The World's First Nuclear Blockchain, Powered by Thorium(TM). Liquid Fission with Thorium(TM). Energy Performance Unrivalled.
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I was thrilled when the first windmills appeared on the Laurentian Divide near my hometown of Virginia, Minnesota, but a few years later, having noticed a significant amount of “down time,” I checked on wind power’s record with the help of my new associates in the Thorium Energy Alliance and discovered that the windmill industry had been selling more sizzle than steak.
During the “green” search for energy alternatives, which was guided by an “anything but nuclear” bias, the Sierra Club and others to which I once belonged took pains to define what was “renewable” and what was not. In so doing, they deliberately (and ironically), excluded CO2-free nuclear power, even though we have enough uranium and thorium to last 100,000 years.
Because those who profit from wind and solar said nothing about their carbon footprints, environmental damage, resource use, inefficiency, bird, bat and human deaths (death prints) and the need for huge subsidies, we drank their Kool-Aid, and now wonder why it’s making us sick. Well, here’s why, from many points of view.
Number 1 – Safety
Windmills kill 1 million birds and 1 million bats per year, even as insect borne diseases like Zika, dengue fever and malaria are increasing. (Bats can be killed by just getting too close to the low pressure area that accompanies each blade, which ruptures their lungs) How “green” is that?
Don’t these “environmentalists” care that, according to Science magazine, a “single colony of 150 brown bats has been estimated to eat nearly 1.3 million disease-carrying insects each year”? Shouldn’t they know that, according to the US Geological Survey, bats consume harmful pests that feed on crops, providing about USD 23 billion in benefits to America’s agricultural industry every year?
A modern, 1 GW LWR generates 9,000,000 kWhrs per year which, at 10 cents per kWhr, creates revenue of USD 900,400,000 per year. Deduct USD 220 million for operating expenses for a profit of USD 680 million per year. California’s Diablo nuclear plant generates electricity for about 3 cents per kWhr.
If the plant’s two reactors cost USD 7 billion, their combined profit will repay the 7 billion in 5.7 years, after which they will net USD 1.3 billion/year while employing about 1,000 well-paid workers.
While we temporise, Russia and South Korea are building modular reactors (conventional and MSRs), for sale abroad, some of which will be mounted on barges that can be towed to coastal cities, thus making long transmission lines, with their 10% power loss, unnecessary. In 2020, the first of these barges began operation in Pevek, a town in eastern Siberia. (China makes a 1 GWe reactor for USD 3B in less than 5 years – Dr. Alex Cannara.)
In 2016, Russia inaugurated a commercial Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) that extracts nearly 100% of the energy value of uranium. (LWRs utilize less than 5%.) The FBR creates close to zero waste and guarantees that we will never run out of thorium, uranium and plutonium, which yield 1.7 million times more energy per kilogram than crude oil.
Instead of pursuing these profitable programs, we [USA] have spent USD 400 billion on worthless F-35 jet fighters plus USD 2 billion PER WEEK in Afghanistan – AND there’s that missing USD 8.5 TRILLION that the Pentagon can’t find. [The Pentagon’s $35 Trillion Accounting Black Hole, by Michael Rainey, January 23, 2020]
Meanwhile, according to the GUARDIAN, “in 2013, coal, oil and gas companies spent USD 670 billion searching for more fossil fuels, investments that could be worthless if action on global warming slashes allowed emissions.”
California plans a USD 100 billion high speed train to serve impatient commuters between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in 2014, Wall Street paid over USD 28 billion in bonuses to needy executives. If you include greedy sports team owners and players who, between 2000 and 2010, received 12 billion tax dollars to help pay for their arenas, the total could exceed USD 1 trillion.
With that money, we could easily build enough MSRs to end the burning of fossil fuels for generating electricity while drastically cutting carbon dioxide production.
According to WORLD NUCLEAR NEWS, Russia’s Rosatom Overseas intends to sell desalination facilities powered by nuclear power plants to its export markets: Dzhomart Aliyev, the head of Rosatom Overseas, says that the company sees ‘a significant potential in foreign markets,’ and is offering two LWRs producing 1200 MW each to Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity as part of a combined power and desalination plant.
“Desalination units can produce 170,000 cubic meters of potable water/day with 850 MWh of electricity per day. This would use only about 3% of the output of a 1200 MWe nuclear plant. In addition, two desalination units are also being considered for inclusion in Iran’s plan to expand the Bushehr power plant with Russian technology, and another agreement between Argentina and Russia also includes desalination with nuclear power.” Dzhomart Aliyev, chief executive officer of Rusatom Overseas.
In 2016, the Vice President of Rosatom reported that the company plans to build more than 90 plants in the pipeline worth some USD 110 Billion, with the aim of delivering 1000 GW by 2050.
“By 2030 we must build 28 nuclear power units. This is nearly the same as the number of units made or commissioned over the entire Soviet period… ROSATOM, the Russian nuclear power corporation and builders of the Kundamkulam nuclear power plant in India, has orders for building many nuclear power units abroad.” (XXII Nuclear Inter Jura 2016 Proceedings of the Congress)
Stratfor Global Intelligence reported in an October, 2015 article titled Russia: Exporting Influence, One Nuclear Reactor at a Timethat “Rosatom estimated that the value of orders has reached USD 300 billion, with 30 plants in 12 countries. From South Africa to Argentina to Vietnam to… Saudi Arabia, there appears to be no region where Russia does not seek to send its nuclear exports.”
However, our [USA] nuclear industry, opposed by Climate deniers like Donald J Trump, fervent “greens” and powerful carbon companies that put profit before planet, struggles to stay alive.
In Why Not Nuclear?Brian Kingdescribed our failure to build Generation IV nuclear plants that, unlike LWRs, take advantage of high-temperature coolants such as liquid metals or liquid salts that improve efficiency.
