[hedwig]

Hey everyone,

I am new to this site but would like to share my views and hear yours.

This link from BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24475934) shows that China has overtaken the US as the biggest importer of oil, consuming 6.3 million barrels a day.

Oil is a non-reusable energy form – it will run out eventually. At the rate we are using it, this is likely to be sooner rather than later. Looking at this website: http://www.eccos.us/what-is-oil-used-for it is clear that we are far too dependable on oil. It's very easy to do everyday things that use oil without actually thinking about where the energy is coming from, so, I have two questions:

Firstly, what reusable energy resources do people think are the best and most sustainable when considering alternatives to oil?

Secondly, how can we get people to take action and use these reusable sources rather than simply just talking about making changes?

[Plantagenet]

Hi Hedwig. Very interesting post

IMHO the main driver of people "getting off oil" will be continued increases in the price of oil. The huge increases in exports by China will only act to accelerate global price increases

[Rune]

Firstly, what reusable energy resources do people think are the best and most sustainable when considering alternatives to oil?

Secondly, how can we get people to take action and use these reusable sources rather than simply just talking about making changes?

Discounting any developments in hot fusion without a doubt the ONLY sensible replacement technology for fossil fuels is nuclear fission, particularly using Thorium.

SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future Richard Martin (writer for Wired Magazine).

A riveting look at how an alternative source of energy is revoluntionising nuclear power, promising a safe and clean future for millions, and why thorium was sidelined at the height of the Cold War   

In this groundbreaking account of an energy revolution in the making, award-winning science writer Richard Martin introduces us to thorium, a radioactive element and alternative nuclear fuel that is far safer, cleaner, and more abundant than uranium.   At the dawn of the Atomic Age, thorium and uranium seemed to be in close competition as the fuel of the future. Uranium, with its ability to undergo fission and produce explosive material for atomic weapons, won out over its more pacific sister element, relegating thorium to the dustbin of science.   

Now, as we grapple with the perils of nuclear energy and rogue atomic weapons, and mankind confronts the specter of global climate change, thorium is re-emerging as the overlooked energy source as a small group of activists and outsiders is working, with the help of Silicon Valley investors, to build a thorium-power industry.   In the first book mainstream book to tackle these issues, Superfuel is a story of rediscovery of a long lost technology that has the power to transform the world's future, and the story of the pacifists, who were sidelined in favour of atomic weapon hawks, but who can wean us off our fossil-fuel addiction and avert the risk of nuclear meltdown for ever.

About Richard Martin:

Award-winning science and technology journalist Richard Martin has been covering the energy landscape for nearly two decades. A contributing editor for Wired since 2001, he has written about energy, technology, and international affairs for Time, Fortune, The Atlantic, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He is the former technology producer for ABCNews.com (1997-2000), the technology editor for The Industry Standard (2000-2001), and editor-at-large for Information Week (2005-2008), and since 2011 he has been the editorial director for Pike Research, the leading clean energy research and analysis firm.

Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor technology was recommended to the US government by renowned climatologist, Dr. James Hansen of NASA, when asked for his detailed opinion about what to do about global warming.

I recently made many linked posts about current Thorium developments in the world in the thread a dream

"SuperFuel" is a super-story about a super-element! By Kirk Sorensen

The story of thorium as a planetary energy source is almost too incredible to be believed.

To think that for almost seventy years we have known about a source of energy that would last longer than the Sun will shine and we haven't exploited it? One has to wonder why.In this book Rick Martin does a marvelous job telling the amazing and true story of the almost forgotten power of element 90: thorium. During the Manhattan Project thorium was passed over for consideration because it wasn't practical for nuclear weapons, but after the war researchers discovered how thorium and its fissile derivative uranium-233 would be the best fuel for clean and safe nuclear reactors--they just didn't know exactly what form those reactors would take.

