Save the Uranium-233, Explore Space, Save Lives

Google Tech Talk
January 13, 2011

Presented by Kirk Sorensen.

ABSTRACT

Uranium-233 does not exist naturally, but about a ton of the stuff was transmuted from Thorium-232 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960's. Some people would have us blend this exceedingly rare element with natural uranium for disposal. However, Uranium-233 can be used in an advanced nuclear reactor with interesting properties. Uranium-233 is the cleanest burning fissile material. Employed as an initial fuel load for a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, this small supply of Uranium-233 can be the match to ignite a process that produces a huge supply of electricity along with small quantities of useful fission products. In particular, the LFTR produces small amounts of Plutonium-238, essential for NASA's deep space missions; Technetium-99m, exceedingly valuable for medical imaging; and other specialized isotopes used in cancer treatments. Nuclear power reactors can be engineered to produce many valuable materials through transmutation belying the term "nuclear waste".

Kirk Sorensen is chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville, Alabama. He has been researching the nuclear fuel cycle for many years in connection with a strong interest in thorium as a planetary energy source. He is also a PhD student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville under Dr. Laurence Miller. He runs a blog called "energyfromthorium.com" and is active in the Thorium Energy Alliance (TEA) and the International Thorium Energy Organization (IThEO) and is also a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS).

• Category

  Science & Technology

[blenderpanzi]

"Kirk Sorensen". Two Star Trek characters in one name (Captain Kirk & Dr. Sorenson). #WIN

[KarbineKyle]

SAVE THAT U-233! DO NOT use it for warheads either, & getting rid of it would be a waste! Why less space missions & more cancer? Cancer patients could use these isotopes with their decay products or target products for destroying cancerous tumors! You can't just get rid of U-233 that easily anyways, because U-233 has a half-life of 160,000 years! It should be used to produce Pu-238 RTGs! It could be used to melt ice on those moons to find oceans! SAVE IT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION & NUCLEAR MEDICINE!

[Dude10659]

I normally get upset when I see in News China is stealing all our Technology via hackers and spyies. But Now I am Rooting that China steals all our LFTR technology cause we aint gonna use it! How cool to see China with clean limitless power, they may become peaceful even or too fat to fight from all the free energy lol.

Plus India then will feel embarrassed and develop LFTR also, right now India is 1st to have Thorium Reactors up and running, but they may go Molten Thorium once U233 is had

[Dude10659]

Sarah India asked Obama for the U233 thus sdaving USA tons of money to distroy it lol

Obama said hell no, you Indians could make U233 atom Bombs, wtf, India already has Hydrogen Bombs, to protect it from China and Islamic Pakistan the real danger to humanity and women! India said just loan it to us then, so we can get Thorium plants up and runing right away, and we will then return the exact amount you give us on loan! USA said we not gonna loan it to you, we gonna distroy it,

[georg841984]

thats not a mon its a Space station lol

[Martin Kral]

Has the U-233 been destroyed by the government yet?

[MegaBanne]

I got a virus :(

[Joseph Stern]

I thought it was very enlightening. How else would you explain the process?

[kurtilein3]

storage of anti-matter is almost impossible, also we lack the ability to create and collect it in meaningful quantities. So far, a handful of anti-hydrogen atoms was stored for close to 10 minutes. For a weapon, you would need to store about 600000000000000000000000 (23 zeros to get from the weight of 1 hydrogen atom to 1 gram) of these indefinitely. just too difficult.

[Sarah Green]

They should build particle accelerators to discreetly farm antimatter instead, which can be used to make bombs the likes of which no nuke could ever surpass... and stop using reactors to produce bombs grade materials. It's messing up global politics. Most of the wars we are (or are about to be) involved in center around the UGAIZ THEY HAVE NUKES premise.

[Sarah Green]

Considering all the other ridiculous things that the US government spends a billion dollars on yearly, you'd think that they might see China running away with the LFTR design and go "wait, CHINA wants the intellectual property rights on this? must be something really lucrative- maybe we should pipe in some cash..."

But no, instead the US gov't researches new reactors that rapidly breed nice, clean, weapons grade plutonium. *facedesk*

[Sarah Green]

Also, U-233 would be generated in this process, and could be siphoned off to use in U-233 only plants. The LFTRs could dramatically increase U-233 stockpiles, and also dramatically increase plutonium 238 stockpiles for space exploration, and also dramatically increase the stockpiles all of those other crucial, rare, and very expensive things like Bi-213. The LFTR reactor design is extremely lucrative when you look at the resources it can put out.