I've been involved in a long debate about solar power (particularly
concentrating solar power/solar thermal energy) versus nuclear power,
mainly with the pro-nuclear socialist David Walters, on
alt.politics.socialism.trotsky in the thread "Guardian: Solar power
from Sahara could provide Europe's electricity, says EU".

Others, including David, thought that crossposting on these issues may
be OK, so I'm also sending this to a few other newsgroups. I'm also
posting my messages on this subject to my Revolutionary Platform
Network Forum (including to the Global Warming board there at
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=107);
please state if you object to me posting replies to your comments
there.

On 9 Aug, 19:47, nada  wrote:
> A really good thorium site is energyfromthorium.com.
>
> We're all really "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor" advocates.

You could have said so earlier in the debate! Actually, it was useful
that you didn't, since it enabled me to point out some of the dangers
of nuclear power that may not be problems with thorium.

> Here is a good power point presentation:http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/GreenEnergyForum_20080725.ppt

I'm not able to access that website from the computer I'm currently
using (due to software that filters out some "social networking and
personal websites"). I'll try to check it out later.

> A few salient facts:
>
> #Because LFTRs run at ONE atmosphere, the huge containment dome and
> vessels inside it are unnecessary. Standard manufacturing designs
> reduce prices tremendously because of this. (standard PWRs run at 400
> PSI).
>
> #Only one ton of unenriched thorium can power a 1,000 MW LFTR for 1
> full year. To put this in perspective: it would take about 4 guys with
> shovels about 3 hours to dig enough thorium rich ore in Idaho (US's
> largest thorium deposit), that is, 4 people between morning coffee and
> lunch time to do this! The US already has 3500 tons of thorium oxide
> buried in a shallow pit in Nevada ready to go. That's enough thorium
> fuel to run 100 1,000 MW reactors for 30 years!
>
> #After 1 year or running your LFTR straight, you get about .9 tons of
> waste (compared to 30 tons from a light water reactor). After 300
> years it can be totally recycled. Why?
>
> #there is basically 100% burn up of the fuel..it gets converted to
> 100% U233. All the anticids, transuranics get burned up and the left
> over fission products, etc, can be denatured out of the liquid fuel by
> simply chemical means since the fuel is in this liquid state, it is
> done on site, and in line, with the reactor. By using chloride instead
> instead of fluoride salts, we can even burn up the waste from the
> store of light water reactor high level spent fuel.
>
> #Since this is a high temperature reactor, it means that we can use a
> brayton cycle gas turbine with 50% efficiency to turn the generator.
> Since they are 50% and not 30% efficient in converting the thermal
> energy, it can be built smaller, and thus cheaper, than the standard
> rankine style steam turbine.
>
> #Because they are high temperature we can do all sorts of nice things
> with the heat, including central station heating of cities in cold
> climates to running refineries, etc. But the real goodness of the
> LFTR's heat is that it can be produced so cheaply we can very cheaply
> desalinate salt water...and do it from the waste heat of the turbine
> (which doesn't even need lots of water to cool it because it's a
> brayton cycle turbine) AND from the output of the reactor. It also
> will be the single cheapest way to crack water into hydrogen if ever
> an infrastructure and storage system of H2 can be built.
>
> David

This sounds like too good to be true, but if it isn't it is certainly
something that I could support. If companies/nation states are
determined to go down a nuclear path, then it would probably be
prederable to try out this technology rather than standard nuclear
fission reactors.

I checked out Wikpedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor which redirects to "Molten salt
reactor"); it makes a lot of positive points about this form of
nuclear energy, including needing to take power plants out of
operation to build bombs which could be crucial if countries like Iran
were to develop nuclear power, but there are some problems as also
stated below; all the points below are those made by the author(s) of
that Wikpedia page rather than being my opinions.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Economical and social advantages

Combining the above, some form of molten-salt thorium breeder could be
the most efficient well-developed energy source known, whether
measured by cost per kW, capital cost or social costs.