Then in the 1950s and 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab, Dr. Alvin Weinberg and his team figured out the right way--a revolutionary new kind of reactor that used liquid fluoride salts rather than solid ceramic pellets as a nuclear fuel. No one could believe that such a machine could work, but Weinberg's team actually built and operated two of them very successfully.But the atomic energy establishment in the United States and around the world wanted a plutonium fast breeder reactor--a reactor totally different in every way from Weinberg's safe fluoride-salt reactor--and they convinced Nixon to make it national policy, which he did in 1971. Then they used that position of strength to cancel all of the research at Oak Ridge in thorium and fluoride salts and they got Weinberg fired as director. Without their leader and their political support, the Oak Ridge team dissolved and disbanded and the notion of a safe, clean, efficient thorium reactor was lost.Nuclear engineering students don't learn about it today.

Kirk Sorenson is a former NASA aerospace engineer and has become a nuclear scientist as the result of his work there. He founded Flibe energy to develop designs for Small Modular Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs).

Kirk Sorensen is a founder of Flibe Energy and currently serves as President and Chief Technical Officer. Kirk has been a public advocate for thorium energy and liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) technology for many years. He founded the weblog “Energy From Thorium” which has been the platform for the international grassroots effort to revive research and development of fluoride-based reactors.

Prior to founding Flibe Energy, he served as Chief Nuclear Technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering and with their support has pushed advance consideration of thorium. Previous to that, Kirk worked for ten years at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center spending the last two of those years on assignment to the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command.  Kirk has briefed many senior military and civilian decision makers on LFTR technology and its compelling advantages, including its potential use in portable modular reactors for the US military.

Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors: Top Ten Attributes

Here is a resource paper/technology summary on the top ten basic attributes/reasons why LFTRs (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) should be pursued. This is a very easy to use resource to have handy when you are talking to a legislator or talking to a friend, neighbor, or family member. While Thorium’s use in a LFTR has many benefits we feel these top ten are the easiest to convey to someone knowing little about the technology in order to peak their interest.

• The abundance of the element thorium throughout the Earth’s crust promises widespread energy independence through Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) technology. A mere 6,600 tonnes of thorium could provide the energy equivalent of the combined global consumption of 5 billion tonnes of coal, 31 billion barrels of oil, 3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and 65,000 tonnes of uranium. With LFTR, a handful of thorium can supply an individual’s lifetime energy needs; a grain silo full could power North America for a year; and known thorium reserves could power advanced society for many thousands of years.
  
• LFTR is based on demonstrated technology with sound operational fundamentals proven by 20,000 hours of reactor operation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the late 1960′s. Despite recognized, compelling advantages, LFTR development stalled when political and financial capital were concentrated instead on fast-spectrum plutonium breeding reactors.
  
• LFTR operates at low pressure, is chemically and operationally stable, and passively shuts down without human intervention. Low pressures eliminate the need for massive and costly pressure containment vessels and alleviate safety concerns about high-pressure releases to the atmosphere. LFTR offers significant gains in safety, cost and efficiency with greatly reduced environmental impact relative to existing light-water reactors (LWRs).
  
• LFTR is more efficient, using 99% of the thorium-derived fuel and extracting significantly more energy from abundant, inexpensive thorium than other reactors can from more scarce and costly uranium. LWRs burn scarce fissile reserves as a one-time consumable; LFTR consumes fertile thorium, using fissile reserves only to start the thorium fuel-cycle.
  
• LFTR can use a range of nuclear starter fuels and can consume plutonium and other actinides from legacy spent nuclear fuel stockpiles. Molten salt reactors were started on all three fuel options and once operational, LFTR can continue operation with just thorium.
  
• LFTR produces safe, sustainable, carbon-free electricity and a range of radioisotopes useful for medical imaging, cancer therapy, industrial applications and space exploration. LFTR waste heat can be used to desalinate sea water and high primary heat can drive ammonia production for agriculture and fuels or synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
  
• Most LFTR byproducts stabilize within a decade and have commercial value; the minor remainder has a half-life of less than 30 years, stabilizing within hundreds rather than tens of thousands of years. LFTR waste is primarily fission products and does not include unspent fuel, fuel cladding, or long-lived transuranics typical of legacy spent nuclear fuel.
  
