown scenario for a TMSR.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"The risk assessment studies for LWR estimate the meltdown risk at once ever 2000 to 10000 reactor years."
Yep, we can all see how that worked out in Japan. They were estimated to have a core damage frequency between 10−4 and 10−7
"I'm advocating the thorium molted salt reator, not boiling water reactors or fast breeders."
YOU may be, but the industry isn't. They want thorium to make fuel for the current plants.
Tell me, where in the US is a LFTR currently being proposed?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
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@BeondaPale "Yep, we can all see how that worked out in Japan. They were estimated to have a core damage frequency between 10−4 and 10−7" You completely missed my point. According to the 2000 assessment we are overdue for a meltdown (we have almost 4000 reactor years). A meltdown is a LWR in not that unlikely. In a LFTR, there is no plausible scenario where the fuel melts through the vessel or the storage tanks.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
Comment removed
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale "Tell me, where in the US is a LFTR currently being proposed?" Boy your are childish, why don't you grow up and make your point without asking these stupid rhetorical questions?
I assume you are implying that there is no substantial research being done in the US on LFTR. Yes, that is true. Your point?
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"Your point?"
You didn't see the point??
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Again, why don't you just make your point without these stupid rhetorical questions.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
@bigpchamber
"I'm advocating the thorium molted salt reator, not boiling water reactors or fast breeders. "
Yes I know you are. And when I see one proposed (much less being built) I'll be impressed
"There is no plausible meltdown scenario for? a TMSR."
Then it should be able to get the things PRIVATELY insured. If so, I'll definitely throw in with you. But if it must go the socialist route taking my and my kids (and their kids) tax dollars - as it has been... No way.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale I see you would rather you and your kids tax dollar spent on solar panels and wind turbines?
williamb293 3 months ago
@williamb293
No more than I would rather me and my kids tax dollar spent on Nuclear build cost and eternal waste management. But I'm not talking about a solar power plant.
If I BUY increasingly efficient and cheap nanosolar panels to power MY OWN home, the only tax I'd pay is sales tax - and the value of my property would actually go up.
BeondaPale 3 months ago
The obscure metal is 3-5 times more abundant than uranium. In a Thorium molten salt reactor, all of it can be "Burned" instead of 0.7 percent as with uranium. There is no market for it because there are no thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium is considered a waste product, a by-product of rare-earth mining. There is 12 times as much retrievable energy in the thorium found in coal then in the coal itself?
bigpchamber 8 months ago
Another absurdity:
"Nuclear does not need government."
Nuclear and government are inseperable
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Government, with its endless, irrational, cumbersome and expnsisve regulations wich do little to nothing to improve safty, hurts nuclear power far more then it helps.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
It is IMPOSSIBLE for the nuclear industry to be independent of the government.
From it's conception nuclear has ALWAYS gone hand in hand with government.
-- No one will insure nuclear - so government must
-- Nuclear can not store its own waste long term - so government must find a place and oversee it
-- Nuclear is a potential weapon - so government must ensure it is not attacked or its wastes stolen.
It can't exist in the free market - nuclear EQUALS government
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Without government regulation, a nuclear plant could be built in a fraction of the time for a faction of the cost. Waste could be disposed in an abyssal plain for a few hundred thousand dollars a ton. If terrorists stole nuclear waste, the wouldn't get very far. The idea that terrorist could build a bomb from nuclear wastes is absurd - it would be a major industrial process. No industry could withstand the liability standard imposed on nuclear (by the government).
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos The coal industry would have to shut down if it had to meet the liability standard of nuclear. (so would the oil and gas). Nuclear would thrive in a truly free market, one which isn't grossly over regulated.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"the coal industry would have to shut down if it had to meet the liability standard of nuclear."