* Thorium's fuel cycle resists proliferation in two ways:
  * It is verifiable because the epithermal thorium breeder produces
only at most 9% more fuel than it burns in each year. Building bombs
quickly will take power plants out of operation.
  * Also, an easy variation of the thorium fuel cycle would
contaminate the Th232 breeding material with chemically inseparable
Th230. The Th230 breeds into U232, which has a powerful gamma-ray
emitter in its decay chain (Thallium-208) that makes the reactor fuel
U233/U232 impractical in a bomb, because it harms electronics.
* Thorium is more abundant than uranium. The Earth's crust has about
three times as much.
* Thorium is cheap. Currently, it costs US$ 30/kg. In the 2000s, the
price of uranium has risen above $100/kg, not including the cost of
enrichment, and fuel element fabrication.


Design challenges

Molten salt reactors, nevertheless, present a number of design
challenges. Known issues include:

* Uncooled graphite moderators can cause some geometries of this
reactor to increase in reactivity with higher temperatures (positive
void coefficient), making such designs unsafe. Careful design may fix
this, however.

* High neutron fluxes and temperatures in a compact MSR core can
rapidly change the shape of a graphite moderator element, to require
refurbishing in as little as four years. Eliminating graphite from
sealed piping was a major incentive to switch to a single-fluid design.
[3] Most MSR designs do not use graphite as a structural material, and
arrange for it to be easy to replace. At least one design used
graphite balls floating in salt, which could be removed and inspected
continuously without shutting down the reactor.[4]

* The high neutron density in the core rapidly transmutes lithium-6 to
tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. In an MSR, the tritium
forms hydrogen fluoride (HF). Tritium fluoride is a corrosive,
chemically poisonous, radiotoxic gas. All MSR designs used very
expensive isotopically purified lithium-7 for their carrier salts in
order to reduce tritium formation as far as possible. The MSRE proved
that this worked.

* Some slow corrosion occurs even in the exotic nickel alloy,
Hastelloy-N used for the reactor. The corrosion is more extreme if the
reactor is exposed to hydrogen which forms corrosive HF gas. Mere
exposure to water-vapor causes uptake of corrosive amounts of
hydrogen, so practical MSRs operate the salt under a blanket of dry
inert gas, usually helium.

* When cold, the fuel salts radiogenically produce poisonous fluorine
gas. The salts should be defueled and wastes removed before extended
shutdowns. Unfortunately, this was discovered the unpleasant way,
while the MSRE was shut-down over a 20-year period.

* The salt mixture is toxic. The reactor design must therefore isolate
the salt from the biome. This is a normal reactor safety requirement
anyway.

An MSR based on chloride salts has many of the same advantages.
However, the heavier nuclei of chlorine are less moderating, which
causes the reactor to be a fast reactor. Theoretically, it wastes even
fewer neutrons and breeds more efficiently, though it may be less
safe. It would require a salt with an isotopically-pure chlorine-37,
to prevent neutronic activation of the chlorine into sulfur which
would form corrosive sulfur chloride.


Fuel cycle concerns

* There is no need for fuel fabrication. This greatly reduces the
MSR's fuel expenses. It poses a business challenge, because reactor
manufacturers customarily get their long-term profits from fuel
fabrication. A government agency could, however, type-license a
design, which utilities could replicate. Since it uses unfabricated
fuel, basically just a mixture of chemicals, current reactor vendors
don't want to develop it. They derive their long-term profits from
sales of fabricated fuel assemblies.

* A safe thorium breeder reactor using slow thermal-energy neutrons
also has a low breeding rate. Each year it can only breed thorium into
about 109% of the U233 fuel it consumes. This means that obtaining
enough U233 for a new reactor can take eight years or more, which
would slow deployment of this type of reactor. Most practical, fast
deployment plans would start the new thorium reactors with plutonium
from existing light-water reactor wastes or decommissioned nuclear
weapons. This scheme also decreases society's stock of high-level
wastes.