• LFTRs can be mass-produced in a factory and delivered and reclaimed from utility sites as modular units. Modular LFTR production offers reduced capital costs and shorter build times. Modular installation near the point of need also eliminates long transmission lines. Higher temperatures and turbine efficiencies enable air-cooling away from water bodies.
  
• LFTR and thorium are proliferation resistant. Thorium and its derivative fuel, uranium-233, are impractical and undesirable for weaponization efforts relative to well-known uranium enrichment and plutonium breeding pathways. Thus, despite 60 years of thorium research, none of the world’s tens-of-thousands of warheads are based on the thorium fuel-cycle.
  
• Liquid salt fuels cannot fail or meltdown. The liquid salt fuels have a thousand-degree liquid range, eliminating the possibility of fuel failure scenarios from overheating or meltdown like at Fukushima. The liquid fuel form is a key differentiator from conventional solid-fueled LWRs with LFTR’s liquid salts serving as both a fuel carrier and coolant. The salts are not reactive with water or the atmosphere like some existing fuels and coolants. Fuel can be added to the salts and byproducts removed while the reactor remains online.

[/quote]

There is a wealth of information about Thorium for anyone who can do the simplest of google searches.

The Chinese are the ones to watch with regard to LFTRs. They recently began a research program funded with an initial layout of $350 million. They are dead serious about it and are hiring the best talent. Thorium Reactor development is an integral part of India's 3-phase nuclear energy plans. But China is the country that appears to have the best political atmosphere for its rapid development.

The Swedes and Norwegians are also involved:

ONE STEP CLOSER TO A THORIUM FUELED POWER PLANT

Alf Bjorseth, famed venture investor and Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) founder is behind the nuclear startup Thor Energy.  Thor Energy will conduct a series of tests with Swedish utility Vattenfall to study the feasibility of thorium reactors. The nations of Scandinavia, Norway and Sweden get on pretty well even though Norway managed to split a little over 100 years ago.

Norway doesn’t have commercial nuclear reactors, but it has a research reactor where the Vattenfall tests will take place.  Norway also is thought to have the third largest reserves of thorium in the world.  Maybe, but for certain they do have very good thorium oxide reserves well suited for power generation.  How large the reserve is hardly matters.

Bjorseth is someone to take seriously; he founded REC, the large solar manufacturer that does everything from silicon and wafers to power plants. REC pulled in approximately $1.5 billion of revenue last year. In 2005, Bjorseth retired from REC to concentrate on Scatec a clean technology incubator based in Norway that’s supporting Thor Energy.

Some early reactors burned thorium, but the industry stayed with uranium because of the large amounts of heat generated by that fission reaction that in turn makes the desirable capital-per-gigawatt calculation. There was also lots of cold war pressure to make raw weapons materials.

Thorium proponents note a lack of controversial side effects that combined with more information about thorium, could change the pubic perception.  Bjorseth says, “We believe it is not a technical challenge. The challenge is to generate the data.”

In a quick overview the summary notes Bjorseth’s aim is to build and operate 2 thorium-based power plants of +2000MWe each in Norway, starting in 2017. Some things are already underway: developing possible mining and processing of thorium from the Fen deposit near Ulefoss, Norway, working out technical feasibility, development and approval of a thorium fuel-cycle and identification of suitable reactors, the possible cooperation with utilities and large, power consuming industries for future power sales, informing the Norwegian public and political sector of the potential for substantial, inexpensive, climate neutral power plants, then preparations for application for a commercial license for building and operating a thorium power plant in Norway.

With that completed Bjorseth hopes to make reactor sales and supply fuel to other countries.  How about that for getting the goals set up?

...

It seems that the Indian nuclear industry has thrown in behind Bjorseth’s effort.  Putting together the nation of Norway, Sweden’s Vattenfall utility and the Indian nuclear industry for a concentrated effort looks like a major political coup.  Bjorseth just might trigger a new industry’s growth.