LOL - the "liability standard" is so high with nuclear is because the RISKS ASSOCIATED with nuclear are so high. It is the SAME reason private insurance won't touch it
As it stands now, nuclear has ZERO liability in the event of a major accident - the TAXPAYERS shoulder the responsibilities while industry fat cats would walk away
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale "LOL the "liability standard" is so high with nuclear is because the RISKS ASSOCIATED with nuclear are so high." Really? If the same energy generated by nuclear had been generated by coal, according to Epstein - Harvard study, there would have been 200,000 deaths and 2 trillion in indirect costs. Who pays for that?40 years of nuclear power an zero injuries to the public. That doesn't sound like high risk to me.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"Really?"
Really - Not defending coal, but when has even coal threatened to make a major metropolitan area uninhabitable for the next eon?
"40 years of nuclear power an zero injuries to the public."
Yes, this is what the industry attempt to sell. It's dishonest crap. Harms due to Cancers and alterations to germ cells may not be immediately clear, but this does not make them any less real.
In fact damage to germ cell DNA is inter-generational
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale" Not defending coal, but when has even coal threatened to make a major metropolitan area uninhabitable for the next eon?" So it is better to kill people then to run an extremely small risk rendering an area uninhabitable. The nuclear industry is not dishonest, the anti nuclear crowd is - they rank among creationist in their dishonesty.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
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@bigpchamber
"So it is better to kill people then to run an extremely small risk rendering an area uninhabitable."
WOW. Please read the comment I posted again and point out precisely where I said anything anywhere close to what you CLAIMED I said.
What i said is that nuclear kills - just not right away. And it actually introduces inheritable errors in our DNA.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"The nuclear industry is not dishonest, the anti nuclear crowd is - they rank among creationist in their dishonesty."
Do they now, If you will, please show me the dishonesty in these observations:
1. The death rate among babies is up 48 percent since Iodine-131 was found in Philadelphia’s drinking water.
2. Children in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers from the plants are suffering nosebleeds, diarrhea, and lack of energy since the accident
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Both anecdotal. The deaths is philadelphia are 7 a week instead of 5. All sort of things could be responsible, including just plain ol statistical fluctuation.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
Both anecdotal.
Incorrect.
The increase in deaths and infant mortality in Philadelphia is NOT anecdotal - it is observed and a correlation has been made. true the I-131 might not be the cause but it has not been rule out as a cause either
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale There is no correlation. A correlation requires two sets of data. There is no data on how much radiation the babies were exposed to. There a thousands of reasons baby deaths could increase for 5 to 7 a week. The most likely is statistical fluctuation.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber A correlation requires two sets of data.
There are two sets of data:
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities: Boise, Seattle, Portland, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley, reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
Confirmed statistical significance
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale You obviously don't know what a corrolation is. A simple correlation tells you how well a straight line explains the relationship between TWO variables. The two variables would be morbidity and radiantion exposure. You have no data on radiation exposure, therefor there is no reason to think radiation caused any deaths.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
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BeondaPale 8 months ago
" You have no data on radiation exposure, therefor there is no reason to think radiation caused any deaths."
Incorrect.
Amounts of I -131 (variable #1) were found in the drinking water and/or milk supplies of the areas mentioned over a set time frame. The morbidity data (variable #2) directly corresponds to this time frame.
I-131 has a half life IN NATURE of 8 days, but has a BIOLOGICAL half life of 11 days in an infant to 23 days in a child of 5 to 80 days in adults.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale "As it stands now, nuclear has ZERO liability in the event of a major accident - the TAXPAYERS shoulder the responsibilities while industry fat cats would walk away"
Not true, they have 10 billion dollars in the insurance pool. And they can come up with more.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"Without government regulation, a nuclear plant could be built in a fraction of the time for a faction of the cost."
Easy enough to SAY. Now inform us as to how this could be accomplished were it not for government loan guarantees or government insuring every nuclear endeavor
"No industry could withstand the liability standard imposed on nuclear (by the government). "
LOL What a JOKE!! - with nuclear, TAXPAYERS shoulder the costs of all major liabilities
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale If the coal industry had to pay for the 24,000 deaths is causes each year it wouldn't survive.