Political issues

* To exploit the molten salt reactor's breeding potential to the
fullest, the reactor must be co-located with a reprocessing facility.
Any kind of nuclear reprocessing is still illegal in many countries.
Some people fear that operating an MSR could pave the way to the
plutonium economy with its associated proliferation dangers. (A
similar argument lead to the shutdown of the Integral Fast Reactor
project in 1994.)

* In the U.S., no new reactors were licensed from 1977 to 2008. In
this period, nuclear vendors survived by selling fuel assemblies and
providing services for the reactor operators.[verification needed] The
fuel fabrication and servicing business is competitive, and only a few
vendors have survived. The business model for molten-salt fueled
reactors would not involve fabricating fuel assemblies, and therefore
seems risky to many nuclear vendors. Utilities would need to have
confidence in the viability of molten salt reactors. This would
involve building demonstration plants with good operating experience.
[verification needed]


--
Steve Wallis (Glasgow, Scotland)
For important/urgent communications, please email:
warcrysteve@yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Good Intentions Network: http://www.goodintentionsnetwork.org
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89

While it has indirect impact on the issues, this
post probably does not belong in alt.global-warming.
I'm not aware of anyone on this newsgroup with
experience in the details of nuclear power reactor
design and operation.  On this newsgroup, we are
having a good day when someone shows enough
mathematical skills to correctly analyze a trend
in a series of numbers. :-(