The pdf goes over several pages of basic information about ‘conventional’ reactor designs.  Some designs are already in the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceedings based on uranium fuel.  But Bjorseth leaves out the molten salt reactor design, the design known from the 1960s and 1970s to be the optimal means to use thorium fuel in the safest reactor.  It’s a design that has already gone where Bjorseth wants to go.

The pdf notes that the consumer costs would be lower than uranium fueled reactors and the risks of using fossil fuels whose price is subject to those wild swings can be avoided.

The pdf closes with observations that should motivate the Norwegians.  The nation is already deep into a fossil fuel industry declining from the North Sea fields, Norway is already highly electrified, hydropower is about as developed as practical, the thorium supply is gigantic; thorium reactors are feasible, practical and cheap.

The book, "Superfuel" is a fascinating history. I have read some of the Amazon reader criticisms that it is a pure work of over-optimistic advocacy. But having read the book, I can't agree with that. It's one of the best scientific histories I have read, backed up with plenty of evidence.

[Surf]

Secondly, how can we get people to take action and use these reusable sources rather than simply just talking about making changes?

First we need to get people to stop repeating sound bites they hear and read. Many people hear the same things over and over and eventually treat them is facts when in fact they false. for example I have seen it repeated a number of times that "making renewables is dependent on oil".

However when you look at what we make from oil and where it is used you get a very different picture. 90% of the oil we pump out of the ground is used to make fuel for cars, trucks, aircraft, and ships, and heating oil for homes. In short we burn almost all of the oil to move things and people. Of the remaining 10% most goes into making asphalt, lubricants, some chemicals, electricity. There are alternatives to all of these uses. The only reason oil dominates is that it is easy to handle liquids, and oil for many years was very cheap.

If you take a tour of a factory you vehicle, semiconductor or small equipment factory you will find that most factories are dependent on electricity more than anything else. Even the really big mining equipment you often see on TV are often powered by electricity through a high voltage extension cord or overhead wires. It's only in very remote place or small construction sites where burning fuel dominates.

The second thing people need to learn is to how to evaluate what they read and hear to determine if it is correct or incorrect. Most people don't bother doing this. for example there are a lot of stores out there about the danger of radiation from Fukushima. But if you look at the people making these warnings, most don't have any education in physics, nuclear engineering or any hands on experience. These alleged dangers are scarring a lot of people and yet these same people will go to the dentist and doctor and not think twice about the X-rays they get.

Firstly, what reusable energy resources do people think are the best and most sustainable when considering alternatives to oil?

The best renewable will depend a lot on what you want to use it for. For example would batteries be a good power source for a cargo ship that travels between north america and Asia? While flow batteries could probably do it, biomass, biofuel and small nuclear would be much more practical.

Location also maters, While Solar thermal power plants with thermal storage makes a lot of sense for electricity production in a desert, It would make a very poor choice in Alaska. Wind, hydro, biomass, and biofuels make much more sense. Kodiak Alaska a few years ago got most of its power from diesel generator and one small hydroelectric facility. they recently refurbished and uprated the hydro facility and and installed a wind farm. Kodiak Alaska now gets 90% of there electricity from the wind and hydro facility. They plan to be at 95% next year when phase II of the wind farm is completed this year. A group in Australia has developed a renewable energy plan that if implemented will provide 100% of the nations electricity from solar thermal and biomass.

http://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-australia-2020

ftp://ftp.aidea.org/AEAPublications/2011_RenewableEnergyAtlasofAlaska.pdf

The best solution is always dependant on the need, constraints, and, what you want to do with it. In most cases there is almost never one best solution. Often there are a number of possible solutions. A good Engineer will get payed a lot of money to figure this out for his client. Some are good at it and others are not.

[Rune]

For those who do not want to buy Superfuel: The Green energy Of The Future, you can download the American Scientist article, Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (pdf) to get an overview of the history and the compelling reasons they should be pursued.

Robert Hargraves, Ph.D., is a retired executive and promotes the “Aim High!” vision of a world energy future powered by thorium and liquid-fluoride reactors. He is the co-author of the American Scientist article , Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors and teaches energy policy at Dartmouth’s Institute for Lifelong Education.