“Argonne National Laboratory held the major responsibility for developing nuclear power in the U.S. By 1980, there were two main goals: Develop a nuclear plant that can’t melt down, then build a reactor that can run on waste from nuclear power plants…
“In the early 80’s Argonne opened a site for an experimental breeder reactor in Idaho. About five years later [two weeks before Chernobyl], they were ready for a demonstration. Scientists from around the globe were invited to watch what would happen if there was a loss of coolant to the reactor, a condition similar to the event at Fukushima where the cores of three reactors overheated and melted.
“Dr. C. Till, the director of the Generation IV project, calmly watched the gauges on the panel as core temperature briefly increased, then rapidly dropped as the reactor shut down without any intervention!
“The Argonne Generation IV project was a success, but it couldn’t get past the anti-nuke politics of the 1990’s, so it was shut down by the Clinton administration because they said we didn’t need it.
“One can only imagine what the world would look like today, with a fleet of Generation IV nuclear plants that would run safely for centuries on all of the waste at storage sites around the globe. No heat-trapping carbon dioxide would have been created – only ever increasing amounts of clean, reliable power. So why not nuclear power?
“Unfortunately, most environmentalists oppose nuclear power, as do many liberals. The Democratic Party is afraid of anti-nuclear sentiment… like the Nation Magazine, the Sierra Club and others. Why are all these people against such a safe and promising source of energy?
“… nuclear power has been tarred with the same brush as nuclear weapons. Nuclear power plants can’t explode like bombs, but people still think that way….
“There is also a matter of group prejudice, not unlike a fervently religious group or an audience at a sports event of great importance to local fans. People are afraid to go against the beliefs of their peers, no matter how unsubstantiated those beliefs may be.
”Finally, some good news: In July, 2018, Advanced Reactor Concepts (ARC) and Canada’s New Brunswick Power agreed to build a sodium-cooled, small modular reactor (SMR) – and thereafter at other sites worldwide.
“The ARC-100 includes a passive, “walk away-safe” design that ensures the reactor cannot melt down – even if the plant loses all electrical power. The ARC-100 can consume the nuclear waste produced by LWRs and operate for 20 years without refuelling. Ontario approves nuclear.
Under the agreement, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and Samsung Heavy Industries plan to develop molten salt reactors for marine propulsion and floating nuclear power plants, using molten fluoride salts as the primary coolant at low pressure.
The liquid fuel, besides being at 700-1000 degrees C, contains isotopes fatal to saboteurs.
Do not require water cooling, so hydrogen and steam explosions are eliminated.
Don’t need periodic refuelling shutdowns because the fuel is supplied as needed and the by-products are constantly removed. (LWRs are shut down every 2-3 years to replace about ¼ of the fuel rods, but, LFTRs can run much longer.)
Thorium 232 is far more abundant than U-235. Well suited to areas where water is scarce.
Do not need huge containment domes because they operate at atmospheric pressure. Breed their own fuel.
Can’t “melt down” because the fuel/coolant is already liquid, and the reactor can handle high temperatures.
Fluoride salts are less dangerous than the super-heated water used by conventional reactors, and they could replace the world’s coal-powered plants by 2050.
Are suitable for modular factory production, truck transport and on-site assembly.
Create the Plutonium-238 that powers NASA’s deep space exploration vehicles.
Are intrinsically safe: Overheating expands the fuel/salt, decreasing its density, which lowers the fission rate.
If there is a loss of electric power, the molten salt fuel quickly melts a freeze plug, automatically draining the fuel into a tank, where it cools and solidifies.
Highly efficient. At least 99% of a LFTR’s Thorium is consumed, compared to about 4% of the uranium in LWRs.
Are highly scalable – 10 megaWatt to 2,000 MW plants. A 200 MW LFTR could be transported on a few semi-trailer trucks.
Although our current LWRs are very safe and highly efficient, LFTRS are even more productive, and they cannot melt down.
Data from the Australian Nuclear Society and Technological Organization of the Australian government: + Thorium fuelled molten salt reactors have an energy return ratio of 2,000 to 1. [Also called Energy Density] + Our current LWRs that are fuelled with uranium have an energy return ratio of 75 to 1. + Coal and gas have an energy return ratio of about 30 to 1. Wind has an energy return ratio of 4 to 1. + Solar has an energy return ratio of 1.6 to 1.
“The increase in coal-fired power generation is thus mainly driven by low renewable generation, increased electricity demand and partly also by the high gas prices this year.”
It would be very difficult to make a weapon from LFTR fuels because the gamma rays emitted by the U-232 in the fuel would harm technicians and damage the bomb’s electronics.
Uranium could be stolen during enriching, production of pellets, delivery to the reactor, and for long-term storage, but LFTRs only use external uranium to start the reaction, after which time uranium is produced within the reactor from thorium.
The United Kingdom tried unsuccessfully over a period of 10 years, from the 1950’s to the 1960’s, to produce a weapon from Thorium. They gave up and switched to the uranium path. Still today, 1.5 tonnes of Thorium remain stored from that program. This is enough to power the entire UK for 10 years – Carbon Free.
The USA fired one Thorium driven test in 1955 (MET/Operation Teapot), but the results so poor and complications so high they did no further.
A 1 GW LWR [Light Water Reactor] requires about 1.2 tons of uranium per year, but a 1 GW LFTR only needs a one-time “kick-start” of 500 pounds [225 kg] of U-235 plus 1 ton of Thorium per year during its 60 year lifespan.
The half-life of Thorium 232 is 14 billion years, so it is not hazardous due to its extremely slow decay.
The primary physical advantage of Thorium fuel is that it uniquely makes possible a breeder reactor that runs with slow neutrons, otherwise known as a thermal breeder reactor. These reactors are often considered simpler than the more traditional fast-neutron breeders.