On Aug 10, 6:38 am, Steve Wallis
 wrote:
> I've been involved in a long debate about solar power (particularly
> concentrating solar power/solar thermal energy) versus nuclear power,
> mainly with the pro-nuclear socialist David Walters, on
> alt.politics.socialism.trotsky in the thread "Guardian: Solar power
> from Sahara could provide Europe's electricity, says EU".
>
> Others, including David, thought that crossposting on these issues may
> be OK, so I'm also sending this to a few other newsgroups. I'm also
> posting my messages on this subject to my Revolutionary Platform
> Network Forum (including to the Global Warming board there athttp://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=107);
> please state if you object to me posting replies to your comments
> there.
>
> On 9 Aug, 19:47, nada  wrote:
>
> > A really good thorium site is energyfromthorium.com.
>
> > We're all really "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor" advocates.
>
> You could have said so earlier in the debate! Actually, it was useful
> that you didn't, since it enabled me to point out some of the dangers
> of nuclear power that may not be problems with thorium.
>
> > Here is a good power point presentation:http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/GreenEnergyForum_20080725.ppt
>
> I'm not able to access that website from the computer I'm currently
> using (due to software that filters out some "social networking and
> personal websites"). I'll try to check it out later.
>
>
>
> > A few salient facts:
>
> > #Because LFTRs run at ONE atmosphere, the huge containment dome and
> > vessels inside it are unnecessary. Standard manufacturing designs
> > reduce prices tremendously because of this. (standard PWRs run at 400
> > PSI).
>
> > #Only one ton of unenriched thorium can power a 1,000 MW LFTR for 1
> > full year. To put this in perspective: it would take about 4 guys with
> > shovels about 3 hours to dig enough thorium rich ore in Idaho (US's
> > largest thorium deposit), that is, 4 people between morning coffee and
> > lunch time to do this! The US already has 3500 tons of thorium oxide
> > buried in a shallow pit in Nevada ready to go. That's enough thorium
> > fuel to run 100 1,000 MW reactors for 30 years!
>
> > #After 1 year or running your LFTR straight, you get about .9 tons of
> > waste (compared to 30 tons from a light water reactor). After 300
> > years it can be totally recycled. Why?
>
> > #there is basically 100% burn up of the fuel..it gets converted to
> > 100% U233. All the anticids, transuranics get burned up and the left
> > over fission products, etc, can be denatured out of the liquid fuel by
> > simply chemical means since the fuel is in this liquid state, it is
> > done on site, and in line, with the reactor. By using chloride instead
> > instead of fluoride salts, we can even burn up the waste from the
> > store of light water reactor high level spent fuel.
>
> > #Since this is a high temperature reactor, it means that we can use a
> > brayton cycle gas turbine with 50% efficiency to turn the generator.
> > Since they are 50% and not 30% efficient in converting the thermal
> > energy, it can be built smaller, and thus cheaper, than the standard
> > rankine style steam turbine.
>
> > #Because they are high temperature we can do all sorts of nice things
> > with the heat, including central station heating of cities in cold
> > climates to running refineries, etc. But the real goodness of the
> > LFTR's heat is that it can be produced so cheaply we can very cheaply
> > desalinate salt water...and do it from the waste heat of the turbine
> > (which doesn't even need lots of water to cool it because it's a
> > brayton cycle turbine) AND from the output of the reactor. It also
> > will be the single cheapest way to crack water into hydrogen if ever
> > an infrastructure and storage system of H2 can be built.
>
> > David
>
> This sounds like too good to be true, but if it isn't it is certainly
> something that I could support. If companies/nation states are
> determined to go down a nuclear path, then it would probably be
> prederable to try out this technology rather than standard nuclear
> fission reactors.
>
> I checked out Wikpedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor which redirects to "Molten salt
> reactor"); it makes a lot of positive points about this form of
> nuclear energy, including needing to take power plants out of
> operation to build bombs which could be crucial if countries like Iran
> were to develop nuclear power, but there are some problems as also
> stated below; all the points below are those made by the author(s) of
> that Wikpedia page rather than being my opinions.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------> Economical and social advantages
>
> Combining the above, some form of molten-salt thorium breeder could be
> the most efficient well-developed energy source known, whether
> measured by cost per kW, capital cost or social costs.
>
> * Thorium's fuel cycle resists proliferation in two ways:
>   * It is verifiable because the epithermal thorium breeder produces
> only at most 9% more fuel than it burns in each year. Building bombs
> quickly will take power plants out of operation.
>   * Also, an easy variation of the thorium fuel cycle would
> contaminate the Th232 breeding material with chemically inseparable
> Th230. The Th230 breeds into U232, which has a powerful gamma-ray
> emitter in its decay chain (Thallium-208) that makes the reactor fuel
> U233/U232 impractical in a bomb, because it harms electronics.
> * Thorium is more abundant than uranium. The Earth's crust has about
> three times as much.
> * Thorium is cheap. Currently, it costs US$ 30/kg. In the 2000s, the
> price of uranium has risen above $100/kg, not including the cost of
> enrichment, and fuel element fabrication.
>
> Design challenges
>
> Molten salt reactors, nevertheless, present a number of design