He sits on the Board of Advisors to Flibe Energy

[ROCKMAN]

Howdy Hedwig. To add to Plantagenet's fine answer: develop an cheaper energy source and you'll get a major shift. Don't and there will be no change IMHO. The dynamic has always been determined by economics. I see nothing changing the situation significantly.

[ROCKMAN]

Howdy Hedwig. To add to Plantagenet's fine answer: develop an cheaper energy source and you'll get a major shift. Don't and there will be no change IMHO. The dynamic has always been determined by economics. I see nothing changing the situation significantly.

[Rune]

Howdy Hedwig. To add to Plantagenet's fine answer: develop an cheaper energy source and you'll get a major shift. Don't and there will be no change IMHO. The dynamic has always been determined by economics. I see nothing changing the situation significantly.

You have to actually look if you want to see something!

Thorium: Energy Cheaper Than Coal

Thorium: Energy Cheaper Than Coal is a new book about two energy technologies that can solve global warming, sustainability, and energy poverty. Energy cheaper than coal is the only realistic way to dissuade 7 billion people in 250 countries from burning coal to make electricity. Thorium and the molten salt reactor provide the means to manufacture liquid fluoride thorium reactors

Environmental Context

The rising cost of energy concerns the public. The US annually imports $350 billion of oil from the unstable Persian Gulf.The world faces environmental crises:

1. Global warming is destroying glaciers that provide fresh water critical to millions and shrinking the cold polar seas essential for algae that start the ocean food chain.

2. Deforestation and desertification also dry up fresh water supplies.

3. Land to grow food is becoming scarce.

4. Fisheries are collapsing for tuna, cod, swordfish, and 40% of all other species.

5. 13,000 people in the US alone die annually from particulate emissions from coal power plants.

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is the main cause of many of these environmental crises. The world population of 6.7 billion people is growing unsustainably, leading to tragic competition for dwindling food, water, and energy resources that may lead to famine, plague, and war.

The US and other OECD nations' birth rates are less than the population replacement rates, illustrating how prosperity can lead to a sustainable world population. Nations with GDP per capita over $7,500 have birth rates of stable or diminishing populations.

Prosperity depends critically on energy. Electrical energy powers water supplies, sanitation,lighting, refrigeration,cooking, communications, and machines. Nations with annual per capita electric power of 2,000 kwh per year achieve the necessary prosperity for population stability. (The US number is 12,000.

Economists study the balance between the economic damage of carbon taxes against the economic damage of global warming. Raising carbon taxes too swiftly damages the total economy and future world prosperity. Europe’s $50 billion cap-and-trade spending did not stop CO2 emissions growth. Developing nations will not accept carbon taxes that limit their growth. Yet even global warming skeptics can support the economic benefit of energy cheaper than from coal.

The liquid fluoride thorium reactor solves these issues by

·Checking global warming, without carbon taxes, by undercutting the economics of coal power -- possibly the only way to stop developing nations from emitting CO2.

·Enabling populations of developing nations to afford the energy to achieve the modest level of prosperity that leads to smaller, sustainable populations.

LFTR Challenges

1.The nuclear power industry, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the US military all focus on the uranium/plutonium solid fuel nuclear power.

2.There is almost no political awareness of the thorium/uranium fuel cycle. [Recently, James Hansen, a well-known climate scientist from NASA and Columbia and advisor to President Elect Barack Obama, is recommending consideration of the LFTR.]

3.There is no US R&D funding, except less than $100,000 per year for molten salt research papers.

4.Significant R&D work is required, costing over $1 billion over 5 years to develop a prototype.

5.The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need to learn LFTR technology in order to license and regulate it.

Summary and Action Recommendation – Aim High!

The world suffers from environmental crises: global warming, pollution, and resource depletion, caused largely by excess CO2 emissions and by burgeoning population growth.

The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) can provide safe, nonpolluting energy to address these crises. We can develop this energy source by launching a NASA-style "shoot the moon" effort to solve the crises. President Kennedy's moon shot vision was accomplished in eight years. The Manhattan Project took three years. We can develop LFTR in five years.

