In post-Fukashima America, a group of nuclear entrepreneurs, scientists and advocates believe it's the perfect time for the U.S. to consider pursuing thorium as a safer alternative to uranium.
Thorium, which is less radioactive and more naturally abundant than uranium, could be used as an alternative fuel source or turned into a completely different kind of reactor, called liquid-fluoride reactors or LFTRs. LFTRs use molten chemical salts instead of pressurized water for cooling and energy transfer, allowing them to operate at high temperatures without the high pressures of the water-cooling systems, which was the reason for the hydrogen explosion last year at Fukashima. Thorium also is non-proliferative, meaning it is more difficult to turn into nuclear weapons, and has a very high melting point, which drastically reduces the amount of waste.
Advocates of thorium like John Kutsch, director of the Thorium Energy Alliance, and Kirk Sorenson, founder of Flibe energy, believe that this is a very important opportunity. The TEA's objectives revolve around reducing costs to lay a foundation for a Thorium energy future, and Kutsch and other members have been trying to educate leaders on the importance of Thorium. According to the Washington Post, he has been lobbying to members of of Congress to reclassify thorium as a special industrial material, putting it in a category with fertilizer and ammonia instead of nuclear materials such as uranium and plutonium, as well as trying to push for legislation to direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop rules for the use of thorium.
Flibe focuses on the design, construction and operation of small modular reactors based on LFTR technology. Sorenson, a former NASA engineer, believes that ultimately LFTRs will make power cheaper than coal, and he believes the company will be able to raise sufficient funds to build a prototype reactor by 2016. According to Flibe's website, thorium "is much easier because its absorption product (uranium-233) produces enough neutrons from collision with a slowed-down (thermal) neutron to sustain the fission reaction, given that the reactor is designed to be frugal with its neutrons. This feature, and the abundance of thorium worldwide, give thorium a profound advantage over the other nuclear fuels for sustained energy generation."
Sorenson also notes that the use of this technology is not without precedent. In the 1950's, the U.S. pursued thorium technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and even built two prototype reactors, but the project was cancelled by the US Atomic Energy Commission in favor of plutonium and subsequently forgotten. Flibe hopes to revive and continue in the sentiment of that project.
Watch Thorenco founder Charles Holden discuss the design for a possible liquid-fluoride reactor
Others, like Dan Ingersoll, who is now the senior project manager for nuclear technology at ORNL, believe that the benefits of converting to thorium do not outweigh the costs. Converting to thorium would be a very expensive process that would involve dismantling billions of dollars of current operating infrastructure. The U.S. also would have to mine for thorium, as it does not have a current stockpile. Ingersoll also points out that Thorium still is a radioactive substance.
But advocates point out that by not acting, the U.S. could miss the boat on an important future technology. Countries like China and India have already begun plans to incorporate thorium into their nuclear power programs. Last February, China announced plans to build a thorium-based reactor to be completed in 15 - 20 years. In addition, the nuclear energy consulting service company Lightbridge, in McLean, VA, is working with the Russian government to formulate a way to mix thorium with the uranium in existing plants to slightly increase the output.
Still, many view LFTRs as a technology still in its experimental phase and a financial risk. Ingersoll says that thorium reactors make more sense in other countries that do not have the U.S's uranium reserves. Flibe anticipates the development of small, mobile LFTRs that could be used in remote locations, and Sorenson has spoken with the Pentagon about using the technology in hostile areas because of its non-proliferative qualities.
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To be blunt, Dan Ingersoll's comments are grossly inaccurate. OK, I'll be even more blunt -- he is simply wrong. And, he should know better.
LFTRs have been costed out at about $2 an installed watt, making a LFTR power plant fully competitive with a coal- or gas-fired plant. (The price of course, like the price of any nuke, can be skewed by lawsuit logjams, protests, etc.) [See Prof. Robert Hargraves' book "Aim High!"]
Ingersoll wrote: "Converting to thorium would be a very expensive process that would involve dismantling billions of dollars of current operating infrastructure." To put it as politely as I can, that's just silly.
As our aging reactors are retired, they have to be replaced by another reactor, right? So what's his point? What infrastructure would have to be dismantled, other than what has already been slated to be dismantled?