> challenges. Known issues include:
>
> * Uncooled graphite moderators can cause some geometries of this
> reactor to increase in reactivity with higher temperatures (positive
> void coefficient), making such designs unsafe. Careful design may fix
> this, however.
>
> * High neutron fluxes and temperatures in a compact MSR core can
> rapidly change the shape of a graphite moderator element, to require
> refurbishing in as little as four years. Eliminating graphite from
> sealed piping was a major incentive to switch to a single-fluid design.
> [3] Most MSR designs do not use graphite as a structural material, and
> arrange for it to be easy to replace. At least one design used
> graphite balls floating in salt, which could be removed and inspected
> continuously without shutting down the reactor.[4]
>
> * The high neutron density in the core rapidly transmutes lithium-6 to
> tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. In an MSR, the tritium
> forms hydrogen fluoride (HF). Tritium fluoride is a corrosive,
> chemically poisonous, radiotoxic gas. All MSR designs used very
> expensive isotopically purified lithium-7 for their carrier salts in
> order to reduce tritium formation as far as possible. The MSRE proved
> that this worked.
>
> * Some slow corrosion occurs even in the exotic nickel alloy,
> Hastelloy-N used for the reactor. The corrosion is more extreme if the
> reactor is exposed to hydrogen which forms corrosive HF gas. Mere
> exposure to water-vapor causes uptake of corrosive amounts of
> hydrogen, so practical MSRs operate the salt under a blanket of dry
> inert gas, usually helium.
>
> * When cold, the fuel salts radiogenically produce poisonous fluorine
> gas. The salts should be defueled and wastes removed before extended
> shutdowns. Unfortunately, this was discovered the unpleasant way,
> while the MSRE was shut-down over a 20-year period.
>
> * The salt mixture is toxic. The reactor design must therefore isolate
> the salt from the biome. This is a normal reactor safety requirement
> anyway.
>
> An MSR based on chloride salts has many of the same advantages.
> However, the heavier nuclei of chlorine are less moderating, which
> causes the reactor to be a fast reactor. Theoretically, it wastes even
> fewer neutrons and breeds more efficiently, though it may be less
> safe. It would require a salt with an isotopically-pure chlorine-37,
> to prevent neutronic activation of the chlorine into sulfur which
> would form corrosive sulfur chloride.
>
> Fuel cycle concerns
>
> * There is no need for fuel fabrication. This greatly reduces the
> MSR's fuel expenses. It poses a business challenge, because reactor
> manufacturers customarily get their long-term profits from fuel
> fabrication. A government agency could, however, type-license a
> design, which utilities could replicate. Since it uses unfabricated
> fuel, basically just a mixture of chemicals, current reactor vendors
> don't want to develop it. They derive their long-term profits from
> sales of fabricated fuel assemblies.
>
> * A safe thorium breeder reactor using slow thermal-energy neutrons
> also has a low breeding rate. Each year it can only breed thorium into
> about 109% of the U233 fuel it consumes. This means that obtaining
> enough U233 for a new reactor can take eight years or more, which
> would slow deployment of this type of reactor. Most practical, fast
> deployment plans would start the new thorium reactors with plutonium
> from existing light-water reactor wastes or decommissioned nuclear
> weapons. This scheme also decreases society's stock of high-level
> wastes.
>
> Political issues
>
> * To exploit the molten salt reactor's breeding potential to the
> fullest, the reactor must be co-located with a reprocessing facility.
> Any kind of nuclear reprocessing is still illegal in many countries.
> Some people fear that operating an MSR could pave the way to the
> plutonium economy with its associated proliferation dangers. (A
> similar argument lead to the shutdown of the Integral Fast Reactor
> project in 1994.)
>
> * In the U.S., no new reactors were licensed from 1977 to 2008. In
> this period, nuclear vendors survived by selling fuel assemblies and
> providing services for the reactor operators.[verification needed] The
> fuel fabrication and servicing business is competitive, and only a few
> vendors have survived. The business model for molten-salt fueled
> reactors would not involve fabricating fuel assemblies, and therefore
> seems risky to many nuclear vendors. Utilities would need to have
> confidence in the viability of molten salt reactors. This would
> involve building demonstration plants with good operating experience.
> [verification needed]
>
> --
> Steve Wallis (Glasgow, Scotland)
> For important/urgent communications, please email:
> warcryst...@yahoo.co.uk
> Blogs:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
> My socialist website:http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
> My pages at MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteveand Bebo:http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
> Founder, Good Intentions Network:http://www.goodintentionsnetwork.org
> Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network:http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
> Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism:http://www.PRsocialism.org
> Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network:http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
> My socialist band, Red Day:http://www.red-day.net
> Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
> revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
> For discussion of the credit crunch, go tohttp://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
> For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go tohttp://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89