[Pops]

In the rich world we are changing - using less, because oil isn't quite as free as it once was. The biggest energy development in the recent past, bigger than fusion (only 25 years away - still), bigger than tight oil or Syncrude is a price high enough to force conservation but not so high as to completely kill the economy. My worry some time back was that we'd hit a wall in production or worse, we'd round the peak from rising straight into falling production flows without time to start changing. As it's turned out, the regular increases these last 150 year have slowed the last 8 years and prices have not only risen but stayed high enough to give a pretty good signal for folks to reconsider their useage from lots of angles.

I'd say the best alternative to 133 energy slaves is fewer energy slaves, not a different color slave. The best action to take then is to conserve so as to be less dependent on the slave trade. By the same token the best action to take to influence others is exemplify a positive lifestyle using fewer slaves.

Back in my day big displacement engines and big fat tires were the thing, but then the embargoes came and my kids thought rice-burners and low profile tires were it... now my grandkids are coming of age and just aren't that into cars.. period.

[KaiserJeep]

To properly answer the question, look at what petroleum is used for:
(Source is US Information Administration for year 2012)

Gasoline 47%
Heating Oil/Diesel Fuel 20%
Jet Fuel (Kerosene) 8%
Propane/Propylene 6%
NGL & LRG1 6%
Still Gas 4%
Petrochemical Feedstocks 2%
Petroleum Coke 2%
Residual/Heavy Fuel Oil 2%
Asphalt and Road Oil 2%
Lubricants 1%
Miscellaneous Products 0.4%
Other Liquids 0.4%
Aviation Gasoline 0.1%
Special Naphthas 0.04%
Waxes 0.04%
Kerosene 0.02%

The highlighting is mine and represents the portion of petroleum used for vehicle fuels, everything from the 0.1% used for aviation gasoline to the 2% heavy fuel oil that includes the bunker fuel used by ocean-going ships, to the diesel grades used by trains and trucks, to the 47% used for gasoline. The fuel uses of petroleum total 77.1%, more than 3/4ths of the total.

So in the prior discussion you can pretty well discount any input that talked about electricity generation for the grid. YES, some of the 6% propane and 6% natural gas liquids are used for electrical generation, but they were not counted in the 77.1% total. Petroleum is primarily a light/medium/heavy vehicle fuel.

You could postulate a massive switch from gasoline and diesel for privately owned vehicles, to electric vehicles. However it has not happened yet, in 2012, out of 14,500,000 total vehicles sold in the US, only 71,174 were electrics. (Total includes battery electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, and plug-in hybrids.) Which means that after literally DECADES of government subsidies, electric vehicles hold a market share of UNDER 0.5%. Expressed differently about one out of every 200 cars sold.

Thorium fission, Helium-3 fusion (my own favorite), Uranium fission, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, etc. etc. do not directly substitute for petroleum as vehicle fuels. Biofuels based on ethanol are a total boondoggle, only possible due to intensive mechanized agriculture and government subsidies. That leaves used cooking oil, except we need that for heavy trucks that are transporting food.

One is led to the conclusion that after the oil ends so do cars, light trucks, motorcycles, and anything else privately owned. As gasoline and diesel become more dear, their uses will be limited to growing and transporting food - via ships, trains, and heavy trucks.

Get a bicycle or a horse for personal transportation. If you are a wealthy "one-percenter", you might own something like a Tesla Model S, which in the post-oil world will cost something like 100X the present cost - along with virtually everything else we buy.

If you are a "ninety-nine-percenter" like most of us, you will walk, bicycle, etc. from your residence and take public transportation, which will also cost about 100X the present cost if fueled by petroleum, or only about 20X the present cost if powered by the electric grid.

Hidden under the terms "Petrochemical Feedstocks" and "Propylene" above are the raw materials for virtually every plastic in use today. Plastic containers will be precious and not disposable. Medical uses of plastics will require that we return to reusable instruments and autoclaves, but at least we won't have medical waste problems anymore.

