Thorium power, how is it going in the US?

[myrkul]

I realize that such a reactor would have less impact that lets say a spent fuel rod, you don't see those in the hands of people with complete disregard of consequences.

Everyone could dump their old reactor - hell, their spent fuel - in the woods out back, and it would still probably have less long-term impact than the kinds of dumps the current nuclear industry is creating.

(And I only say probably because I'm not certain of the hard numbers.)

[ehj666]

Well, here's wikipedia right back at you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multijunction_solar_cell
This type of cells have a theoretical maximum efficiency around 90%..
So the only real limit now is economics.
Thing is, even with your calculated lower yield you still have enough roofspace on a house to cover a family.
But with time these high yield PVs will be widely available for a low enough price.
And like with bitcoin people will be 'mining' electricity.

Theoretical is not actual, and unlikely ever to be. The maximum theoretical efficiency of an internal combustion engine is about 39%. In actuality the most efficient have trouble breaking 20%. Further the efficiency of the panels isn't the end of the story. Now you have to do something with it because the sun does not shine 24/7/365. It can be sold back to the power company and credited for later, but there are line losses and other losses involved. You can store it locally through any number of means, but every time its form is changed there are additional losses.

However that is all beside the point, the real point is that solar could be 100% efficient end to end and it still would be 9-10 orders of magnitude less dense than either fission or fusion. Which, as I said back in post 58, isn't to say that solar is of no use, only that without subsidies its applications will be very limited and that no level of subsidies can overcome a 9 order of magnitude disadvantage in the long run.

[shmadz]

anyone who's actually interested in thorium energy, check out gordon mcdowell on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/gordonmcdowell  

he is doing a great job of documenting various speakers/experts on the subject.

my personal favorite one to start with is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

2 hours long, and it's a couple years old, but it does cover most of the basics.

enjoy

[ElectricMucus]

I realize that such a reactor would have less impact that lets say a spent fuel rod, you don't see those in the hands of people with complete disregard of consequences.

Everyone could dump their old reactor - hell, their spent fuel - in the woods out back, and it would still probably have less long-term impact than the kinds of dumps the current nuclear industry is creating.

(And I only say probably because I'm not certain of the hard numbers.)

Well that sounds hard to believe... mind to share those numbers? What exactly are we talking about? What kind of dumps is the nuclear energy doing?
How do you think fission byproducts are so fundamentally different?

[myrkul]

Well that sounds hard to believe... mind to share those numbers? What exactly are we talking about? What kind of dumps is the nuclear energy doing?
How do you think fission byproducts are so fundamentally different?

I don't have the numbers to share. That's the point of the parenthetical statement, and the "probably". But if you had done any research on the thorium cycle, you would know that spent fuel from it is actually spent. It's hardly more radioactive than thorium itself. "Spent" fuel rods from traditional nuclear reactors still have most of their fuel still active, and are chock-full of transuranics.

[ElectricMucus]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

[myrkul]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

[drakahn]

I stopped at...
What did I miss?
...
Everything after that

Oh lol

[myrkul]

I stopped at...
What did I miss?
...
Everything after that

Oh lol

Well, you ask a silly question, you're gonna get a silly answer.

[ElectricMucus]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

Well doesn't that refer to the reprocessing part of spent fuel?

[myrkul]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

Well doesn't that refer to the reprocessing part of spent fuel?

In a LFTR, there's no reprocessing. It all just stays in there until it comes out as ²³⁷Np. Or whatever the actual end product is. I'm not a nuclear engineer.

Reprocessing is for solid fuels.

[myrkul]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

Well doesn't that refer to the reprocessing part of spent fuel?

In a LFTR, there's no reprocessing. It all just stays in there until it comes out as ²³⁷Np.

Reprocessing is for solid fuels.

I call bullshit on that. Where are you getting this stuff from?

I'm going to say it again: not a nuclear engineer. Quizzing me on the specifics will get, at best, educated guesses.
Here is where I got my info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

[myrkul]

I call bullshit on that. Where are you getting this stuff from?

I'm going to say it again: not a nuclear engineer. Quizzing me on the specifics will get, at best, educated guesses.
Here is where I got my info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

OK, well, fair enough then... The LFTR thing sounds pretty cool actually and I hope people are able to do something with it if it turns out to be a better idea than "liquid cooled solid fuel" reactors.

That video there starts with a 5 minute summary, and then goes into more depth. Watch at least that first five minutes, and if you can, hang around for the whole two hours. Great info in there.

[ElectricMucus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

Thanks that is a fascinating video. It however does rise the question what those guys think they are doing, like beating a dead horse.

From the looks of it a proof of concept reactor could be built on a shoestring budget in a garage. Why hasn't it been done yet?
It does clarify some things but there still is the point of nuclear waste, how accurate is the claim of no transuranic waste? Is it really none? A few atoms would be negligible but even a few milligram is not.
The next thing is the actual fission byproducts, I doubt they are all as valuable as it is claimed to be, but like to be proven wrong

If there really is no catch, I'd say:
brb overtaking civilization.

[TheBitcoinChemist]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

Well doesn't that refer to the reprocessing part of spent fuel?