If a nuclear plant could be built in 2 years, there would be plenty of investors and lenders. It is the over regulation of government which drags out construction time and multiplies the cost. The insurance argument has nothing to do with the safety of reactors it has everything to do with our tort system - the possibility of absurdly high rewards for radiation exposure.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"Waste could be disposed in an abyssal plain for a few hundred thousand dollars a ton."
"See? all gone." if this sounds like sweeping the dust under a rug – it's because that is exactly what it is.
Q: How long does the geologic process of subduction that would slowly carry the waste down into the Earth’s mantle take?
A: Millions of years - longer than the decay rates
Sooo, your answer to high level waste is to dump it in the ocean, hope everything goes ok, and walk away.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Who said anything about the subduction zone? I said abyssal plains. Huge areas of the ocean 14,000 feet deep with soft sediment with canister could burrow into. There are no currents, sediment is even for up to 3000 feet thick. Of all the risk to humanity, this would be very, very low on the scale.
This is not "dust under the rug" this is nuclear waste in the abyssal plain.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"Of all the risk to humanity, this would be very, very low on the scale."
WTF??? Whose scale is that? Oh my god - Did you just pull a scale out yer butt. That must have been really painful.
Seriously, point me to this nonexistent scale
Approximately 40% of the planet's ocean floor is covered by abyssal plains, so you clowns could flip a coin and take a dump just about anywhere.
Corrosive salinity is very high in abyssal plains, so is pressure - did you think of any of this?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
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@BeondaPale " WTF??? Whose scale is that? Oh my god - Did you just pull a scale out yer butt. That must have been really painful." -- There is an intelligent response. Why don't your grow up?
"Approximately 40% of the planet's ocean floor is covered by abyssal plains, so you clowns could flip a coin and take a dump just about anywhere." Is there a point here ? Flip a coin?
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"There is an intelligent response. Why don't your grow up?"
-- I think it is the height of childishness to invent scales on the spot and expect to be taken seriously
"Is there a point here ? Flip a coin?
-- My point - the one that you missed, has to do with ACCOUNTABILITY. If 40% of the oceans are abyssal plains and in international waters, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the stuff doesn't just get dumped any where you feel like dumping it?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
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@BeondaPale "I think it is the height of childishness to invent scales on the spot and expect to be taken seriously" You don't know what a figure of speech is? You have never heard the expression used? or are you just have a few screws loose. I think your probably being dishonest, though you do sound like something of a kook.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
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@BeondaPale "If 40% of the oceans are abyssal plains and in international waters, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the stuff doesn't just get dumped any where you feel like dumping it? " Actually, we can't dump nuclear waste anywhere in the ocean now. The treaty is up for renewal in 2018 and its extremely unlikely dumping will be allows. As i said, the waste problem is political, not technical.
BTW a LFTR could burn the transuranics (the long-lived wastes)
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"Actually, we can't dump nuclear waste anywhere in the ocean now. "
Thank goodness.
"As i said, the waste problem is political, not technical."
You SAY that simply dumping it in the ocean (in abyssal plains) is an totally safe alternative, but offer only your personal opinion as to the validity of this claim. Has there ever been a study performed to verify the validity of your claim? If not, how can you make the claim with such complete (many would say arrogant) certainty?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale I NEVER say ANYTHING is totally safe. NOTHING is totally safe. I'm not even saying we should dispose of our nuclear wastes in the abyssal sediments. If we did, however, i can't think of a plausible mechanism which would expose people to any substantial amount of radiation. Come up with one and you will change my mind. In my opinion, the fear of radiation is far out of proportion to its danger. The same goes for nuclear waste.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"In my opinion, the fear of radiation is far out of proportion to its danger"
That is what the industry has claimed ever since they built the very first commercial reactors, reactors that have been proven unsafe and made thousands of square miles uninhabitable. An enormous amount of secrecy, PR and collusion with government has taken place since then.
You, yourself have been caught in 3 lies so far
You can see where people might not trust people like you
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Thousands of square miles uninhabitable? where.
3 lies? what lies?
People like me?
