Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR): Energy for the Future?

Hank addresses a highly requested topic - liquid fluoride thorium reactors - and tells us how LFTR might be the future of energy in ... China?

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References:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nationa...

http://theweek.com/article/index/2136...

scishow, science, electricity, energy, nuclear power, nuclear reactor, uranium, thorium, element, radioactive, radioactivity, liquid fluoride thorium reactor, lftr, fission, turbine, efficient, efficiency, alpha particle, gamma particle, toxic waste, nuclear waste, weapon, bomb, atomic bomb, expensive, expense, retrofit, retrofitting, china, thor, avengers

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[Carl Franz]

OK. Stupid question of the day. Why the heck do we need to convert anything? Build a brand new LFTR reactor and associated power plant and figure out the the actual economics of the process. It's not like there aren't any places that need more electricity.

[Leifthrasir]

On small scale, fusion takes more power than it produces, however the larger you go the closer you get to where fusion will produce more than it needs. A tokamak fusion reactor is much safer than any kind of fission reactor, because fusion can only occur under certain circumstances and if there was any kind interruption of those circumstances, the fusion would stop instantly. There are several fusion concepts in the making right now, the most promising is ITER. Google it up.

[rand0m0mg]

Countries have ALOT, i mean ALOT less money then people might think, and converting is a little bit cheaper.

[singleT314]

Not making nukes switch

[sn rs]

the way China is going with their nucleair programme gives a new meaning to contaminated soils

[quarkleptonsoup]

And you can't stop calling people names.

[solcore96]

Gamma ray?

[makendoo]

Gamma radiation is not made up of particles...

[upisoft2]

Well, I guess I was wrong. You can't stop being stupid.

[Capt777harris]

I was a big fan of Thorium reactors WAY back in the day, and now the Chicoms are leading the way with them?

I'm seriously gritting my teeth here.

[quarkleptonsoup]

Now that we have 50 years of materials science and supercomputers at our disposal, we should definitely revisit the molten salt reactor. They are so very versatile in the types of fuel they can use and their amazing safety capabilities that are based on the system being stabilized by the laws of physics instead of mechanical valves, rods etc. They are truly amazing machines!

[quarkleptonsoup]

I see what you are saying. I agree that the safety and efficiency of molten salt reactors is important. It is amazing that the engineers of the time could do the calculations required to build a nuclear reactor without the use of our current computer modelling tools. In that context it is understandable that they wanted discrete solid fuel pellets to make the calculations easier. Modelling fluid dynamics is tricky with just a slide rule.