The silver bullet....

[Northland]

I apologize up front... this topic may not suit everyone's taste. Feel free to bail at any time.

Let's talk energy...
Every day a huge amount of solar energy strikes the surface of the earth. To capture large amounts of that energy is not practical (using photovoltaics or wind turbines). It just takes too much gear.

We cope by using fossil fuels... which are solar energy that has been captured and condensed over millions of years. It works great, but man is it dirty.

The other viable option is nuclear energy.... energy from the formation of the universe that is captured in fissionable material which can be burned (decayed) to release very large amounts of energy.
Now.... no one wants a light water breeder reactor in their backyard (for good reason).

To be continued...

[Northland]

The problem with our nuclear technology is it all stems from the desire to build bombs.
Our conventional nuclear energy program is based on a uranium fueled, light water breeder reactor... which just happens to produce weapons grade plutonium. Really nasty stuff.

To make matters worse, this technology operates at very high pressure (about 70 atmospheres)... so if things go wrong the escaping water flashes to steam and increases in volume by a factor of 1000. That's why reactors are so large and require lots of back up equipment to cool the reactor and contain the danger.

Then, the real buzz kill is.... it requires very expensive enriched uranium. Only a small potion of that fuel is consumed during the reaction (something like 97% of the fuel is left, unusable). The spent fuel has to disposed of & we have no really good plan to deal with that issue.

To be continued...

[Northland]

Drum roll please......

For your consideration... I offer the Thorium reactor.
Thorium sits right next to Uranium on the periodic table.
Like Uranium, it can be coverted into fissionable matterial & will give off large amounts of energy during an atomic reaction.

Thorium is a relatively common element, 10 PPM of the earths crust. For comparision Tin is about 1PPM.
It's almost free. There's large amounts of it in every fly ash pile that sits next to a coal burning power plant.
Also, it's a byproduct of Rare Earth mining. Rare earth is used to make powerful magnets used in high tech equipment. The Chinese have that market cornered and the price has skyrocketed over the last couple years. We don't mine Rare Earths... partly, because we don't want to deal with the Thorium.

How does a Thorium reactor work ??
The basic principal is:
Thorium can be bombarded to create U-233... which can be dissolved in heated liquid flouride salts. When the U-233 is fissioned it releases large amounts of thermal energy which is transfered into the liquid salts. That high temperature liquid is an excellent thermal source for powering a turbine. The turbine spins a generator creating electricity.

What are the advantages of a LFTR (liquid flouride thorium reactor) ?
-- It operates at atmospheric pressure, so the containment vessel is a fraction of the size of a conventional reactor.
-- The fuel can be almost 100% consumed... the waste that is left is medical grade plutonium.
-- If the containment ruptures the liquid salt pours out and hardens like glass.
-- If the power goes out a frozen portion of the piping thaws out and the liquid pours into a drain tank. The atomic reaction is stopped.
-- The thermal properties of the liquid salt are much more efficent for use in power generation.
-- The fuel is essentially free.. and this type of reactor can also be used to burn huge amounts of spent uranium fuel that are stored in casks all over the country.
-- The reactors can be built on a production scale.. almost like Boeing cranks out airplanes

As if that wasn't enough.... this type of reactor is a very lousy source of radioactive bomb material. It just doesn't lend itself to warfare.

To be continued...

[Northland]

Why don't we have Thorium reactors ??
We focused on making bombs (plutonium).

During the late 60's the atomic energy commission built a Thorium reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It produced power for about 5 years.
Believe it or not..... most of the research was funded under the guise of creating a nuclear powered airplane.

To sum up my long winded post.... there is a "silver bullet" for our energy future. Every country on earth could have thousands of years of safe, clean, nuclear power... there's that much Thorium.

The waste heat from the power generation could operate thousands of desalination plants... clean water for everybody.
Cleaner air... cleaner water.
No middle-east conflict... oil isn't a huge priority any more.
Liquid fuels.... no problem, electricity can be used to make hydrogen, amonnia, or synthetic diesel fuel.

The first country's to get their foot in the door will dominate the market. It could be us... it could be India or China.
But, somebody is going to make the investment that will change the world.

Here's some YouTube content:

1_Minute_LFTR_Thorium_Plant

TEDxYYC - Kirk Sorensen - Thorium

Energy Secretary Chu on Thorium Reactors

Thorium fuel of the future. Safe, abundant, dense. Russia Today

Blue Ribbon Commission -Kirk Sorensen

[Chadwick]

No fat cats get fatter on it, so they kill it off quick, and everything continues to roll in their favor.
If it persists, they discredit it.
If that fails, it's illegal or against code they institute via the people's representatives.
Etc.

Lots of pipe dreams out there.
Once upon a time, a light bulb was discredited as science fiction.

Just sayin'

[mk162]

The problem with solar is that I think we max out at 5-8% effeciency.  That's awful.

I've never heard of a thorium reactor.  I'll have to look into that.  But if it's that good, power companies would be using it...trust me.  This fat-cat crap gets old.  The reason fat cats are fat cats is because they make money off anything they can...and if that includes thorium, they'll invest in it...trust me.

We had a girl here who's dad works for Georgia Power.  They weren't allowed to build anything because of the DOE..both federal and state.  They had plans for a garbage burning facility that would have been cleaner than any coal plant...shot down.  Along with countless other clean energy ideas.  It's all political...maybe those are the fat cats you are talking about.