[When Thorium 232 takes up a neutron, the subsequent decay takes two paths: mostly U233 and some U232. The U233 provides most of the useful energy production by Fission. U232 provides protection against proliferation as several decay daughters are high energy gamma emitters – meaning they burn out silicon chips. For example the gamma spike coming from Thallium 208 is 2.6 MeV. ]
[Shielding using advanced materials and methods, such as distance (air), lead, and water can reduce radiation energy to levels where dosages are at recommended levels around 10 microSiverts per hour or 100 milliSiverts per year.
Note that there have been many examples of doses much higher than this causing no concern, such as 350 microSiverts per hour received by Albert Stevens for over 20 years.
Radiation shielding is a mass of absorbing material placed between yourself and the source of radiation in order to reduce the radiation to a level that is safer for humans.
This is measured by using a concept called the halving thickness – the thickness of a material required to halve the energy of the radiation passing through it.
Remember also, that Radiation decreases with distance in accordance with the inverse square law.]
Radiation Halving Thickness Chart
Material
100 keV
200 keV
500 keV
Air
3555 cm
4359 cm
6189 cm
Water
4.15 cm
5.1 cm
7.15 cm
Carbon
2.07 cm
2.53 cm
3.54 cm
Aluminium
1.59 cm
2.14 cm
3.05 cm
Iron
0.26 cm
0.64 cm
1.06 cm
Copper
0.18 cm
0.53 cm
0.95 cm
Lead
0.012 cm
0.068 cm
0.42 cm
Radiation Halving Thickness Chart
Quotes by Albert Einstein
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger,”
“I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them.”
“The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking … the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” – Albert said this in 1945, after the US bombed Japan with nuclear weapons and killed over 200,000 innocent civilians. Approximately 50,000 of them where children, 100,000 where women, and the balance the elderly. There were minor military casualties.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilisation should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
Albert Einstein, the Grandfather of Fission Energy
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) being interviewed by anthropologist and writer Ashley Montagu (1905-1999) in 1946. Einstein was born at Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. Encouraged by his father, who was an electrical engineer, Einstein studied at the Zurich PoAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinGerman born mathematical atomic physicist Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955). (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein
Energy production is the only viable way away from militarisation of Fission Energy. In the same way fire is harnessed in a fireplace to warm our homes or make our steels, Invisible Fire, Fission Energy, Energy from the Atom, does the same.
We are blessed by people like Alvin Weinberg who dedicated their lives to the cause after witnessing how their scientific endeavours were employed with such militaristic zeal for death and destruction.
“Weinberg realised that you could use Thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. … his team built a working reactor … and he spent the rest of his 18-year tenure trying to make Thorium the heart of the nation’s atomic power effort. He failed. Uranium reactors had already been established, and Hyman Rickover, defacto head of the US nuclear program, wanted the plutonium from uranium-powered nuclear plants to make bombs. Increasingly shunted aside, Weinberg was finally forced out in 1973.”
In one type of LFTR, a liquid Thorium salt mixture circulates through the reactor core, releasing neutrons that convert Thorium 232 in an outer, shell-like “jacket” to Thorium 233. Thorium 232 cannot sustain a chain reaction, but it is fertile, meaning that it can be converted to fissile U-233 through neutron capture, also known as “breeding.”
When a Uranium 233 atom absorbs a neutron, it fissions (splits), releasing huge amounts of energy and more neutrons that activate more Thorium 232. In summary, a LFTR turns Thorium-232 into U-233, which thoroughly fissions while producing only 10% as much “waste” as LWRs produce.
How Thorium “Burns”
“Thorium energy can help check CO2 and global warming, cut deadly air pollution, provide inexhaustible energy, and increase human prosperity. Our world is beset by global warming, pollution, resource conflicts, and energy poverty. Millions die from coal plant emissions. We war over mideast oil. Food supplies from sea and land are threatened. Developing nations’ growth exacerbates the crises. Few nations will adopt carbon taxes or energy policies against their economic self-interests to reduce global CO2 emissions. Energy cheaper than coal will dissuade all nations from burning coal. Innovative Thorium energy uses economic persuasion to end the pollution, to provide energy and prosperity to developing nations, and to create energy security for all people for all time.”
Why Thorium must be the Future of Energy, Robert Orr Jr.
Fascinating read with lots of calcs you can perform yourself, DGD
Thorium, what we should have done, B. Kirkpatrick
Fantastic book about this little known alternative nuclear energy source, ChicagoRichie
Should be in the hands of every science class and on top of every policy maker’s desk, R. Kame
A MUST HAVE resource on energy generation alternatives, George Whitehead
Get Free Energy, Abolish CO2, End Energy Dependency, Clean – Up the Planet and Make a Fortune. Kindle Customer
Essential education, Ames Gilbert
A solution for global climate change, Lawrence Baldwin
Wonderful book, written in text book style, Dot Dock
The place to go for Thorium info. Gerald M. Sutliff
Global warming killer, Red Avenger
Thorium reactors can be civilizations future for energy, Hill Country Bob
Thorium fuel in a breeder reactor implies limitless future energy, Fred W. Hallberg
On the ESSENTIAL BOOK LIST, James38
The half-life of Thorium 232, which constitutes most of the earth’s Thorium, is 14 billion years, so it is not hazardous due to its extremely slow decay. – Dr. George Erickson
“Given the diminished scale of LFTRs, it seems reasonable to project that reactors of 100 megawatts can be factory produced for a cost of around $200 million.”
A thorium–fuelled MSR[Molten Salt Reactor] is a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor – a LFTR
Pronounced ‘LIFTER‘
A Lifetime of power in the palm of your hand [with Thorium]
With a half-life of 14 billion years, Thorium-232 is one of the safest, least radioactive elements in the world. Thorium-232 emits harmless alpha particles that cannot even penetrate skin, but when it becomes Th-233 in a Molten Salt Reactor, it becomes a potent source of power. Sunlight, living at high altitude and the emissions from your granite counter-top or a coal-burning plant are more hazardous than thorium-232.