Yes, you have a hysterical phobia of radiation. We live in a radioactive world. The life we have on earth wouldn't be here without radiation.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
Thousands of square miles uninhabitable? where?
There is a 19 mile radius "zone of alienation" that exists around Chernobyl where nobody can venture (much less inhabit) without a permit. That would be 1133 square miles. (Pi * R squared). Chernobyl deeply contaminated tens of thousands more.
The Japanese government CONSERVATIVELY states that 600 square miles, around Fukushima are now uninhabitable. Equivalent in size to 17 Manhattans.
There are other places too - Want more?
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale Chernobyl is irrelevant to western nuclear power. How much radiation exposure does it take to make an area uninhabitable? You use a lot of wiggle words.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"How much radiation exposure does it take to make an area uninhabitable?"
For this we turn to science... here's a couple of quotes from studies:
For children with cesium 137 in excess of 50 Becquerels/kg body weight, “pathological disorders of the vital organs or systems will occur"
"Children having 5 Bq/kg more than 80% are healthy, while having 11 Bq/kg only 35% of children are healthy."
Uninhabitable enough for ya?
I have sources readily available for these studies.
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale A bq is a rate not a dose - you don't seem to understand radiation. I asked you what the amout of radiation would render an area uninhabitable not the rate of radiantion is a perons body. Is India uninhabitable, or Colorado, or the "Stans". your answer should be in milligrams per year or millisieverts per year. And how about a source - your 50 ba/kilogram sound like leftest lies.
bigpchamber 8 months ago
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@bigpchamber
"how about a source - your 50 ba/kilogram sound like leftest lies."
Here ya go:
Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488–490 · smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease
the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@bigpchamber
"We live in a radioactive world. The life we have on earth wouldn't be here without radiation."
Partially true (in keeping with your penchant for not telling the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.)
The vast majority of the radiation in the world is IONIZING radiation from Radon (a major public health concern). Radon is responsible for the majority of the public exposure to ionizing radiation.
Radiation exposure from hot particulates is rare in nature
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale " Seriously, point me to this nonexistent scale " Make a list of threats to humanity and rate them by the chances they will cause massive distruction and death. You will have your scale. Compared to peak oil, overpopulation, Storing waste is not much of a problem.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
Now put Advanced Geothermal on that scale you just made up
BeondaPale 8 months ago
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bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
LOL!! Please show me where are you getting this UTTER CRAP??
In 2010, a company called Heatline REVOLUTIONIZED geothermal heat transfer. 5MW MY ASS!! The Heatline system is about 1/600 the size of the traditional loop system
In a mere 40 years, the U.S. could develop 100 gigawatts via Adv. GeoT. This year, 31 geothermal projects broke ground in California and Nevada alone
Meanwhile, thorium isn't even on the map !
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale "LOL!! Please show me where are you getting this UTTER CRAP??" Rude and childish as always. I got it from the mit report you recommended by obviously didn't read. Never heard of heatline, but i've heard lots of claims of "breakthrough' technologies. The vast majority never amount to anything.
It took nuclear 25 years to reach 100 gigwatts capacity.
bogusnachos 8 months ago
@bogusnachos
"I got it from the mit report you recommended by obviously didn't read. "
Ya did? tell me WHAT PAGE.
Speaking of rude, the following is from the MIT report I recommended that you wrongly claimed I did not read:
"EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) systems are versatile, inherently modular, and scalable from 1 to 50 MWe for distributed applications to large “power parks,” which could provide thousands of MWe of base-load capacity" page 1-5
Next line of you BS please
BeondaPale 8 months ago
@BeondaPale "Ya did? tell me WHAT PAGE." Read the report yourself.
"inherently modular, and scalable from 1 to 50 MWe " They are talking about the power station not the wells. you can easily run 10 wells into a power station.
I am fine with geothermal, I think its better than natural gas, not quite as good a LWRs. It does involve a lot of drilling and a lot of rock fracturing and a risk of blowouts and earthquakes.
bogusnachos 8 months ago