Thorium and molten salt rectors

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VickyCaramel
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Thorium and molten salt rectors

#1

Post by VickyCaramel »



I have approached a number of people who know their physics (including Thunderf00t) to give me an opinion on Thorium Salt Reactors, so far I have got no response. This stuff is all over the internet and so far I haven't seen a decent debunking of it.

Does anyone have an opinion on it?

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#2

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Problem is, the Cylons have all the Thorium.

Oh, wait -- that's Tylium. Never mind.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#3

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Problem is, the Cylons have all the Thorium.

Oh, wait -- that's Tylium. Never mind.

VickyCaramel
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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#4

Post by VickyCaramel »

It wasn't funny the first time. :hand:

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#5

Post by Spike13 »

VickyCaramel wrote:

I have approached a number of people who know their physics (including Thunderf00t) to give me an opinion on Thorium Salt Reactors, so far I have got no response. This stuff is all over the internet and so far I haven't seen a decent debunking of it.

Does anyone have an opinion on it?
while i do have a lot of experience with boilers, steam and power generation,( fossil fueled) Thorium salt reactors are brand new to me. Looks interesting to research ...

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#6

Post by Spike13 »

I would think that the most painless future would be finding a cheap source of mass power generation and using that to synthesize low to no pollution fuels for end users ( cars, trucks, aircraft,etc.)

electric cars are a stop gap at best, given the limited range,long recharge times and expensive battery replacement costs currently.

In my particular situation,if i'm going to spend 40k on a car, i may as well get a Charger/Challenger 392 or a Mustang Gt. With a very short commute and riding my bycycle six months a year the fuel costs aren't a real factor.

free thoughtpolice
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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#7

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Spike13 wrote:I would think that the most painless future would be finding a cheap source of mass power generation and using that to synthesize low to no pollution fuels for end users ( cars, trucks, aircraft,etc.)

electric cars are a stop gap at best, given the limited range,long recharge times and expensive battery replacement costs currently.

In my particular situation,if i'm going to spend 40k on a car, i may as well get a Charger/Challenger 392 or a Mustang Gt. With a very short commute and riding my bycycle six months a year the fuel costs aren't a real factor.
The hydrogen fuel cycle would be an answer to that. Hydrogen is extracted from water using power generated from something like fission or fusion power. The hydrogen is then burned to power your vehicle using a fuel cell or other engine and the product of combustion is pure water.
The technology is already here and has been powering buses in Vancouver now for years.
http://www.ballard.com/

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#8

Post by VickyCaramel »

free thoughtpolice wrote:
Spike13 wrote:I would think that the most painless future would be finding a cheap source of mass power generation and using that to synthesize low to no pollution fuels for end users ( cars, trucks, aircraft,etc.)

electric cars are a stop gap at best, given the limited range,long recharge times and expensive battery replacement costs currently.

In my particular situation,if i'm going to spend 40k on a car, i may as well get a Charger/Challenger 392 or a Mustang Gt. With a very short commute and riding my bycycle six months a year the fuel costs aren't a real factor.
The hydrogen fuel cycle would be an answer to that. Hydrogen is extracted from water using power generated from something like fission or fusion power. The hydrogen is then burned to power your vehicle using a fuel cell or other engine and the product of combustion is pure water.
The technology is already here and has been powering buses in Vancouver now for years.
http://www.ballard.com/
If the the whole Thorium thing seems plausible, I suggest looking into it further.

One of the amazing things about it is that it could create a massive surplus of power over what would be put through the grid. The way I understand it, there is a bug which they want to turn into a feature where is that it is harder for them to balance the output to meet demand in the way regular power stations do, so what they will do is syphon of the excess power to do other things.
They first put this into batteries which might for example take the form of pumping water uphill so it can be used later to make hydroelectric. The excess power can be used to make hydrogen, ethanol and even take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Aside from fuels they can even use the power to desalinate water and pump it to the desert.

Some of these processes will be inefficient but it doesn't really matter because this source of power could be incredibly cheap and plentiful. This is about as close to free unlimited clean energy as it get. It sounds too good to be true which is why I am struggling to believe it.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#9

Post by free thoughtpolice »

http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ca ... 41191.html

According to this article this facility should have been up and running 3 years ago. It may be they will be competition for uranium based fission reactors but it seems they wouldn't be a super cheap solution. If there is a hope for cheap and limitless supply it seems it would be a fusion plant but the system probably could never be virtually free.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#10

Post by free thoughtpolice »

http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ca ... 41191.html

According to this article this facility should have been up and running 3 years ago. It may be they will be competition for uranium based fission reactors but it seems they wouldn't be a super cheap solution. If there is a hope for cheap and limitless supply it seems it would be a fusion plant but the system probably could never be virtually free.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#11

Post by VickyCaramel »

free thoughtpolice wrote:http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ca ... 41191.html

According to this article this facility should have been up and running 3 years ago. It may be they will be competition for uranium based fission reactors but it seems they wouldn't be a super cheap solution. If there is a hope for cheap and limitless supply it seems it would be a fusion plant but the system probably could never be virtually free.
Those are still pressurized heavy water reactors which will use patten fuel rods. The thing that would make thorium cheap is by making it safe using it as a liquid fuel in a pressurized molten salt reactor. Because there is no chance of steam or steam explosions and because it can fail safe without power into a dump tank, and there is zero chance of meltdown... you could put a reactor on the back of a truck.

The way things are now, nuclear power plants are massively expensive to make, have to be in certain locations (next to water), take a long time to build and take huge amounts of investment. From there it is almost the razor-and-blade business model, your reactor will only take the fuel rods made by the manufacturer and they can charge what they like. You can't shop around to get a better price. And then there is the cost of disposal of the waste and the associated security to cover the whole shebang.

