H.R. 2015: carry out a study on the use of thorium-fueled nuclear reactors

[phantom power]

To instruct the Secretary of Energy to carry out a study on the use of thorium-fueled nuclear reactors.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5521334&mesg_id=5521334

[phantom power]

1. link to legislation tracking:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2015

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Why not try to talk the Iranians into exploring thorium-cycle technology?

If they're really trying to produce energy, not weapons, thorium may be a better bet than uranium.

[friend2all]

3. Thorium is better for Power Generation

It would certainly make some sense to consider making available Thorium nuclear technology to developing countries that are looking for inexpensive. abundant, and less nuclear waste generating nuclear energy. Thorium nuclear is significantly more difficult to use for weapons (no existing nuclear state has, to date, succeeded in making a nuclear weapon solely out of Thorium/Uranium-233 which could be removed from a Thorium fueled reactor) and is most suitable for production of commercial power in fluid nuclear fueled reactors.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to offer to others a technology which you have not developed yourself. The US has built successful Research Reactors based on Thorium (Thorium Molten Salt Reactors) but has never commercialized this technology and used it for commercial power production in the US. Thorium nuclear fuel used in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors generates one hundredth the amount of high level nuclear waste and the radio-toxicity of this reduced amount of waste is one thousandth as radio-toxic as current Light Water Reactors.

We cannot continue to improve the condition of people throughout the word without use of nuclear power. None of the renewable energy solutions can be scaled quickly enough to meet current and future energy needs. Alternative Energy solutions are interesting energy experiments for the wealthy developed world that are just too expensive for the requirements of the developing world. Safer, proliferation resistant, nuclear power without the long term high level waste storage problems is needed to power a growing world economy and to allow all nations to provide for and feed their growing populations in peace. These goals are available by changing the nuclear fuel cycle to a Uranium-233/Thorium fuel cycle.

A program of Positive Change should include changing the nuclear fuel cycle to Thorium



Respectfully, Robert Steinhaus Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Retired)


Thorium Molten Salt Reactors are good science. Dr. Edward Teller, the founding director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wrote his final paper a month before his death on the subject of the advantages of Thorium Molten Salt Reactors.

http://www.geocities.com/rmoir2003/moir_teller.pdf


<1> Le Brun, C., “Impact of the MSBR concept technology on long-lived radio-toxicity and
proliferation resistance”, Technical Meeting on Fissile Material Management Strategies for
Sustainable Nuclear Energy, Vienna 2005

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/04/14/97/PDF/document_IAEA.pdf

[NNadir]

4. Why not just look up the data on Shippingport, which ran in PA on thorium from 1977-1982?

The first commercial nuclear reactor in the United States ran for several years on U-233/Th-232 as a light water breeder reactor.

I covered this point on another website: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/8/201334/1925

The reactor contained <em>more</em>fissionable fuel than that with which it was loaded.

Failing that, we could just as the Indians to tell us about the reactors at Kalapakkam.

I think the primary reason we don't use thorium in our modern reactors here is that there is no reason to mess with a good thing that works fine right now. There are ZERO energy technologies in this country that operate with the high reliability, safety, economics and cleanliness of our current fleet of reactors, zero.

There are specifically zero solar or wind facilities that operate overall at 90% capacity utilization (there are zero that operate as high as 40% capacity utilization). There are zero dangerous fossil fuel facilities that operate at 90% capacity utilization - the highest being coal at 72%.

There are zero exajoule scale forms of energy that operate at the same safety level as American reactors, essentially zero people killed for many decades.

There are zero forms of energy that operated for more than a decade using material from destroyed weapons.

I think we <em>should</em> use thorium in our modern reactors, but there is no intrinsic reason - other than caring about the long term - that we will do so.