Safe nuclear energy: Thorium

[44nutman]

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/thorium-reactors-could-wean-world-oil-just-five-years
China and India are already using safer Thorium
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/thorium-catches-worlds-eye-post-japanese-nuke-disaster_530566.html

The sad part is our congress is so corrupt they will just vote down any cleaner energy ideas, because their coal/oil master will tell them so. Those that worship at the Koch alter and the same ones who tell you solar power doesn't work even when Germany is running a lot of homes on solar power. I guess it would only work in Germany considering when people think of places with tons of sunlight, they think Germany.

[ekg]

HA!




LOL, Chuck told me last night "Remember this word and look it up in the morning.. Thorium"

thanks for the links, I will read them in a bit

[lil mike]

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/thorium-reactors-could-wean-world-oil-just-five-years
China and India are already using safer Thorium
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/thorium-catches-worlds-eye-post-japanese-nuke-disaster_530566.html

The sad part is our congress is so corrupt they will just vote down any cleaner energy ideas, because their coal/oil master will tell them so. Those that worship at the Koch alter and the same ones who tell you solar power doesn't work even when Germany is running a lot of homes on solar power. I guess it would only work in Germany considering when people think of places with tons of sunlight, they think Germany.

There are about a half dozen nuke plant designed that are state of the art, including thorium plants, that are much safer just based on the design.  We've not built a new nuke plant since what, the 70's?  The technology is so much better now.  One has the uranium as pellets rather than rods so it's easier to seperate so don't have to be cooled off as much in case of a massive system shut down.

[44nutman]

There are about a half dozen nuke plant designed that are state of the art, including thorium plants, that are much safer just based on the design.  We've not built a new nuke plant since what, the 70's?  The technology is so much better now.  One has the uranium as pellets rather than rods so it's easier to seperate so don't have to be cooled off as much in case of a massive system shut down.

You must have not read the articles, I am not suprised. Thorium has a higher yield than Uranium which means it is more efficient. Thorium is easier to cool down, it is all about the science,yo.  Here is the thing that bugs most elected officials about Thorium;  it is readily avalaible everywhere, which means the oil companies/Uranium companies will never let it happen.

[uselesslegs]

No business, goes into business, to go out of business.  I understand this premise and I understand the entity or person's fight to keep it alive and profitable until the very end.

However, energies is a business that isn't part of the normal market equation.

1. Where monies are concerned, what is better for humanity or less expensive is not the number 1 priority.

2. Where the product/'s are concerned, competition isn't as easy as marketing a new toaster design and letting the buying public decide it's fate.  Our entire society is built around, on and structured to function using coal, oil and nuclear.  It is not only an industry, it has been set up to be our lives blood...literally. 

It's not that we can't start transitioning or slowly integrating towards greener, newer/different forms for our energy concerns...we could.  BUT, in a "free market" driven society, you'll find no philanthropy or future think...THIS is about the bottom line and the bottom line doesn't recognize true efforts that would move towards "really" alleviating the economic burdens of your average citizen nor wanting to...I mean...why would they?  They'd be cutting their own throats. 

The Untied States will be the LAST developed country to embrace alternatives and it won't be a matter of being late to the game...it will only truly and seriously happen when we're left with no other choice.

[ekg]

No business, goes into business, to go out of business.  I understand this premise and I understand the entity or person's fight to keep it alive and profitable until the very end.

However, energies is a business that isn't part of the normal market equation.

1. Where monies are concerned, what is better for humanity or less expensive is not the number 1 priority.

2. Where the product/'s are concerned, competition isn't as easy as marketing a new toaster design and letting the buying public decide it's fate.  Our entire society is built around, on and structured to function using coal, oil and nuclear.  It is not only an industry, it has been set up to be our lives blood...literally. 

It's not that we can't start transitioning or slowly integrating towards greener, newer/different forms for our energy concerns...we could.  BUT, in a "free market" driven society, you'll find no philanthropy or future think...THIS is about the bottom line and the bottom line doesn't recognize true efforts that would move towards "really" alleviating the economic burdens of your average citizen nor wanting to...I mean...why would they?  They'd be cutting their own throats. 