LFTRs are even more fuel-efficient than uranium- fuelled MSRs, and they create little waste because a LFTR consumes close to 99% of the thorium-232. LWRs reactors consume just 3% of their uranium before the rods need to be changed. That’s like burning just a tiny part of a log while polluting the rest with chemicals you must store for years.
Just one pound of thorium can generate as much electricity as 1700 tons coal, so replacing coal-burning plants with LFTRs would eliminate one of the largest causes of climate change. That same pound (just a golf ball-size lump), can yield all the energy an individual will ever need, and just one cubic yard of thorium can power a small city for at least a year. In fact, if we were to replace ALL of our carbon-fuelled, electrical power production with LFTRs, we would eliminate 30 to 35% of all man-made greenhouse gas production.
From 1977 to 1982, the Light Water Reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania was powered with thorium, and when it was eventually shuttered, the reactor core was found to contain about 1% more fissile material (U233/235) than when it was loaded. (Thorium has also fuelled the Indian Point 1 facility and a German reactor.)
India, which has an abundance of thorium, is planning to build Thorium-powered reactors, as is China while we struggle to overcome our unwarranted fear of nuclear power. And in April, 2015, a European commission announced a project with 11 partners from science and industry to prove the innovative safety concepts of the Thorium-fuelled MSR and deliver a breakthrough in waste management.
Please read Thorium: the last great opportunity of the industrial age – by David Archibald
Thorium is four times as plentiful as uranium ore, which contains only 1% U-235. Besides being almost entirely usable, it is 400 times more abundant than uranium’s fissile U-235. Even at current use rates, uranium fuels can last for centuries, but thorium could power our world for thousands of years.
Just 1 ton of thorium is equivalent to 460 billion cubic meters of natural gas. We already have about 400,000 tons of thorium ore in “storage”, and we don’t need to mine thorium because our Rare-Earth Elements plant receives enough thorium to power the U. S. every year. Australia and India tie for the largest at about 500,000 tons, and China is well supplied.
A 1 GW LWR requires about 1.2 tons of uranium each year, but a 1 GW LFTR only needs a one-time “kick start” of 500 pounds of U-235 plus 1 ton of thorium each year.
Waste and Storage
Due to their high efficiency, LFTRs create only 1% of the waste that conventional reactors produce, and because only a small part of that waste needs storing for 400 years – not the thousands of years that LWR waste requires – repositories much smaller than Yucca mountain would easily suffice.
Furthermore, LFTRs can run almost forever because they produce enough neutrons to make their own fuel, and the toxicity from LFTR waste is 1/1000 that of LWR waste. So, the best way to eliminate most nuclear waste is to stop creating it with LWRs and replace them with reactors like MSRs or LFTRs that can utilize stored “waste” as fuel.
With no need for huge containment buildings, MSRs can be smaller in size and power than current reactors, so ships, factories, and cities could have their own power source, thus creating a more reliable, efficient power grid by cutting long transmission line losses that can run from 8 to 15%. Unfortunately, few elected officials will challenge the carbon industries that provide millions of jobs and wield great political power. As a consequence, thorium projects have received little to no help from our government, even though China and Canada are moving toward thorium, and India already has a reactor that runs on 20% thorium oxide.
After our DOE signed an agreement with China, we gave them our MSR data. To supply its needs while MSRs are being built, China is relying on 27 conventional nuclear reactors plus 29 Generation III+ (solid fuel) nuclear plants that are under construction. China also intends to build an additional fifty-seven nuclear power plants, which is estimated to add at least 150 GigaWatts (GW) by 2030.
“Global increase in nuclear power capacity in 2015 hit 10.2 gigawatts, the highest growth in 25 years driven by construction of new nuclear plants mainly in China…. We have never seen such an increase in nuclear capacity addition, mainly driven by China, South Korea and Russia,.. It shows that with the right policies, nuclear capacity can increase.”
Russia Building the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Turkey
“When the China National Nuclear Power Manufacturing Corporation sought investors in 2015, they expected to raise a modest number of millions but they raised more than $280 billion.”
In 2016, the Chinese Academy of Sciences allocated $1 billion to begin buildingLFTRs by 2020. As for Japan, which began to restart its reactors in 2015, a FUJI design for a 100 to 200 MW LFTR is being developed by a consortium from Japan, the U. S. and Russia at an estimated energy cost of just three cents/kWh. Furthermore, it appears that five years for construction and about $3 billion per reactor will be routine in China.
Molten Salt Reactors are superior in many ways to conventional reactors.
In a Molten Salt Reactor, the uranium (probably Thorium in the future), is dissolved in a liquid fluoride salt. (Although fluorine gas is corrosive, fluoride salts are not.) Fluoride salts also don’t break down under high temperatures or high radiation, and they lock up radioactive material, which prevents it from being released to the environment.
As noted earlier, Dr. Alvin Weinberg’s Oak Ridge MSR ran successfully for 22,000 hours during the sixties. However, the program was shelved, partly for political reasons and partly because we [USA] favoured Admiral Rickover’s water-cooled reactors.
Schematic of a Molten Salt Reactor
When uranium or thorium is combined with a liquid fluoride salt, there are no pellets, no zirconium tubes and no water, the source of the hydrogen that exploded at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The fluid that contains the uranium is also the heat-transfer agent, so no water is required for cooling. MSRs are also more efficient than LWR plants because the temperature of the molten salt is about 1300 F [700 C], whereas the temperature of the water in a conventional reactor is about 600 F [315 C], and higher heat creates more high-pressure steam to spin the turbines.
This extra heat can also be used to generate more electricity, desalinate seawater, split water for hydrogen fuel cells, make ammonia for fertilizer and even extract CO2 from the air and our oceans to make gasoline and diesel fuel. In addition, MSRs can be fueled with 96% of our stored uranium “waste” – spent fuel – and the fissile material in our thousands of nuclear bombs.
