Thorium for Dummies

The Problem.
IPCC has given birth to their newest recommendation concerning renewable energy - by some falsely called green energy. The key point here is, that until the full implementation of windmills, solar panels, tidal hydro-electric plants and other waste of money schemes has been achieved, not to forget lost time and destroyed landscapes, they “accept” that the use of nuclear energy (Uranium) as a stop-gap may be necessary.
Thank you, UN and IPCC.
They will in due time, of course, discover, that wind, water and sun never was supposed to be a feasible way to cover our energy needs 100% - but only after a massively wasted investment, destroyed landscapes, energy black-outs and lost opportunities have brought the economies of the West to its knees.
A lesson for the Lib Dems (Ed Davey), the Green parties all over Europe and generally all the hippie-politicians and idiots, who ignore the facts of science and who are unable to think beyond the capacity of a 1920’s farmer.

So let’s have a look at the alternative:

Thorium - background.
Thorium has been known since 1828, discovered by the Norwegian Esmark and further investigated by the Swede Berzelius, who named it after the Norse god of thunder, Thor.
It has caught our attention because of its radioactive characteristics, because it is available in abundance and because it is useful to the industry for a number of purposes (e.g. lenses) – but that’s irrelevant in this context.
However, as it cannot be used directly to make atomic weapons it has lingered in the periphery of our interest!
How human.
But some physicists have already since the 1940s understood, that it might be useful as fuel in a nuclear reactor.

Until we can replicate the Sun’s fusion process, nuclear reactors are based on fission of Uranium isotopes.
So far reducing (“enriching”) Uranium 238 to make Uranium 235 has been the normal approach. That’s what the Iranians have been busy doing. This has been attractive for decades, as Plutonium, one of the by-products, is useful for humans to create very large firecrackers!

However, one of the Thorium isotopes, Thorium-232, can be used to make Uranium-233, which is the proposed fission material in a Thorium reactor.

Some benefits of Thorium
The benefits of Thorium are quite substantial.
- There’s a lot of it. World-wide.
- The USA has enough Thorium to power the country for more than 1000 years and the assumed world wide deposits can keep civilisation running for many thousands of years – until ants and dolphins are ready to take over.
- Very little Plutonium is produced in a Thorium reactor.
- The nuclear waste is 100s or perhaps 1000 of times less, than what you will have from a Uranium reactor.
- Residual radioactivity becomes safe after just a couple of hundred years, i.e. storage problems solved.
- Once started, only more Thorium needs to be added, as it creates its own fuel.
- 1 ton of Thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tonnes Uranium or 3.5mill tonnes of coal at very little CO2 slip (basically during related processes such as mining)
- A Thorium reactor cannot go into melt-down.
This means clean, safe energy forever and no CO2 slip.
So what are we waiting for?

Some Disadvantages
- Reprocessing of Thorium to make it suitable for use in a reactor is difficult. The process is not yet firmly controlled
- The feasibility study and assessed implementation process is extremely expensive without certainty of success.
- Fuel production is likely to be very costly in the beginning
- It is possible to make Uranium-232 when preparing Thorium for fuel. U-232 is very radioactive (gamma rays) and further processing is required to make the desired U-233
In other words, the economics play a big role.

Status
China seems to be ahead of everyone else, going it almost alone and even trying to gain property rights on the Thorium technology. In March 2014 they declared, that the original project plan to have a fully operational Thorium reactor up and running in 25 years would be shortened to 10 years. USA is “quietly co-operating with China.

At least 32 countries, e.g. India, are “looking” into the Thorium option and ostensibly the first “Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors” (LFTR – or MSR, Molten Salt Reactor) are now being built.

Typically for the UK, there’s too much chat going on. Research into Thorium is being characterised as “a useful fall back option”, although some proponents call it the “forgotten fuel”.
Get off your hands, UK!

It appears that within the next few years we will have a very good idea about, whether Thorium is the way ahead.
Once established the price per KWh will be a fraction of the cost of wind-energy (10% if considering the life span of the generator?) and an un-dangerous Thorium reactor will take up less than 400 Acres of land compared with the space required by wind mills for the same energy output: 250,000 Acres.

It seems to me that the £50mill invested in HS2 (High-Speed train connection between London and the Midlands) could be better used – with a much higher return.