Given nearly unlimited energy, all the other applications other than vehicle fuels could be tackled one by one and substitutes found, I am certain. However, we will not have nearly unlimited energy, what we will have is petroleum fuels at 100X present cost and electricity at 20X present cost.

Also hidden in the wondrous list of petrochemicals above are the basis for virtually every chemical fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide we use on the soil we till with oil-powered machinery. Food is going to cost a LOT.

In short, it's a very different world. You will be poor, poorly fed, and in poor health. Still, as an American, you will be better off than most people in the world, although you will be cold and in the dark with barely enough to eat. Because midway in the petroleum production decline, most of the rest of the world starved.

[Synapsid]

Rune:

Two points about your list of attributes of LFTRs:

You state that those waste products that have no commercial value have half lives less than 30 years. That's nice, but some of them are intense gamma emitters and that makes dealing with the waste difficult.

Another point: "Thorium and its derivative fuel, uranium 233, are impractical and undesirable for weaponization efforts relative to well-known uranium enrichment and plutonium breeding pathways."
That sentence sounds like it was written by an administrator. Nevertheless, regardless what you look at it relative to, U233 works just fine in a fission bomb and that means there is a proliferation risk with LFTR just as there is with uranium and plutonium reactors. The key is separating the parent of U233, Pa233, from the decay scheme that will produce U232 and its gamma-emitting daughters. The Pa233 then decays to pure U233 and you are on your way. Several common separation schemes can do the job, and even a research reactor can perform the neutron-activating step that starts the decay of the thorium fuel. This subject is described in the 6 December 2012 issue of Nature in an article, referred to in a former post, written by four British nuclear engineers who are concerned precisely with the lack of attention paid to proliferation risk from thorium reactors.

From what I've read it seems to me that thorium reactors are definitely a better choice than any of the present types used or planned, but they should not be presented as a solution, or partial solution, to the problem of nuclear proliferation based on the technology in commercial nuclear reactors. Proliferation risk is still there.

[Rune]

It's so difficult to make a bomb from the thorium fuel cycle, you might as well build a regular old uranium enrichment facility.

So what are you suggesting? Greater use of fossil fuels? We should keep on burning coal? Mass sterilization? Global warming isn't really a problem? Dr. James Hansen is full of crap?

How ya gonna get people to quit f***ing and making babies?

Come on! The world needs clean energy. And LFTRs and MSRs have been shown to work great with minimal problems.

The Chinese are already on it. So is India. So is Sweden...

There is a vocal grassroots organization in the US. There is one in Europe...

You can even make liquid fuels with these things. There is a ton of stuff online to read.

Five years and a billion bucks for a prototype that the US could export so as to keep itself in the nuclear relevancy leagues.

It's just common-sense to have clean, cheap, safe energy.

[Synapsid]

Rune:

What I'm suggesting, if you're addressing me, is the last paragraph in my post.

[KaiserJeep]

What I'm suggesting is that any large power plant doesn't replace petroleum, which has a primary application as fuel in internal combustion engines for vehicles.

[Rune]

Rune:

What I'm suggesting, if you're addressing me, is the last paragraph in my post.

Proliferation risk is here NOW. Because the world has been led down the path of the Uranium fuel cycle. That risk isn't going away.

So why not reduce it -- dramatically!?

Also, why spend $25 billion on something like Yucca Mountain when LFTRs can burn the existing waste up - 99% of it - and make the remainder manageably storable over several hundred years -- and that money could go into RD&D??

Got a problem with electric cars? So build Solid Oxide Fuel Cell cars which incorporate whatever advanced bateries come down the pike.

SOFC double the efficiency over internal combustion engines. Save some weight and space. Throw a great battery on the car and augment the driveability with cheap, clean electrical power.

[Synapsid]

Rune,

You're right, proliferation risk isn't going away. In far too many pieces advocating thorium reactors that I have read, though, on the web and in print, thorium reactors are presented as being free of this risk, unlike other types of fission reactors. That is hype that is in error to boot, and the error is what I'm pointing out.

Commercial fission reactors of all types, including those based on thorium, carry risk of allowing nuclear proliferation. That's all, that's the message and it should not be ignored or contradicted in promotions of thorium reactors.