Because some MSR designs do not need to be water-cooled, those versions don’t risk a steam explosion that could propel radioactive isotopes into the environment. And because MSRs operate at atmospheric pressure, no huge, concrete containment dome is needed.
When the temperature of the liquid salt fuel rises as the chain reaction increases, the fuel expands, which decreases its density and slows the rate of fission, which prevents a “runaway” reaction. As a consequence, an MSR is inherently self-governing, and because the fuel is liquid, it can easily drain by gravity into a large containment reservoir. As a consequence, the results of a fuel “spill” from an MSR would be measured in square yards, not miles.
In the event of a power outage, a refrigerated salt plug at the bottom of the reactor automatically melts, allowing the fuel to drain into a tank, where it spreads out solidifies, stopping the reaction. In effect, MSRs are walk-away- safe.
Even if you abandon an MSR, the fuel will automatically drain and solidify without any assistance.
If the Fukushima reactor had been an MSR, there would have been no meltdown, and because radioactive by-products like caesium, iodine and strontium bind tightly to stable salts, they would not have been released into the environment. (In 2018 Jordan agreed to purchase two, 110 MW, South Korean molten salt reactors,)
May 2021 – Danish firm plans floating SMR for export South Korea firm to build floating nuclear plants. NuScale and Canadian firm to build floating MSRs. Saskatchewan Indigenous company to explore small MSRs.
Besides producing CO2-free electricity, fissioning U-233 in an MSR creates essential industrial elements that include xenon, which is used in lasers, neodymium for super-strength magnets, rhodium, strontium, medical molybdenum-99, zirconium, ruthenium, palladium, iodine-131 for the treatment of thyroid cancers and bismuth-213, which is used for targeted cancer treatments.
Cargo ships emit more air pollution than all of the world’s cars, but we don’t power them with emission-free nuclear power because we are worried about nuclear proliferation. However, if we would equip these ships with new, proliferation–resistant reactors, we could save seven million barrels of oil per day, eliminate 4% of our greenhouse gas emissions and replace those huge fuel tanks with profitable cargo.
Propelling one of our [USA] immense aircraft carriers at 27 mph for 24 hours requires only three pounds [1.36 kg] of nuclear fuel, which is equivalent to 400,000 gallons [1.8 million litres] of diesel fuel. (Burning 100 gallons [455 litres] of diesel fuel creates one ton of carbon dioxide.)
California’s drought-stricken Central Valley, which was a dry savanna before “civilisation” arrived, is more than 10 trillion gallons [46 billion metres3] per year behind in precipitation. Fortunately, there is a remedy, but that remedy will require an abundance of carbon-free electricity created by safe, efficient nuclear power plants.
The non-nuclear Carlsbad desalination plant produces some 50 million gallons [230 million litres] of fresh water per day with 40 MW, which only supplies 7% of San Diego’s needs, but supplying all of the state would require 140 Carlsbads, which is why the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has begun to produce fresh water.
There should be many more plants like Diablo, and there would be, but for the opposition of anti-nuclear zealots whose efforts helped accomplish the closure of California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant. As a result, San Onofre’s 2.4 billion watts of carbon-free electricity are being generated by plants that burn huge volumes of natural gas (methane), which raises CO2 levels and worsens Climate Change.
Why do we persist with carbon fuels when six uranium oxide pellets the size of the tip of your little finger, contain as much energy as 3 tons of coal or 60,000 cubic feet of natural gas? Just a fistful of uranium can run all of New York City for an hour, and the spent fuel “waste” products are far less than that.
The 2.2-megawatt Excel Energy plant at Becker, MN – the state’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases – turns 60 million pounds of coal per day into CO2, but less than 100 pounds of uranium would produce the same amount of electricity without creating any CO2.
How does a water-cooled, uranium-fuelled Light Water Reactor (LWR) work?
What are its pluses and minuses?
Some claim that uranium mining is especially dangerous because the ore is radioactive, but they are wrong. The radiation level just one foot from a drum of uranium [yellow cake] is only 20% of the cosmic radiation level that passengers experience on a jet flight – and the ore from which the oxide was derived is even less hazardous.
In a LWR, uranium pellets containing about 4-5% U-235 are sealed in about 25,000 12-foot zirconium tubes. Within those tubes, the U-235 emits neutrons that sustain a chain reaction that releases huge amounts of heat that raises the water temperature to 600 degrees F [320 C], so it must be “kept” at 2,700 psi [20 MPa] to prevent it from boiling. The super-heated water is circulated through a heat-exchanger to make steam in a separate plumbing loop. That steam powers a turbine, which spins a generator. And because the super-heated water would explosively expand 1,000 times if there were a leak, a huge, immensely strong containment dome encloses the reactor so that steam or other gases can’t escape. Once started, a LWR can run for three years with only periodic breaks for refuelling.
Nuclear power plants are required to contain 100% of their spent fuel (“waste”), but if you were to get all the electricity for your lifetime from conventional reactors, your share would weigh just two pounds [one kilogram], and only a small part of that would be hazardous long term.
During fission, reaction products accumulate in the pellets, which become cracked, and must be replaced during a multi-day shut-down during which the rods are moved to pools filled with water, which absorbs neutrons, to keep the decaying fuel from overheating.
After underwater storage for up to 8 years, radioactivity has decreased to the point that the rods can be stored in self-ventilating, concrete cylinders. And after 10 more years, 90% of the highly radioactive elements are no longer hazardous.
Spent Fuel Storage Pond at a Nuclear Power Station
On-site storage is a sensible solution because 96% of this spent fuel can fuel modern, “fast” and other reactors to make more electricity. In 2018, the US generated 4.2 billion megawatt hours of electricity from all sources, but we have enough spent fuel to generate 4 billion megawatt years of CO2-free electricity! Why are we waiting?
