Thorium Power Is the Safer Future of Nuclear Energy. Nuclear power has long been a contentious topic. It generates huge amounts of electricity with zero carbon emissions, and thus is held up as a solution to global energy woes. But it also entails several risks, including weapons development, meltdown, and the hazards of disposing of its waste products. But those risks and benefits all pertain to a very specific kind of nuclear energy: nuclear fission of uranium or plutonium isotopes. There’s another kind of nuclear energy that’s been waiting in the wings for decades – and it may just demand a recalibration of our thoughts on nuclear power. Nuclear fission using thorium is easily within our reach, and, compared with conventional nuclear energy, the risks are considerably lower. Thorium’s Story. Ideas for using thorium have been around since the 1. US. But that program fizzled to a halt only a few years later. The answer is nuclear weapons. Gmail is email that's intuitive, efficient, and useful. 15 GB of storage, less spam, and mobile access. TheINQUIRER publishes daily news, reviews on the latest gadgets and devices, and INQdepth articles for tech buffs and hobbyists. American rapper and music producer Kanye West has released seven studio albums, two live albums, three video albums, four mixtapes, one hundred and ten singles and. The moths have been engineered by the British biotech firm Oxitec, the same company that last year caused a stir with its plans to release genetically modified, Zika. The Times of Northwest Indiana - the source for crime, business, government, education and sports news and information in the Region. It generates huge amounts of electricity with zero carbon emissions, and thus is held up as a solution to. The New York Times has collected podcasts for recent college graduates with advice on careers, personal finance, and “adulting.” As the last Millennials leave. ![]() What’s better than serving gin and tonics at a party? Having a whole gin and tonic bar, that’s what. A few weeks ago I went to an event for Beefeater in San.The 1. 96. 0s and ’7. Cold War and weaponization was the driving force for all nuclear research. Any nuclear research that did not support the US nuclear arsenal was simply not given priority. Conventional nuclear power using a fuel cycle involving uranium- 2. America’s dependence on foreign oil, and creating the fuel needed for nuclear bombs. Download the latest from Windows, Windows Apps, Office, Xbox, Skype, Windows 10, Lumia phone, Edge & Internet Explorer, Dev Tools & more. Thorium power, on the other hand, didn’t have military potential. And by decreasing the need for conventional nuclear power, a potentially successful thorium program would have actually been seen as threatening to U. S. Rather than wanting to make weapons, many global leaders are worried about proliferating nuclear technology. And that has led several nations to take a closer look at thorium power generation. How Thorium Reactors Work. The isotope of thorium that’s being studied for power is called Th- 2. Like uranium, Th- 2. A thorium reactor would work like this: Th- 2. In accepting a neutron from the beam, Th- 2. Th- 2. 33, but this heavier isotope doesn’t last very long. The Th- 2. 33 decays to protactinium- 2. U- 2. 33. The U- 2. To keep the process going, the U- 2. By contrast the neutrons that trigger U- 2. The process continues in a chain reaction and can be controlled or stopped only by inserting rods of neutron- absorbing material into the reactor core. But these control rods aren’t foolproof: their operation can be affected during a reactor malfunction. This is the reason that a conventional fission reactor has the potential to start heating out of control and cause an accident. A thorium fuel cycle, by contrast, can be immediately shut down by turning off the supply of neutrons. Shutting down the fuel cycle means preventing the breeding of Th- 2. U- 2. 33. This doesn’t stop the heating in the reactor immediately, but it stops it from getting worse. The increased safety of thorium power does not end there. Unlike the U- 2. 35 and plutonium fuel cycles, the thorium reactors can be designed to operate in a liquid state. While a conventional reactor heading to meltdown has no way to jettison the fuel to stop the fission reactions, a thorium reactor design called LFTR features a plug at the bottom of the reactor that will melt if the temperature of the reacting fuel climbs too high. If that happens the hot liquid would all drain out and the reaction would stop. Powered Up. Thorium power has other attractions, too. Its production of nuclear waste would be orders of magnitude lower than conventional nuclear power, though experts disagree about exactly how much: Chinese researchers claim it’s three orders of magnitude (a thousandth the amount of waste or less), while U. S. While uranium mines are enclosed underground and thus very dangerous for the miners, thorium is taken from open pits, and is estimated to be roughly three times as abundant as uranium in the Earth’s crust. But perhaps the most salient benefit of thorium power, in our geopolitically dicey world, is that the fuel is much harder to turn into a bomb. Thorium itself isn’t fissile. The thorium fuel cycle does produce fissile material, U- 2. But thorium would not be a very practical route to making a weapon, especially with LFTR technology. Not only would the proliferator have to steal the fissile U- 2. U- 2. 32, unless they had a robot to carry out the task. Future Fuel. China has announced that its researchers will produce a fully functional thorium reactor within the next 1. India, with one of the largest thorium reserves on the planet but not much uranium, is also charging ahead. Indian researchers are planning to have a prototype thorium reactor operational early next year, though the reactor’s output will be only about a quarter of the output of a typical new nuclear plant in the west. Norway is currently in the midst of a four- year test of using thorium fuel rods in existing nuclear reactors. Other nations with active thorium research programs include the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan, and Israel. There are some drawbacks to thorium fuel cycles, but they are highly technical. For instance, thorium reactors have been criticized as potentially having more neutron leak compared with conventional reactors. More neutron leak means more shielding and other protection is needed for workers at the power plant. And as in most types of alternative energy, thorium power faces a lack of funding for research and of financial incentives for power companies to switch over. In recent decades, stories about safe, green nuclear power in popular media have tended to focus on the quest for nuclear fusion. Certainly, we can expect, and should hope, for continued progress toward that type of power. But while that happens, the investments by China, India, and other countries suggest that thorium is en route to contribute to the grid in the near term – and to dramatically improve the world’s energy sustainability in the process. Top image by Martin Lisner / Shutterstock. Windows, Office, Xbox & More. For printers, cameras, network cards, and more.
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