With liquid Thorium, the fact that the fuel is all used up is part of the safety feature, it is like adding petrol to an engine, if you take your foot off the gas it slows down. But you also avoid the nuclear waste. What you are left with is valuable byproducts which can't be used for nuclear weapons.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#12

Post by free thoughtpolice »

How expensive or difficult is it to produce liquid thorium from the dirt? It may be current refining techniques doesn't allow it to be competitive.
Still sounds like it is a good idea.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#13

Post by VickyCaramel »

free thoughtpolice wrote:How expensive or difficult is it to produce liquid thorium from the dirt? It may be current refining techniques doesn't allow it to be competitive.
Still sounds like it is a good idea.
I assume it would be pretty expensive right now. But I also assume that anyone could get into the market of making the stuff once the is a demand for it.

As far as I know, it is just a metal so it shouldn't be too hard to refine. It is exposed to something like Uranium to charge it, and then mixed with a bunch of different florides. Apparently, we already have enough nuclear waste stored away to charge this stuff up forever.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#14

Post by screwtape »

VickyCaramel wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ca ... 41191.html

According to this article this facility should have been up and running 3 years ago. It may be they will be competition for uranium based fission reactors but it seems they wouldn't be a super cheap solution. If there is a hope for cheap and limitless supply it seems it would be a fusion plant but the system probably could never be virtually free.
Those are still pressurized heavy water reactors which will use patten fuel rods. The thing that would make thorium cheap is by making it safe using it as a liquid fuel in a pressurized molten salt reactor. Because there is no chance of steam or steam explosions and because it can fail safe without power into a dump tank, and there is zero chance of meltdown... you could put a reactor on the back of a truck.

The way things are now, nuclear power plants are massively expensive to make, have to be in certain locations (next to water), take a long time to build and take huge amounts of investment. From there it is almost the razor-and-blade business model, your reactor will only take the fuel rods made by the manufacturer and they can charge what they like. You can't shop around to get a better price. And then there is the cost of disposal of the waste and the associated security to cover the whole shebang.

With liquid Thorium, the fact that the fuel is all used up is part of the safety feature, it is like adding petrol to an engine, if you take your foot off the gas it slows down. But you also avoid the nuclear waste. What you are left with is valuable byproducts which can't be used for nuclear weapons.
Which might be the reason, some suggest, that Alvin Weinberg was fired from ORNL - he wouldn't shut up about molten salt reactors when there were vested interests that wanted the plutonium from LWRs so it could be used to make the nuclear stockpile even bigger. A LFTR produces 15kg of plutonium per GW-year, rather than the 300kg from a LWR.

The semi-cheerful news here is that China has decided it is going to do it, and if it can be done they will succeed. Perhaps a shame that the technology will then only be available on license from them, but they can at least proceed without complaint from Green Parties. The latest I can find about their progress is a test reactor running on solid fuel should be operating in 2024, and a liquid fuel version is planned for 2035.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#15

Post by VickyCaramel »

screwtape wrote:
VickyCaramel wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/ca ... 41191.html

According to this article this facility should have been up and running 3 years ago. It may be they will be competition for uranium based fission reactors but it seems they wouldn't be a super cheap solution. If there is a hope for cheap and limitless supply it seems it would be a fusion plant but the system probably could never be virtually free.
Those are still pressurized heavy water reactors which will use patten fuel rods. The thing that would make thorium cheap is by making it safe using it as a liquid fuel in a pressurized molten salt reactor. Because there is no chance of steam or steam explosions and because it can fail safe without power into a dump tank, and there is zero chance of meltdown... you could put a reactor on the back of a truck.

The way things are now, nuclear power plants are massively expensive to make, have to be in certain locations (next to water), take a long time to build and take huge amounts of investment. From there it is almost the razor-and-blade business model, your reactor will only take the fuel rods made by the manufacturer and they can charge what they like. You can't shop around to get a better price. And then there is the cost of disposal of the waste and the associated security to cover the whole shebang.

With liquid Thorium, the fact that the fuel is all used up is part of the safety feature, it is like adding petrol to an engine, if you take your foot off the gas it slows down. But you also avoid the nuclear waste. What you are left with is valuable byproducts which can't be used for nuclear weapons.
Which might be the reason, some suggest, that Alvin Weinberg was fired from ORNL - he wouldn't shut up about molten salt reactors when there were vested interests that wanted the plutonium from LWRs so it could be used to make the nuclear stockpile even bigger. A LFTR produces 15kg of plutonium per GW-year, rather than the 300kg from a LWR.

The semi-cheerful news here is that China has decided it is going to do it, and if it can be done they will succeed. Perhaps a shame that the technology will then only be available on license from them, but they can at least proceed without complaint from Green Parties. The latest I can find about their progress is a test reactor running on solid fuel should be operating in 2024, and a liquid fuel version is planned for 2035.
A dozen companies have sprung up. I know the Indians are developing something, I even heard of an Anglo-Norwegian venture. I suspect they will all carry out research on different parts of the process and grab their own patents. I can see that once people think this is a sure bet, things will start to move quickly.

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#16

Post by John D »

Louis C K:
These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.... LCK - Nov 10, 2017
He said pre-dick-ament. He is way funnier than I thought!

He wielded his power! Yes... yes he did. :dance:

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Re: Thorium and molten salt rectors

#17

Post by John D »

I don't know why I post the CK thing here... well... yes I do... cause I am an idiot.

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