“Human societies are addicted to their way of life, and they are fanatical in their defence. Hence, they are reluctant to reform. To admit error is rare among individuals and unknown among states. Instead of changing their minds, leaders redouble their efforts to do what no longer works, wooden-headedly persisting in error until the bitter end.” [Wind and solar – not nuclear]
William Ophuls
These pellets also contain isotopes needed for nuclear medicine. (Plutonium 239, which the anti-nukes fuss about, has a half-life of 24,000 years. When held in a gloved hand, one only feels slight warmth due to its extremely slow decay, and as spent fuel decays, it becomes safer – unlike the toxic ash and the particulates made by burning carbon, which remain toxic forever.
However, Caesium, Iodine and Strontium isotopes are dangerous because they mimic food elements that our bodies need. Iodine decays rapidly, but Strontium and Caesium decay by half in about 30 years, so we should store them safely for 120 years, at which time their activity has dropped by 94%.
Note the absence of shielding, even though Mr. Agnew [b. 1921, d. 2013, age 92] is carrying the plutonium that destroyed Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
Good video on spent fuel from Columbia plant, featuring Dr. James Conca.
Used Fuel Dry Storage 1 Prairie Island Nuclear Plant Minnesota
Used Fuel Dry Storage 2 Prairie Island Nuclear Plant in Minnesota
Used Fuel Dry Storage Canada
Used Fuel Dry Storage James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant Scriba New York
Used Fuel Dry Storage
Used Fuel Dry Storage Central Missouri
Heavily nuclear France has a recycling program that greatly reduces its volume and the length of time it must be stored. As a consequence, all of France’s multi-decade spent fuel could be stored on one basketball court.
In comparison, all of the “waste” generated in the U.S. since the fifties could be stored on one football field in self-ventilating, concrete containers. After just 40 years of storage, only about one thousandth as much radioactivity remains as when the reactor was turned off for fuel replacement. (Only a small portion needs long term storage or recycling.)
However, because recycling can retrieve plutonium isotopes from the waste, some of which can be used for making weapons, President Carter closed our [USA] only recycling plant during the Cold War in an attempt to placate Russian fears that we’d use the plutonium for making nuclear bombs.
Unfortunately, there was, and is, another reason: The anti-nuclear crowd has promoted radiophobia so effectively that many voters and legislators refuse to even consider building the new, super-safe, highly efficient reactors that can use 95% of our stored “waste”, including the plutonium, as fuel. (During the last 70 years, just 56,000 tons of nuclear “waste” was generated in the U S, but the city of New York creates that much in just 6 days.
Trash Recycling Management in New York – Low Cost Fission Would Recycle All of It
Radioactive waste is generally divided into three categories depending on its level of radioactivity: low, intermediate and high-level waste.
Low-level waste includes slightly contaminated clothing and items that comes from places such as nuclear medicine wards in hospitals, research laboratories and nuclear plants. Low-level waste contains only small amounts of radioactivity that decays away in hours or days. After the radioactivity has decayed, low-level waste can be treated like ordinary garbage.
Intermediate-level wastes mostly come from the nuclear industry. They include used reactor components and contaminated materials from reactor decommissioning. Typically these wastes are embedded in concrete for disposal and buried.
High-level waste generally describes spent (or used) fuel from nuclear reactors. It is highly radioactive, will remain so for many years, and requires special handling.
According to the IAEA, low and intermediate level wastes comprise about 97% of the volume, but only 8% of the radioactivity of all radioactive waste. ]
Coming up next week, Episode 18 – Pass the Salt Dear – How Fission Gets Rock Solid Stability
この記事は、2022年3月14日にプロイセンの一般新聞Preußische Allgemeine Zeitungによって公開されました。著作権表示:教育目的でフェアユースを適用する。 / This article published 14 March 2022 by Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung, the Prussian General Newspaper. Copyright notice: applying fair use for educational purposes.
THORIUM MOLTEN SALT REACTORS Nuclear reactors in which the nuclear fuel is in the form of molten salt offer a wealth of advantages. A test plant will go into operation in China in the near future.
The raw material is cheap and available worldwide, not even cooling water is needed and the waste is less and decays much faster than conventional nuclear waste: Thorium technology stands for a new quality of the use of nuclear energy
In the Hongshagang Industrial Park near Wuwei in the central Chinese province of Gansu, a pilot plant will go into operation in the near future, which has the potential to revolutionize energy production not only in the Middle Kingdom, but throughout the world. No more carbon dioxide emissions as a result of the use of fossil fuels, no more landscape degradation by wind turbines, no mass use of batteries from environmentally harmful production, no power outages in calm winds and clouds, but also no radiation risk due to reactor accidents, all this promises the innovative Thorium-based Molten Salt Reactor-Liquid Fuel No. 1 (TMSR-LF1) of the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, which advocates a new quality of use of the Nuclear energy is in place and this should give it a kind of “green coat of paint”.
The operation of the Thorium Molten Salt reactor TMSR-LF1 is relatively simple. The weakly radioactive element Thorium is dissolved in molten salt and bombarded with neutrons. This produces the isotope uranium 233, the fission of which releases large amounts of heat. So the reactor produces its own fuel. This process ultimately brings much more safety than the operation of classic nuclear reactors (see below) and also a variety of other advantages.
First, only extremely small amounts of Thorium 232 are needed. The energy content of one ton of Thorium corresponds to that of 200 tons of uranium metal or 28 million tons of coal, as the Italian Nobel Laureate in Physics Carlo Rubbia calculated.
Secondly, there are larger Thorium deposits all over the world. In principle, the element occurs in the rock crust as often as lead and is also produced as a waste product in the extraction of rare earths. That’s why it’s not expensive. On the other hand, there is a risk of shortages and price explosions for uranium in the future, because the number of conventional nuclear power plants has recently increased significantly again.
Thirdly, a Thorium Molten Salt reactor can be built virtually anywhere, including desert regions, for example. Because it does not require any cooling water.