Roger Coppock wrote:
> While it has indirect impact on the issues, this
> post probably does not belong in alt.global-warming.
> I'm not aware of anyone on this newsgroup with
> experience in the details of nuclear power reactor
> design and operation.  On this newsgroup, we are
> having a good day when someone shows enough
> mathematical skills to correctly analyze a trend
> in a series of numbers. :-(

Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?

Cheers,

Rich


[ c h o p ]

On Aug 11, 7:34 am, Rich  wrote:
> Roger Coppock wrote:
> > While it has indirect impact on the issues, this
> > post probably does not belong in alt.global-warming.
> > I'm not aware of anyone on this newsgroup with
> > experience in the details of nuclear power reactor
> > design and operation.  On this newsgroup, we are
> > having a good day when someone shows enough
> > mathematical skills to correctly analyze a trend
> > in a series of numbers. :-(
>
> Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
> stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
> mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rich
>
> [ c h o p ]

Please not the 3 NGs this thread is on. We should keep this of the
political NGs. Steve Wallis misunderstood me as to cross posting. At
any rate, go to energyfromthorium.com, there are LOTS of people with
physics and engineering degrees there. I work in power production
myself. *Serious* questions should be taken...seriously.

dAvid

"Rich"  wrote
> Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
> stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
> mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?

  He should, as that is what is observed.

On Aug 12, 3:54 pm, "V for Vendicar"
 wrote:
> "Rich"  wrote
>
> > Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
> > stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
> > mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> > if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
>
>   He should, as that is what is observed.

Meanwhile:

energyfromthorium.com.

A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.

David

On Aug 11, 7:34 am, Rich  wrote:
> mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?

He does; mainstream science does,
because the data quite clearly do too.

Please see:

http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/CO2-6DegreesFreedom.jpg

Roger Coppock  wrote:

> On Aug 11, 7:34 am, Rich  wrote:
> > mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> > if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
> 
> He does; mainstream science does,
> because the data quite clearly do too.
> 
> Please see:
> 
> http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/CO2-6DegreesFreedom.jpg

*yawn*

"nada"  wrote
> A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.

  Are youi planning on constructing 200,000 thorium powered reactors?

  Can you tell us how long their construction will take, and how much it 
will cost?

>> http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/CO2-6DegreesFreedom.jpg


"Peter Muehlbauer"  wrote
> *yawn*

 Ignorance is bliss.

Roger Coppock wrote:
> On Aug 11, 7:34 am, Rich  wrote:
>> mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
>> if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
> 
> He does; mainstream science does,

Got a cite for that?

Cheers,

Rich


> because the data quite clearly do too.
> 
> Please see:
> 
> http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/CO2-6DegreesFreedom.jpg

On Aug 14, 6:10 am, "V for Vendicar"
 wrote:
> "nada"  wrote
>
> > A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.
>
>   Are youi planning on constructing 200,000 thorium powered reactors?
>
>   Can you tell us how long their construction will take, and how much it
> will cost?

It wouldn't take 200,000. It would take 6,000. The US built 50
reactors in 10 years and another 50 in 9 years. The French built 56
reactors in about 10 years time also.

Since LFTRs are smaller, don't need the massive containment domes
(they run at one atmosphere and are not pressurized) and  components
could be stamped out on assembly lines; and they use smaller Brayton
cycle turbines then it could be one rather quickly, certainly within a
25 years span.

The issue is not technological, it's political. There are vested
"uranium interests" out there that don't want to see thorium...4 times
more abundant and only needs the surrounding ore removed to run (we
estimate that a 1GW LFTR would be less than half the cost of a PWR)
that in 20 years probably all uranium mining, milling, enrichment,
fabrication would come to an end.

David
energyfromthorium.com

"nada" 
> It wouldn't take 200,000. It would take 6,000. The US built 50
> reactors in 10 years and another 50 in 9 years. The French built 56
> reactors in about 10 years time also.

6,000 reactors would generate only about 6 terra watts of power. or 50,000 
terra watts hours of energy per year.considering down time.

Current world energy consumption is already 3 times that, and that figure 
presumes that the unindustrialized nations will remain unindustrialized.