As for replacing LWRs with LFTRs -- LFTRs are far smaller, much cheaper, and far safer than any similarly-sized LWR. They don't even need water cooling, which means that new nuclear plants could be built exactly where power is needed, even in the hottest desert, miles from any water source (Phoenix, take note.)
As for mining Thorium, Mr. Ingersoll is completely wrong again. We have hundreds of tons of the stuff, already mined. It's in the waste piles at our (currently) abandoned Rare Earth Element mines (Thorium is found with Rare Earth, which is a nice two-for.) The fact is, America has enough Thorium already mined and sitting around in our REE waste piles to power the entire country (at our current consumption of 500 gigawatts) for 400 years.
Yes, Thorium is a radioactive substance. So is the stuff in my smoke detectors, and my grandfather's radium watch dial. So are bananas and X-ray machines and Brazil nuts. You could sleep on a bed of solid Thorium your entire life, and nothing bad would happen to you unless you fell out of bed. Ammonia, lead, mercury, PCBs, chrome and dozens of other industrial substances are far more toxic than Thorium. You can't even digest Thorium; it'll pass right through you. In fact, in principle, Thorium powder can be used like Epsom Salts (but don't try it. You might have a bleeding ulcer, and if it gets into your bloodstream, that could be bad.) Just don't breathe the dust or get it into your bloodstream, and you'll be fine.
Dan Ingersoll might be a head honcho at Oak Ridge, but he has some boning up to do on Thorium, and on molten salt reactor technology, which was successfully developed at Oak Ridge in the 1960s, but was shelved by the shenanigans of the Nixon Administration in the early 70s. The R&D needs to be resumed, and fast. Because right now, China is developing MSR technology, thanks to several red-carpet tours (no pun intended) that they were given last year at Oak Ridge (to be fair, it was all in the public domain, but still...)
If we don't get on the ball, we will soon be buying our own technology back from China. And if that isn't a Sputnik Moment, then I don't know what is.
It's disappointing to see that Dan ingersoll knows very little of the history, and even less of free-market forces. The challenge that startups face is money. It would be silly to even consider converting or replacing existing 235U reactors unless or until market forces engender a need. Simple attrition, combined with ever increasing base-load electricity demand will require new providers of plentiful, multiplatform energies such as that afforded by a thorium-based molten salt reactor. Near zero waste and the remarkable capacity to "burn" all the long-term transuranic waste left over from 60+ years of 235U-reactor operations make thorium a substantial fuel alternative.
What Uranium advocates fail to realize that safe solar energy is widely expected to be competitive with grid in 50% of the US within 10 years (price dropped in half in the last 2 years), and after that they will be building UHV power backbones so cheap and safe solar energy can be piped all the way to the North East states. If the nuke industry hasn't converted to thorium by then, then the nuke industry will disappear. Once safe solar is that cheap (and yes, we're talking 10 years) and UHV power lines underway there will be absolutely no support for uranium-based nukes. None. Adapt or die, nuclear engineers.
Its perplexing that private enterprise doesn't see the opportunity. Zuckerberg should take one of his billions and build a plant in Nairobi and put in an Aluminum production facility. I don't know how someone concluded that as MSR would be $2 installed. in a sane or third world, it would probably be more like a buck. My gosh, it's only a low pressure pumping loop. In any case, you prove the technology some place that isn't overpopulated with ignoramuses and fossil fuel shills and then come in and basically replace the entire energy industry. Ultimately, nothing can even come within earshot of the cost of an MSR. The only obstacle is that it must be developed outside of West where real costs and real safety criteria are the determining factors, not the political control of those who own all the coal in Montana.
Molten-salt Thorium reactors are a massive proliferation risk, because they have a built-in system for extracting U-233 -- every reactor would have enough full separated material, at any given time, to create 2 bombs. And yes, U-233 can be used quite effectively for terrorist bombs -- several studies have already shown how that could be done. Easily available on the web.
The thorium reactor fan club has very effectively silenced anybody who dares to point all this out...I"ve personally run up against Sorenson and he simply steamrolls anybody who gets in his way. Attempts to modify the Wikipedia with risks are "down voted" out of existence.
Thorium is one of those really bad ideas that a group of fanatics has managed to revive by shouting down all opposition.
