By the Power of Thor-ium

For a while now I have been briefly mentioning Thorium reactors (Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors or Thorium Molten Salt Reactors) as an alternative form of nuclear energy. Thorium solves many of the inherent problems of standard nuclear reactors and is not some untested technology, a reactor was operated successfully for 5 years starting in 1965 but was shut down due to lack of funding. As I began to do research on Thorium reactors I repeatedly wondered, why aren't we using this technology?

Source: www.snorgtees.com

There is a great TED talk about Thorium reactors called Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel by Kirk Sorensen (please spend the ten minutes to watch it.) In it, Kirk Sorensen describes the qualities of a Thorium reactor, how Thorium is four times more abundant than Uranium, is safer than a standard high pressure nuclear reactor and can provide for the world's energy needs with a relatively small amount of Thorium, compared to fossil fuels and Uranium.

Again, why aren't we funding or using this technology? It does sound too good to be true, so I am slightly skeptical. In his TED talk Kirk Sorensen gives as much information as he could but due to the complex nature of Thorium reactors it was an impossible task for him to provide a thorough explanation in ten minutes. I am left wondering, how do Thorium reactors work? What makes them safer than the standard nuclear reactor that is in operation today?

I found my answers in the article Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors: An old idea in nuclear power gets reexamined (pdf) by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir from the July-August 2010 edition of  American Scientist. The article discusses the history of Thorium as a nuclear energy source and how it operates, including the inherent safety of liquid Thorium reactors. It also covers why we use Uranium-235 based nuclear power and how Thorium reactors do not provide for the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The article did help to answer one of the overarching question I had about Thorium, why didn't we jump on this technology when it was first proved to be viable? The answer is: it doesn't create nuclear weapons. One of the by products of a standard U-235 fission reaction is Plutonium-239, an isotope that is used in the manufacturing of thermonuclear weapons, and the United States during the cold war was manufacturing A LOT of thermonuclear weapons. At the time a nuclear power plant that was not assisting in our nuclear proliferation was not something worth funding. I discovered that Thorium reactors are safer because they don't create highly radioactive spent fuel rods, in addition they require power to stay operational. This is safer because in the case of complete power loss the reactor simply stops functioning and power is not used to control the nuclear reaction, which cannot get out of control due to the fundamental nature of liquid fuels. The article made the abundance of Thorium more evident, it states that, on average, a cubic meter of the earth's crust contains enough Thorium to provide for a person's energy needs for ten years.

Thorium is 4 times as abundant as Uranium.
Source: www.wnd.com

The article and the TED talk are two sides of the same coin as they both provide information about Thorium reactors, although the article is more thorough. The article does provide data that demonstrates that there is still nuclear waste produced but in smaller quantities that are significantly less radioactive. Both present liquid Thorium reactors in a positive light as a solution for our global energy needs, the TED talk also presents it as a solution for our galactic energy needs.

Even after all my research I am still left wondering why we are not using any liquid Thorium reactors? We're not even doing any publicly funded research. On the surface it appears to be the answer to many of our energy needs but by no means is it the "magic bullet" for our energy crisis. The solution needs to be a balanced approach using as many non-fossil fuel energy sources as possible.



(Also, today is the anniversary of the first test of a nuclear bomb back in 1945.)