Thorium

[cantaloup63]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

So how come we're not investing in this technology and building thorium reactors, instead of the madness of erratic and unsightly wind turbines, or the even more crazy approach of importing electricity and gas from the continent?

 

[joe-90]

Why make difficult money when there's easy money in silly windmills?

 

[cantaloup63]

It's a complete outrage

 

[cantaloup63]

The UK doesn't seem to even manufacture them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers

So we lose money there too

 

[joe-90]

One thing that is for sure is that if wind farms ever become financially feasible - the price of electricity will be astronomical. They produce very expensive power because they need lots of maintenance and only work under certain weather conditions.

 

[cantaloup63]

One thing that is for sure is that if wind farms ever become financially feasible - the price of electricity will be astronomical. They produce very expensive power because they need lots of maintenance and only work under certain weather conditions.

Add in the current subsidy arrangements as well as the need to run back-up fossil fuel generators, then one has to question the sanity of those in favour of them

 

[joe-90]

They are a Red Herring to take people's minds off the fact that oil is irreplaceable and when it's gone - so are we.

 

[wreckedit]

This topic op about thorium reminded me of a ditty...

Thorium being named after the Norse God Thor was riding his bicycle through the clouds one day and shouting out..."I'M THOR, I'M THOR" like it was thunder and his bum was hurting. Then a little voice from below said "you've forgotten your thaddle thilly"

 

[pred]

This topic op about thorium reminded me of a ditty...

Thorium being named after the Norse God Thor was riding his bicycle through the clouds one day and shouting out..."I'M THOR, I'M THOR" like it was thunder and his bum was hurting. Then a little voice from below said "you've forgotten your thaddle thilly"

Which in turn reminded me of;

Zeus, the Greek god, flying over ancient Greece spotted a gorgeous naked woman washing by a lake. He went and made love to her, then told her, " in 9 months you will have a child and you will call him Hercules." She smiled and replied; "in 9 days you will have a rash and you will call it Herpes! now fc uk off!

 

[Nige F]

This topic op about thorium reminded me of a ditty...

Thorium being named after the Norse God Thor was riding his bicycle through the clouds one day and shouting out..."I'M THOR, I'M THOR" like it was thunder and his bum was hurting. Then a little voice from below said "you've forgotten your thaddle thilly"

When I saw these posts on Thorium - I did my best to ignori `em - An attempt to repress ode(s) got over rode - with the specific intent of boring `em ( the other posters, that is )

 

[cantaloup63]

Nige, Shouldn't you be posting that in susie's poetry corner up in word games?

PS - you're fired

 

[Space cat]

To get back to the original post, thorium does have advantages. Not only is it more abundant than uranium; it's all useable because there's only one naturally occurring isotope, namely Th232. Compare this to U235 which has to be separated out (enriched in common parlance) from the non-fissile U238. A thorium reactor also produces far less long-lived waste. So why did thorium reactors never really take off (no pun intended)? There are at least two reasons and the lack of long-lived 'waste' products was one of them.

Firstly, thorium fission is difficult for the simple reason that thorium isn't fissile. To make the thing work you have to add neutrons to your Th232 then allow the resulting Th233 to decay, by way of Pa233, into fissile U233. Now you can't just 'pour in' a bottle of free neutrons. You are dependent on the spare neutrons released by the U233 fission reaction to convert enough Th232 to keep the thing going. So a thorium reactor has to be primed in some way with an external neutron source - and if you let it 'go out' you have to start all over again.

Secondly - and probably more important - what a lot of people don't realize is that the development of nuclear reactors was driven entirely by the desire to make bombs and uranium was the way to go. The early magnox reactors were plutonium factories and what little power they put into the grid was a bonus that kept us all quiet.

 

[Alarm]

Not quite correct.

 

[Space cat]

Not quite correct.

Oops! Silly mistake. You're right; the Canadian heavy water cooled reactors run on natural uranium. In fact deuterium is such a good moderator that they can even use spent fuel from less efficient designs. The British magnox reactors also used natural uranium.