But we know that they are targeting U.S. levels of energy consumption and 
global population is set to rise to at least 9 billion.

Roughly the U.S. consumes 25% of global energy resources and comprises only 
5% of the global population. or about

A world population of 9 billion people consuming at U.S. rates of enegy 
consumption will then require the construction of 102,000 (1 GigaWatt) 
reactors world wide.  Energy convesion losses and reactor downtime, raise 
that number to around 200,0000 rectors globally.






>
> Since LFTRs are smaller, don't need the massive containment domes
> (they run at one atmosphere and are not pressurized) and  components
> could be stamped out on assembly lines; and they use smaller Brayton
> cycle turbines then it could be one rather quickly, certainly within a
> 25 years span.
>
> The issue is not technological, it's political. There are vested
> "uranium interests" out there that don't want to see thorium...4 times
> more abundant and only needs the surrounding ore removed to run (we
> estimate that a 1GW LFTR would be less than half the cost of a PWR)
> that in 20 years probably all uranium mining, milling, enrichment,
> fabrication would come to an end.
>
> David
> energyfromthorium.com
>

V for Vendicar wrote:
> "nada" 
>> It wouldn't take 200,000. It would take 6,000. The US built 50
>> reactors in 10 years and another 50 in 9 years. The French built 56
>> reactors in about 10 years time also.
> 
> 6,000 reactors would generate only about 6 terra watts of power. or 50,000 
> terra watts hours of energy per year.considering down time.
> 
> Current world energy consumption is already 3 times that, and that figure 
> presumes that the unindustrialized nations will remain unindustrialized.

Sounds like we are nearing the tipping point, where the world standard 
of living begins to go in reverse.

nada wrote:
> On Aug 14, 6:10 am, "V for Vendicar"
>  wrote:
>> "nada"  wrote
>>
>>> A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.
>>   Are youi planning on constructing 200,000 thorium powered reactors?
>>
>>   Can you tell us how long their construction will take, and how much it
>> will cost?
> 
> It wouldn't take 200,000. It would take 6,000. The US built 50
> reactors in 10 years and another 50 in 9 years. The French built 56
> reactors in about 10 years time also.
> 
> Since LFTRs are smaller, don't need the massive containment domes
> (they run at one atmosphere and are not pressurized) 

But don't they need some containment for neutrons? And don't they
make metals brittle over time?

That is, if we are talking about fission then the shielding requirements
can't be any different, nor the effects of fission on materials.

Cheers,

Rich

> and  components
> could be stamped out on assembly lines; and they use smaller Brayton
> cycle turbines then it could be one rather quickly, certainly within a
> 25 years span.
> 
> The issue is not technological, it's political. There are vested
> "uranium interests" out there that don't want to see thorium...4 times
> more abundant and only needs the surrounding ore removed to run (we
> estimate that a 1GW LFTR would be less than half the cost of a PWR)
> that in 20 years probably all uranium mining, milling, enrichment,
> fabrication would come to an end.
> 
> David
> energyfromthorium.com
>

On Aug 16, 8:09 am, Rich  wrote:
> nada wrote:
> > On Aug 14, 6:10 am, "V for Vendicar"
> >  wrote:
> >> "nada"  wrote
>
> >>> A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.
> >>   Are youi planning on constructing 200,000 thorium powered reactors?
>
> >>   Can you tell us how long their construction will take, and how much it
> >> will cost?
>
> > It wouldn't take 200,000. It would take 6,000. The US built 50
> > reactors in 10 years and another 50 in 9 years. The French built 56
> > reactors in about 10 years time also.
>
> > Since LFTRs are smaller, don't need the massive containment domes
> > (they run at one atmosphere and are not pressurized)
>
> But don't they need some containment for neutrons? And don't they
> make metals brittle over time?
>
> That is, if we are talking about fission then the shielding requirements
> can't be any different, nor the effects of fission on materials.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rich


6,000 would do it for a variety of reason, because it would eliminate
all FOSSIL production of electricity and a lot of the transportation
fuel. There  would still be a huge amount of hyrdo available. The
point is that 6,000 1GW reactors would put us back to he 1920s in
terms of fossil use and significally make this a healthier world.

