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Energy From Thorium: A Nuclear Waste Burning Liquid Salt Thorium Reactor

Kirk Sorensen's Tech Talk, delivered at Google on July 20, 2009. Successfully developing a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) would essentially solve our planets energy problems for thousands ...  
 
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madlarkin (2 weeks ago) Show Hide
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Well. The program was put aside to serve private ends within the government. Thorium promises to fulfill the energy needs of billions for an indefinite period of time, and has a wonderfully low half life. What are you going to do with thorium otherwise? Fertilize your yard with it?
deimos47ca (1 month ago) Show Hide
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Thanks for presentations Mr Sorenson,

Piping (under radiation in both 1 and 2 fluid) to heat exchangers also using Hastelloy-N? Brittleness from damage + high temperature?

What to use for piping insulator? What for radiation shielding? Would pumps/seals have same problem with LiF-BeF2-ZrF4-UF4 as in liquid sodium reactors? Can use convection - flow rate?

Corrosive HF problem:
salt Helium blanket sufficient?
Has Hastelloy-N + Titanium been extensively verified for corrosion performance?
deimos47ca (1 month ago) Show Hide
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I am incredibly pissed off nobody has at least built research/prototype reactors. Who cares if you waste $100 mil, or even $900 mil.

Although already demonstrated, if there are insurmountable problems, the materials and chemistry research alone would pay for itself.

Too few people have heard of it. And it sound WAY TOO GOOD to be true.

Its 2009, and we're still building more "old idea" sodium liquid metal, critical water, and high temp gas research reactors for megre benefits.

Build LFTR!
slowcooker100 (5 days ago) Show Hide
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Scientists at Oak Ridge built an LFTR and ran it in complete safety for at least five years. By me that is proof of principle. See feature in Wired magazine.
shanguelei (2 months ago) Show Hide
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Seems I usually get things right, but I cannot understand what i did last night.
slowcooker100 (5 days ago) Show Hide
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According to other sources, Oak Ridge built a LFTR and operated it with complete safety for five years (or perhaps seven -- it's been a while since I read the source material. But see story in Wired Magazine this month.
brookwoodt (3 months ago) Show Hide
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There's a lot of back and forth about renewables vs. thorium. Renewables are less energy dense and take lots of land resources. Renewables could still win if some breakthrough electrical storage products come to market. The downside to thorium is that there appears to be no motivation to devote needed resources to make it happen. India is doing it but very slowly and awkwardly in my view. Otherwise thorium and the LFTR approach is a total winner.
chupachoad (4 months ago) Show Hide
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Got the volume turned up to eleventy and still can't hear him. Is there another version with better audio out there?
globert1 (4 months ago)
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trakout (5 months ago) Show Hide
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newsflash, google owns youtube.

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