The Untied States will be the LAST developed country to embrace alternatives and it won't be a matter of being late to the game...it will only truly and seriously happen when we're left with no other choice.

sad,but true..

[Howey]

Lots of business evolve their product to evolve with the world. If you don't you go buh bye, Polaroid!

[lil mike]

You must have not read the articles, I am not suprised. Thorium has a higher yield than Uranium which means it is more efficient. Thorium is easier to cool down, it is all about the science,yo.  Here is the thing that bugs most elected officials about Thorium;  it is readily avalaible everywhere, which means the oil companies/Uranium companies will never let it happen.

I realize thats a common idea.  Similar to the carburetor that gets a car 300 miles a gallon.  "They" won't let it be sold.

There are so few ongoing nuke plant projects  in this country I doubt there would need to be any conspiracy to stop thorium.  But I can't see anyone trying to stop it.  Why would GE or a company that makes nuclear technology want to stop thorium?  Why would their potential customers, like Duke Power or Progress Energy, won't to stop it?  Why would the companies who mine uranium not also want to mine thorium?  Oil companies?  I don't think oil companies think they are in competition with nuclear power.  At least in this country, we don't have a lot of power plants that run off of oil.  Maybe 17%?  And I bet those are mostly backups.

[uselesslegs]

I realize thats a common idea.  Similar to the carburetor that gets a car 300 miles a gallon.  "They" won't let it be sold.

There are so few ongoing nuke plant projects  in this country I doubt there would need to be any conspiracy to stop thorium.  But I can't see anyone trying to stop it.  Why would GE or a company that makes nuclear technology want to stop thorium?  Why would their potential customers, like Duke Power or Progress Energy, won't to stop it?  Why would the companies who mine uranium not also want to mine thorium?  Oil companies?  I don't think oil companies think they are in competition with nuclear power.  At least in this country, we don't have a lot of power plants that run off of oil.  Maybe 17%?  And I bet those are mostly backups.

My personal take, and I'm being completely cynical, is that the entities you mentioned above won't make any kind of move towards thorium UNTIL they can figure out a way to justify maintaining current profit levels...even though they'll be able to do it for cheaper.

[Howey]

My personal take, and I'm being completely cynical, is that the entities you mentioned above won't make any kind of move towards thorium UNTIL they can figure out a way to justify maintaining current profit levels...even though they'll be able to do it for cheaper.

I believe there's a fine line between cynicism and reality...

In an interesting piece on Thorium, The New Republic, one of Mike's favorite sites, recently continued the trend of damning praise, along with a little history:

Okay, so it's cheap and plentiful, coughs up less waste (and what waste does remain is far less nasty), and it's hard to make a weapon out of the byproducts. But if thorium reactors are so swell, uh, why don't we have any? Martin argues that it's partly an accident of history. In 1965, Weinberg built a working prototype molten-salt reactor, but the U.S. government preferred uranium reactors because it wanted the leftover plutonium to make bombs. And after Weinberg was ousted from Oak Ridge in 1973, thorium research withered away.

The rest gets blamed on path dependency. Nowadays, U.S. power companies seem to feel more at ease with the light-water reactors they've been running for decades. Even if thorium reactors could prove 50 percent more efficient than their uranium counterparts, utilities aren't keen on plunking down big bucks to build (and learn how to operate) a radically new reactor design. They're having a hard enough time getting old-fashioned reactors off the ground as is.

[lil mike]

I believe there's a fine line between cynicism and reality...

In an interesting piece on Thorium, The New Republic, one of Mike's favorite sites, recently continued the trend of damning praise, along with a little history:

Not my favorite, but I used to read New Republic all the time.  Pre-Internet, it was the main intellectual liberal opinion magazine.  Still a good read.  They don't treat the reader like he's an idiot.  That's always refreshing.