In a LFTR, there's no reprocessing. It all just stays in there until it comes out as ²³⁷Np. Or whatever the actual end product is. I'm not a nuclear engineer.

Reprocessing is for solid fuels.

That's not quite true.  The transuratics are less involved in a thorium cycle, but there are more in a liquid reactor design, and since transuratics are a neutron 'poison' they would have to be delt with on an ongoing basis.  While the processing of a liquid core is technically easier than a spent solid core, it's still very real.

[TheBitcoinChemist]

From the looks of it a proof of concept reactor could be built on a shoestring budget in a garage. Why hasn't it been done yet?

Probably because for most anyone with any training in the field capable of doing it without killing themselves, the construction of a reactor without the consent of the NRC is a federal felony.

Excluding the "Nuclear Boy Scout" of course, but all he did was build a breader reactor in his mom's tool shed, and probably shorten his lifespan by about 20 years.

It does clarify some things but there still is the point of nuclear waste, how accurate is the claim of no transuranic waste?

It's not accurate.

 Is it really none? A few atoms would be negligible but even a few milligram is not.

Negligible, a few grams per ton of fuel consumed, less after it's had more exposure to the neutrons and some has transmutated to other elements with shorter half lives.  The majority of them has half lives in the 4 and 12 year ranges, and can reasonablely be sequestered into leaded glass in a safe manner for 100 years or more.

The next thing is the actual fission byproducts, I doubt they are all as valuable as it is claimed to be, but like to be proven wrong

I don't understand this question. I haven't seen the video, are the talking about medical radioisotopes?  They are valuable, but they are not created in any useful quantity unless the reactor is designed to do it deliberately.  Most such radioisotopes are created by one of a few tiny research reactors that produce negible amounts of electrical power, usually less than the facilty they are housed in consumes.  It's hard to have it both ways, wither the reactor is designed for research or it's designed for power production.

If there really is no catch, I'd say:
brb overtaking civilization.

On a side note, there is more radioactive materals put into the atmostphere each year by coal plants, mostly due to the thorium in the coal in trace amounts, than that what was released by Three Mile Island.  Thorium is, literally, found everywhere on earth.

[justusranvier]

I stopped at "uranium is breeded out of thorium". If there is uranium involved at any point there will be uranium fission byproducts.
What did I miss?

Everything after that. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Fission_product_wastes

Well doesn't that refer to the reprocessing part of spent fuel?

In a LFTR, there's no reprocessing. It all just stays in there until it comes out as ²³⁷Np. Or whatever the actual end product is. I'm not a nuclear engineer.

Reprocessing is for solid fuels.

That's not quite true.  The transuratics are less involved in a thorium cycle, but there are more in a liquid reactor design, and since transuratics are a neutron 'poison' they would have to be delt with on an ongoing basis.  While the processing of a liquid core is technically easier than a spent solid core, it's still very real.

A molten salt reactor requires ongoing reprocessing to remove fission product poisions. This form of reprocessing is very different from solid fuel reprocessing because it's just a matter of adding a fractional distillation column to the existing piping. There is no requirement to transport or manually handle the waste and the isotopes which can be burned get inserted directly back into the fuel salt instead of manufactured into new solid fuel elements.

Actinides can remain in the fuel salt indefinately until they are consumed. Any negative reactivity they add can be easily compensated for by increasing fuel concentration. This is something trivial to accomplish when the fuel is liquid but impossible when the fuel is solid.

LFTR does not produce transuranic waste because all the transuranics are consumed internally. That's why the waste that is removed from a LFTR will only require 300 years of storage instead of 10000.

[ElectricMucus]

From the looks of it a proof of concept reactor could be built on a shoestring budget in a garage. Why hasn't it been done yet?

Probably because for most anyone with any training in the field capable of doing it without killing themselves, the construction of a reactor without the consent of the NRC is a federal felony.

Excluding the "Nuclear Boy Scout" of course, but all he did was build a breader reactor in his mom's tool shed, and probably shorten his lifespan by about 20 years.

Wouldn't any PHD in nuclear physics be able to get a permit or do they require one to be part of the cartel?

[myrkul]

A molten salt reactor requires ongoing reprocessing to remove fission product poisions. This form of reprocessing is very different from solid fuel reprocessing because it's just a matter of adding a fractional distillation column to the existing piping. There is no requirement to transport or manually handle the waste and the isotopes which can be burned get inserted directly back into the fuel salt instead of manufactured into new solid fuel elements.

Actinides can remain in the fuel salt indefinitely until they are consumed. Any negative reactivity they add can be easily compensated for by increasing fuel concentration. This is something trivial to accomplish when the fuel is liquid but impossible when the fuel is solid.

This is what I meant. There's no taking out the intermediate wastes, reprocessing them into fuel, and putting them back in. they're just left in there until they burn up, and then are removed as the final product.

[justusranvier]

There's no taking out the intermediate wastes, reprocessing them into fuel, and putting them back in.

Many people strongly object to molten salt reactors when they hear about online reprocessing because they hear the word "reprocessing" and immediately think "dirty, dangerous and expensive" without realizing how little liquid fuel reprocessing resembles solid fuel reprocessing.