Fourthly, its operation also generates significantly less radioactive waste. In addition, more than 99 percent of the nuclear waste from the TMSR-LF1 is said to have decayed into harmless isotopes after 300 years at the latest. Furthermore, it is possible to process the small residual amounts of longer radiating material later in more advanced molten salt reactors and thus completely neutralise. By way of comparison, conventional nuclear reactors powered by uranium produce long-lived radioactive fission products with half-lives of many thousands of years, even though only a small fraction of the nuclear fuel used is used.
Fifthly, the costs for the construction and operation of Thorium Molten Salt reactors are lower than those of the light-water reactors that are usually used. This is mainly due to the low operating pressure of the systems, which makes numerous safety precautions superfluous, as well as the fact that no fuel rods have to be procured.
Sixthly, reactors such as the TMSR-LF1 can also be operated extremely economically because not only uranium 233 is incubated in them, but also many other radioactive fission products are produced, which are required, for example, in nuclear medicine. And some of the radionuclides even turn into highly sought-after elements such as rubidium, zirconium, molybdenum, ruthenium, palladium, neodymium and samarium. Likewise, the noble gas xenon is released, which is used, among other things, as an insulation medium as well as in laser and aerospace technology.
The technology underlying the TMSR-LF1 was not invented in China, but in the USA. As early as 1954, the Air Force experimented with a small molten salt reactor to power long-range bombers. However, the project came to a rapid end when the United States had intercontinental ballistic missiles. Likewise, at the beginning of the 1970s, West German scientists from the Jülich nuclear research facility presented some studies on molten salt reactors, which ultimately received no attention because of the negative attitude of the then head of reactor development, Rudolf Schulten [main developer of the pebble bed reactor design, a non fluid fuel system].
Another reason for the lack of acceptance of the alternative reactor type was the absolute lack of interest of the nuclear industry around the world. With the classic nuclear reactors, excellent money could be earned, and no one wanted to do without the income from the production of fuel rods. Therefore, all sorts of pretended arguments against the use of molten salt reactors were brought into play, such as the allegedly higher risk of corrosion and the hypothetical danger that someone will misuse the reactors to produce weapons-grade fissile material.
This has not prevented the People’s Republic of China from investing the equivalent of 400 million euros in the development of the TMSR-LF1 since 2011. After all, Beijing’s leaders are pursuing the ambitious goal of making the Middle Kingdom “climate neutral” by 2050, and the “perfect technology” of molten salt reactors could prove absolutely indispensable.
250MW溶融塩核分裂エネルギー発電設備 / 250 MW Molten Salt Fission Energy Power Facility
The reactor, which is now to be tested on the edge of the Gobi Desert, initially has a nominal output of only two megawatts. This means that it can only supply around 1000 households with electricity. If the design principle of the TMSR-LF1 proves successful, however, the first prototype of a Thorium Molten Salt reactor with an output of 373 megawatts would go into operation by around 2030, which will then be followed by identical plants throughout China in rapid succession. It remains to be seen whether Germany will still remain in its abstinence from nuclear power at this time or whether it will now also rely on “green nuclear energy”.
The Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung (PAZ) is a unique voice in the German media landscape. Week after week, it reports on current events in politics, culture and business and takes a stand on the fundamental developments in our society. In their work, the editors feel committed to the traditional Prussian canon of values: The old Prussia stood and stands for religious and ideological tolerance, for love of homeland and open-mindedness, for the rule of law and intellectual honesty, and not least for reason-guided action in all areas of society . With this in mind, the PAZ maintains an open culture of debate, which passionately represents its own point of view and respects the opinions of those who think differently – and also lets them have their say. Beyond day-to-day events, the PAZ feels committed to remembering historical Prussia and caring for its cultural heritage. With these principles, the Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung is a unique journalistic bridge between yesterday, today and tomorrow, between the countries and regions in West and East – as well as between the different social currents in our country.
Translation courtesy of Duck Duck Go – Your personal data is nobody’s business.
The trail of destruction continues from Episode 15.
Later in 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured in Michigan, eventually “spilling” more than a million gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River. When monitors at the Alberta office reported that the line pressure had fallen to zero, control room staff dismissed the warning as a false alarm and cranked up the pressure twice, which worsened the disaster. In 2018, Enbridge’s “cleanup” was still incomplete.
Fire at BP Deepwater Horizon 2010
Bird in Oil Alaska 1989
800 Mile Oil Spill Alaska 1989
San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion 2010
Aliso Canyon Methane Leak 2014
Alberta Waste Oil Spill 2014
Oil Train Derailment in New Brunswick, Canada 2014
Alabama Oil Train Crash 2013
Mayflower, Arkansas Exxon Oil Spill 2016
Lac Megantic Quebec Oil Train Crash 2013
Enbridge Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Spill Kalamazoo 2010
Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant in Orla, Texas 2015
In 2013, a spectacular train wreck dumped 2 million gallons of North Dakota crude oil into Lac Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 residents and incinerating the centre of the town – but that’s just another page in the endless petroleum tale that includes Exxon’s disastrous, 2016 “spill” in Mayflower, Arkansas, that received scant notice from the press.
And in November 2013, a train loaded with 2.7 million gallons of crude oil went incendiary in Alabama, followed in December by a North Dakota conflagration.
2014 began with a fiery derailment in New Brunswick, Canada, and in October 2014, 625,000 liters of oil and toxic mine-water were “spilled” in Alberta.
July, August and September brought Alberta’s autumn, 2014 total to 90 pipeline “spills.” 2015 brought four, fiery oil train wrecks just by March, and 2016 delivered two Alabama pipeline explosions – one close to Birmingham.
George Erickson
July, August and September brought Alberta’s autumn, 2014 total to 90 pipeline “spills.” 2015 brought four, fiery oil train wrecks just by March, and 2016 delivered two Alabama pipeline explosions – one close to Birmingham.
