Could thorium make nuclear power safe?
theweek.com
theweek.com
Are they really arguing that thorium power would be too cheap to meter?
Uranium is a pretty small part of the cost of generating nuclear power. (<10%) What makes nuclear power expensive is the tremendous upfront cost of building a safe reactor.
Thorium reactors aren't magic; they're still nuclear reactors. They produce plenty of radioactive waste. A thorium reactor might not be as susceptible to certain types of failure as a uranium reactor, but they're still dangerous enough that it will be necessary to build them to a similarly high standard.
In some ways, thorium could be more expensive. Thorium reactors need a kick-start from a uranium reactor, so they're inherently more complicated. Thorium waste decays faster, but more intensely. Some tasks that can be done by hand in uranium reactors would require robotics in a thorium plant.
Thorium may or may not be a good idea. But to assume that it will be cheaper than uranium is a bit foolish after witnessing what a graveyard uranium reactors made of such dreams over the past sixty years.
Like you said, cost of fuel is a small part of generating energy. Besides, PG&E would mark up for the "privilege" of using their power. ;)
The primary cost of nuclear power generation is decommissioning the reactor after the power generation is over. The Federal Government has 1 trillion dollars in nuclear reactor coming down the road. The nuclear power "industry" is long gone at that point. The decommissioned reactors get spun off into their own little corporation , and the parent corp has it declare bankruptcy, sticking us with the cost of clean up.
That's something the Thorium proponents never told me.
There have been...what, three nuclear plant failures EVER? Ignoring Chernobyl (which was caused by political pressure on the operators of one of the earliest plants ever built) there have been a few hundred deaths attributable to nuclear energy. Compare that on a GW / fatality basis to coal mines, hydro plants, etc, and nuclear power is clearly the safest option around.
As to Fukushima...the fifth most powerful earthquake ever recorded went off a few dozen miles away with a total energy release of something like 600 million Hiroshima bombs. This caused tidal waves up to 30 feet high that rolled almost halfway around the world. Despite all that, the total effect was a thermal explosion and some radioactive steam was vented. Yes, it's bad, but it's hardly a good reason to give up the best and safest form of energy known.
I think the solution to this could be to incentivize tolerance of nuclear power (maybe tax breaks to live within N miles of one), and educate those unaware of the difference, until it becomes familiar to people.
After all, if nuclear power was so safe, why do they have to pay people to live near the station? (Etc, etc.)
All human beings make mistakes. Nuclear reactors do not tolerate mistakes.
The Dutch have put their water pump generators up a few stories for a long time. New Orleans had power for their water pumps raised a few stories pre-Katrina.
>It poses a business challenge, because reactor manufacturers customarily get their long-term profits from fuel fabrication.
Glad to see razor blades, cell phones and printer cartridges aren't alone in the world.
The technology to turn uranium into energy is a spinoff of the nuclear weapons firmament. Swords into expensive ploughshares and all that.
Myself, I expect serious development of thorium reactors to come after spikes in the price of oil and uranium, not before. Uranium and fossil fuels are just too cheap right now to justify the additional effort associated with the Thorium fuel cycle.
Found this http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/a8v7q/reddit_tho...
Both projects succeeded because they were made high national priorities, were well funded, and a "critical mass" of the best and brightest were recruited to get the job done. I don't think there's any reason to doubt that we could have practical nuclear fusion power technology in a similar time frame if the political willpower is there to give it the same high priority status that the Manhattan Project and Apollo had.
The power production by fusion in the core varies with distance from the solar center. At the center of the Sun, theoretical models estimate it to be approximately 276.5 watts/m3,[41] a power production density that more nearly approximates reptile metabolism than a thermonuclear bomb.[note 2] Peak power production in the Sun has been compared to the volumetric heats generated in an active compost heap. The tremendous power output of the Sun is not due to its high power per volume, but instead due to its large size.
The nifty thing about being a star is that you have this massive gravitational force available as your containment.
No matter how we do fusion, we'll likely need containment, and it's a vastly harder problem than "put enough fissile atoms close enough together to sustain a chain reaction." Let's face it - the big reason that fission reactors are dangerous is that stopping a reaction is as difficult or often more difficult than starting it.