I'm super-interested in thorium reactor research, but this author seems to lack even a cursory understanding of the issues at play. This reactor differs from what lots of thorium advocates are aiming for because it's a solid-fueled, high-pressure, water-cooled reactor, instead of the proposed LFTR designs, which involve a reaction taking place in a liquid at very high temperature, but at atmospheric pressure, and thus have a different set of tradeoffs as far as efficiency, safety, proliferation resistance, etc.
This article discusses none of that, and instead suggests that this reactor is sub-optimal because it's not a cold fusion reactor -- what? Thorium atoms are big and somewhat-unstable, which is what you want for fission. For fusion, you want little atoms you can ram together to make slightly-bigger little atoms. They're totally separate.
Considering Norway is already a net exporter of both oil and hydroelectric power, if they add cutting-edge nuclear to the portfolio, they will really be all-around energy kingpins!
Incidentally, this is the project site, which the article irritatingly doesn't bother to link: http://www.thorenergy.no/en.aspx
(And yes, just in case you were wondering, the element thorium really is named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. And yes, Norse mythology originated from Norway, where Thor Energy is based. Coincidence, I think not!)
The first sample of Thorium was found in Norway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#History
Morten Thrane Esmark found a black mineral on Løvøya island, Norway and gave a sample to his father Jens Esmark, a noted mineralogist. The elder Esmark was not able to identify it and sent a sample to Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius for examination in 1828. Berzelius determined that it contained a new element, which he named thorium after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.[17] He published his findings in 1829.[50][51][52]
The fact that Thor Energy is Norwegian might just be due to the country being at the same time very wealthy and environment-minded. The Norwegian reserves of thorium are far smaller than those of other countries.
"but not in the sense that most people think of when they hear the word thorium [...] they haven’t created a cold fusion thorium reactor"
What is this supposed to mean? Who ever talked about cold fusion thorium reactor? Was the author thinking about toroidal fields in Tokamak (which is very hot fusion)??
Well, Germany got burned by Thorium reactors back in the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
Let's see if this performs any better.
This is interesting and encouraging stuff. I'm a big believer in fission power as our best option for a clean source of huge amounts of electricity (which we'll only need more of as electric cars start to become popular).
My main reason for commenting is to congratulate Thor Energy on coming up with a trebly relevant name.
"[Thorium reactor] could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy" Always when somebody claims this, it almost never works that way.
Here are some slides containing more details about the Norwegian thorium initiative and Thor Energy: http://www.statkraft.no/Images/Thorium%20power%20abundant%20...
How long can we continue to believe our energy needs can rise at the level we've become accustomed too?
This is scary: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...
This may be the beginning of new era. Thorium is easy to get for developed nations in the 3rd world.
The "not prone to nuclear weapons proliferation" bit is critical, and unfortunately wrong. As http://phys.org/news/2012-12-thorium-proliferation-nuclear-w... points out, thorium produces protactinium-233 which can be chemically separated out. In around a month that turns into uranium-233 at sufficient purity to make nuclear bombs.
This process is much easier to do in secret than the centrifuges that are required to separate isotopes of uranium. Thus thorium is worse for proliferation, not better.
Interesting contrast to the German reaction to Fukushima.
At a test site in Norway, Thor Energy has successfully created a thorium nuclear reactor — but not in the sense that most people think of when they hear the word thorium. The Norwegians haven’t solved the energy crisis and global warming in one fell swoop — they haven’t created a cold fusion thorium reactor.
Who the hell thinks "cold fusion" when they hear thorium?
The key thing here is that these pellets are designed to work with existing reactors. If you want to start using thorium it is a very hard sell (given the popularity of nuclear power atm) to build new reactors/plants, but changing the fuel in existing plants to something that can be said to be 'cleaner' or 'safer' might be doable.
The rod in the middle of the picture contains thorium-MOX pellets, and is being inserted into the reactor (which is underground).
So these guys are standing right next to a fuel rod radioactive enough to start a nuclear chain reaction? [0] Can anybody elaborate on how dangerous this is?
[0] only if close to lots of other fuel rods, I guess...
Wait a minute...plutonium is a waste product? I thought the supply of plutonium (that is not used in weapons) was running so low there would not be enough to fuel deep space missions.
I hope such technology comees to India soon!
> While the safety of nuclear power plants is hotly contested, no one is arguing the nastiness of plutonium.
Except everyone who knows anything about it. Plutonium is a hot topic because it's what you need to build a nuke, but the public perception that it is a significant as nuclear waste is simply completely misguided.
Because it's half-life is so long, it's only mildly radioactive. It's an alpha emitter, so plutonium not in your body is not a risk to you. It oxidizes easily, and it's oxides are heavy and non-soluble, so when it is released to the environment, it just tends to fall down and stay there. There is negligible biological uptake through eating, and while there is some uptake through breathing, plutonium does not tend to stay airborne.
Various people have denounced environmental plutonium as something capable of killing billions. The toxicity of plutonium in humans is not known, simply because not enough people have died of it. There is no-one in the world who has died of plutonium exposure who did not have it injected into his body (and that's a long and horrible story), and there were a lot of people who worked coated in plutonium dust for a long time. Of the people who were injected with plutonium, most died of other causes. Suffice to say, plutonium is sufficiently non-radioactive that it's chemical toxicity is considered significant in it's lethality. Or, in other words, it's fine to consider toxicity of environmental plutonium as you would consider lead or other heavy metals.
To put it short, plutonium being toxic is simply not a concern as far as nuclear waste is concerned. If all the plutonium produced by civilian nuclear power was pulverized and spread in populated areas, it would not make nuclear reactors as dangerous to people as wind power. (Somewhat ironically, because of the thorium that is released into the environment while separating the REE for the magnets.) Taking all the plutonium produced in a plant and dumping it in one spot doesn't make that spot as dangerous as the ground near a typical fuel station that was in use for the period leaded gas was used.
Nuclear waste is really bad, but that's because of short-lived isotopes, which decay more often, and thus are more radioactive, and light radioactive materials, which are often soluble in water, have high biological uptake, and can stay in the atmosphere.
Plutonium needs to be tracked really closely, but that is not because it's toxic, it's because it can be used to make a bomb.
The more you know.