Secondly, don't confuse "containment" with "shielding". The
"containment dome" in all pressurize water reactors is there to
prevent neutrons from escaping *in the event of a steam explosion*
(which is what happened in Chernobyl). Since LFTRs run at only 1
atmosphere, and don't use water in any part of the cycle (it uses
helium, CO2  or nitrogen) there is no danger of such an explosion,
thus not "dome" or at least not one of the type (and expense) we have
to build now.

Shielding requirements are intrinsic to the "reactor vessel" made of
any number of various metals.

David

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), nada 
wrote:

>On Aug 12, 3:54 pm, "V for Vendicar"
> wrote:
>> "Rich"  wrote
>>
>> > Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
>> > stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
>> > mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
>> > if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
>>
>>   He should, as that is what is observed.
>
>Meanwhile:
>
>energyfromthorium.com.
>
>A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.

None have been constructed and operated in any commercial capacity. 

Requires a large core of either Pu or HEU.

And Fluorine(F) is extremely reactive/corresive which dissoves U, Th,
and Pu.   (UF6 is the intermediate compound used to seperate
isotopes). 


Thorium reactors are a non-starter.

On Aug 16, 2:54 pm, T. Keating  wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), nada 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Aug 12, 3:54 pm, "V for Vendicar"
> > wrote:
> >> "Rich"  wrote
>
> >> > Just don't ask that certain person with an open-source
> >> > stats package what said linear analysis is supposed to
> >> > mean, you'll get called all manner of names. I wonder
> >> > if he still claims an exponential rise in CO2 levels?
>
> >>   He should, as that is what is observed.
>
> >Meanwhile:
>
> >energyfromthorium.com.
>
> >A "thorium bullet" to solve the entire energy crisis.
>
> None have been constructed and operated in any commercial capacity.

While there have been no commercial applications yet of the LFTR there
have been running LFTRs in service. Of course until a few years ago,
there were no commercial solar plants either. Science and engineering
doesn't stop because no one has gone 'first'. The point is that the
engineering is both sound and proven, we need to move on this.

> Requires a large core of either Pu or HEU.

No, it doesn't. It needs a 'starter' charge and it' doesn't have to be
HEU it can be standard U235. But...it's an IDEAL way to get rid of
weapons grade plutonium...something only nuclear advocates have a plan
for: megatons into magawatts. The anti-nuclear plan is to leave the Pu
as weapons. It's not particularly 'large'. After that it produces it's
own fuel to run...indefinetly. One one ton of Th per GW year. CHEAP
and SAFE.

> And Fluorine(F) is extremely reactive/corresive which dissoves U, Th,
> and Pu.   (UF6 is the intermediate compound used to seperate
> isotopes).

It's supposed to be dissolved silly. It's has to be in a *liquid
state* or it won't work. Yes, UF6 can be used among other ways to
fluoridite the Pa out of the mix. Little waste is left...at all.

> Thorium reactors are a non-starter.

It's humanity's hope...or it's fossil which is what every solar wind
IMPLEMENTED plan has meant.

David

I might add that I think LFTR are years, maybe decades away. Again,
because of the politics. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight to
implement this technology.

Which is why I'm expanding the current LWR technology that is going on
like gang-busters around the world. Italy just overturned it's NIMBY
ban on nuclear, Germany and Sweden are contemplating their fake "phase
out" of nuclear and host of countries are building reactors now as we
sit here with dozens setting up radiation/nuclear safety departments
to implement nuclear builds.

The UAE just announced it wants to fill a large part of it's 22GW
*growth* over the next 20 years with a significant percentage in
nuclear energy. It's happening and the world will be better off for
it.

David