I will say again that thorium reactors seem to be the way to go, in preference to reactors based on other fuels.

[Rune]

Nuclear Ammonia

The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) has the potential to make electric power cheaper than from coal. Typical costs for electric power bought by US utilities average around 5-6 cents per kilowatt hour generated by coal, hydro, and natural gas sources. Government regulations are requiring utilities to buy solar- and wind-generated power at 20-30 cents/kWh. LFTR’s potential cost advantage of 3 cents/kWh is the economic incentive to stop burning CO2-emitting coal, without economically injurious carbon taxes and politically obscured feed-in tariffs. In this way LFTR can improve both the environment and the economy.

There is an additional way to benefit from LFTR’s inexpensive power — synthesizing liquid fuels to replace petroleum. The world gets 37% of its energy from petroleum, vs 21% from coal. A typical nuclear reactor power plant generates about 1 GW (1000 MW) of electric power. A large refinery produces 40 GW of power in the form of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Liquid petroleum fuels contribute to global warming yet are essential to the global economy. Their high energy density and portability make them attractive energy sources for vehicles such as cars, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes; these all carry their energy sources with them. We can use more LFTR-sourced power for more high speed electric trains and for more small short-range automobiles; we can use LFTR power plants to propel large ocean-going vessels. But we can’t electrify commercial airliners and trucks because they cannot carry heavy, bulky batteries with them.

But what happens if we stop burning coal? Project Green Freedom proposes capturing CO2 from air, but its density is only 0.035% of air. Nitrogen is plentiful in the atmosphere (78%) and returning it to the air is nonpolluting. Consider ammonia for fuel. Ammonia is the second most common industrial chemical...

Remember Matt Simmons? The guy who used to warn about the peak oil cataclysm approaching? Remember how he used to advocate using off-shore wind farms to produce ammonia liquid fuel?

No? Well, he did. It was a way to produce liquid fuels without all the CO2 emissions.

You don't HAVE to use wind farms to produce it though. You can use electrical energy from any source.

So, you could produce clean ammonia liquid fuel for cars and trucks using nuclear electrical energy.

You could also use electrical energy to enhance the Fischer-Tropsch method. Or use it to make liquid fuels from biomass.

These are simply readily accessible solutions to creating clean liquid fuel. I am not necessarily advocating this idea or suggesting that this WILL be done, I am just pointing out that liquid fuels are not really that problematic.

And since LFTRs could make electricity at around 3 cents/kilowatt/hr., this energy would, in turn, enable economically-viable liquid fuel alternatives to gasoline. You could oxidize ammonia in a fuel cell and keep the efficiency high.

Please read the entire link, though. It does much better justice to the argument than I can do here in this post.

And there are pretty pictures too.

[Rune]

Rune,

You're right, proliferation risk isn't going away. In far too many pieces advocating thorium reactors that I have read, though, on the web and in print, thorium reactors are presented as being free of this risk, unlike other types of fission reactors. That is hype that is in error to boot, and the error is what I'm pointing out.

I seem to remember that some damn country (was it Germany?) successfully or nearly successfully made a bomb beginning with Thorium as the raw stock.

But, if it has been done at all, it has only been done once because itLs just too much of a royal pain-in-the-ass when there is Uranium around.

Using the Thorium Fuel Cycle obtains U-233, which is not U-235. Those extra electrons make a BIG difference when it comes to manufacturing a critical mass of bomb-making material.

I could not accurately state exactly how much of a reduction in proliferation risk the use of Thorium would entail, but it is a BIG reduction in risk.Certainly no terrorist organizations would have the ability to make a bomb from material obtained from a Thorium Fuel Cycle nuclear facility.

Iran is having enough of a hassle trying to make enough enriched Uranium that old fashioned way. Could you reasonably expect that a county like Iran would deliberately try to make its task 100 times more challenging?

In the literature that I have read, it all just states that proliferation is not eliminated, it is just very, very difficult to make a bomb from Thorium. And who would bother with it if Uranium can be obtained?