In late 2015, California’s horrific, Aliso Canyon methane “leak” (think “geyser”) erupted, spewing forth 100,000 tons of natural gas, the equivalent of approximately 3 billion gallons of gasoline or adding 500,000 cars to our roads for a year.
The Southern California Gas Company finally managed to throttle the geyser in February, 2016. Incidentally, Aliso’s 100,000 tons of “leakage” is just 25% of California’s allowed leakage, which is an indication of the political power of the natural gas industry. (Five months later, a new headline appeared: “Massive Fracking Explosion in New Mexico”)
The Aliso “leak” caused the loss of 70 billion cubic feet (BCF) of gas that California utilities count on to create electricity for the hot summer months. As a consequence, the California Independent Service Operator, which manages California’s grid, estimated that due to Aliso, 21 million customers should expect to be without power for 14 days during the summer.
According to Reuters, (June 2016), “SoCalGas uses Aliso Canyon to provide gas to power generators that cannot be met with pipeline flows alone on about 10 days per month during the summer, according to state agencies.”
However, during the summer, SoCalGas also strives to fill Aliso Canyon to prepare for the winter heating season. State regulators, however, subsequently ordered the company to reduce the amount of gas in Aliso to just 15 BCF and use that fuel to reduce the risk of power interruptions in the hot summer months of 2016. Fortunately, State regulators have also said that they won’t allow SoCalGas to inject fuel into the facility until the company has inspected all of its 114 storage facilities.
The Aliso disaster wiped out all of the state’s Green House Gas (GHG) reductions from its wind and solar systems – and led to a USD 1.8 billion judgement against SoCalGas in September, 2021. In 2016, California officials also reported leakage at a San Joachim County storage facility that was “similar to, or slightly above, background levels at other natural gas storage facilities.”
“Combustion sources [unlike nuclear power], aren’t burdened with their true costs. Natural gas, for example, is not cheaper than nuclear or anything else. In 2016, our allowed leakage wipes wind/solar out by 4 times. In other words, ‘renewables’ in a gas state like California wipe out their benefits every 3 months because they depend on gas for most of their nameplate ratings. The Aliso storage was largely used to compensate for ‘renewables’ inevitable shortfall.
“The most important combustion cost is the unlimited downside risk of its emissions for the entire planet, but in February 2016, our CEC approved 600MW of added gas burning in the San Diego region simply because the San Onofre nuclear plant wasn’t running, due to possibly corrupt actions by SoCla Gas, SCE, Sempra Energy and Edison Intl.
“Such practices were prevented for 75 years by the 1935 PUHCA, but the Bush administration repealed it in 2005 after decades of carbon combustion-interest lobbying. Some states – not California – passed legislation to correct for the 2005 PUHCA repeal.”
There’s more: In August, 2016, the PennsylvaniaEPA admitted that oil and gas production in the state emitted as much methane as Aliso Canyon. The Aliso “leak” was deemed a disaster, but the hundreds of equally damaging Pennsylvania “leaks” were considered business as usual.
Finally, also in August, 2016, a thirty-inch pipeline exploded in southeast New Mexico, killing five adults and five children while leaving two other adults in critical condition in a Lubbock, Texas hospital.
All of this could have been avoided if, instead of pursuing intermittent, short-lived, carbon-dependent windmills and solar panels (Chapters 9 and 10), we had expanded safe, CO2-free Nuclear Power.
Dr. Wade Allison, in Nuclear is For Life, wrote: “Critics of civilian nuclear power use what they fear might happen due to a nuclear failure – but never has – but ignore other accidents that have been far worse: – The 1975 dam failure in China that killed 170,000; – The 1984 chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India where 3,899 died and 558,000 were injured; – The 1889, Johnstown. PA flood that drowned 2,200; – The 1917 explosion of a cargo ship in Halifax, N. S. where 2,000 died and 9,000 were injured; – Turkey’s 2014 coal mine accident that took 300 lives; – The 2015 warehouse explosion in China that cost 173 lives. “
The list seems endless, but no one advocates destroying dams or closing chemical plants.
The way the world has reacted to the Fukushima accident has been the real disaster with huge consequences to the environment, but the accident itself was not.”
“In California, defective, Japanese-built steam generators at the San Onofre plant could have been replaced for about USD 600 million, but the plant is being decommissioned at a cost of USD 4.5 billion because of Fukushima and anti-nuclear zealotry. The plant could be replaced with two, CO2-free AP-1000 reactors for USD 14 Billion.” Mike Conley
In this foolish way, California lost the CO2-free electricity generated by San Onofre – 9% of California’s needs – which was replaced by carbon burning power plants and/or carbon-reliant wind and solar.
Nuclear plants are required to set aside part of their profits to pay the cost of decommissioning, but no such requirement is made of wind and solar farms. Neither are carbon companies required to pre-fund the removal of miles of pipelines, the cleanup of refinery sites, or the sealing of their abandoned wells.
I repeat, NO ONE has died from radiation created by commercial nuclear power production in Western Europe, Asia or the Southern and Western hemispheres, but up to 5,000,000 people die prematurely every year from the burning of coal, gas, wood and oil.
The 2008 UNSCEAR update on their Chernobyl Report changed the “4000” future deaths from cancer to undetectable future deaths. With that reduction, the deaths per TWh drop accordingly.
A 2019 study lowered the nuclear rate even further from 0.0013 to 0.0007/TWh.
The original version of this chart, which rated nuclear power at 0.04 deaths per Terawatt hour, included thousands of LNT-predicted Chernobyl deaths that never happened.
As a consequence, this image, which reflects reality instead of LNT [Linear No Threshold] errors, reveals that nuclear power is far safer than initially thought, and that nuclear is actually 115 times safer than wind – not 4,340 times safer than solar – not 10, 3,000 times safer than natural gas, 27,000 times safer than oil – and coal is out of sight.
The Thorium Network 
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