Thorium-fuelled reactors might be the key to a safer, cleaner power supply Credit: Justin Randall
SYDNEY: Safer, cleaner nuclear power is a step closer to reality after Norway’s state-owned energy company, Statkraft, this week announced plans to investigate building a thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor.
Statkraft (which translates to “state power”) announced an alliance with regional power providers Vattenfall in Sweden, and Fortum in Finland, along with Norwegian energy investment company, Scatec AS, in a bid to produce the thorium-fuelled plant.
Thorium (Th-232), has been hailed as a ‘greener’ alternative to traditional nuclear fuels, such as uranium and plutonium, because thorium is incapable of producing the runaway chain reaction which in a uranium-fuelled reactor can cause a catastrophic meltdown. Thorium reactors also produce only a tiny fraction of the hazardous waste created by uranium-fuelled reactors (see ‘New age nuclear’, Cosmos, issue 8).
Statkraft, which is already Europe’s second largest producer of renewable energy – mainly thanks to Norway’s abundant hydroelectric resources – has recently made thorium-fuelled nuclear power a point of serious consideration. “It would be a sin of omission not to consider it,” said Bård Mikkelsen, CEO of Statkraft, in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.
To date, thorium has seen only limited application, such as by U.S. company, Thorium Power, which produces mixed uranium-thorium fuel for use in conventional nuclear reactors. However a reactor fuelled entirely by thorium would have significant advantages over conventional uranium or mixed-fuel reactors.
Besides their inability to go critical and their low generation of waste, thorium-fuelled reactors don’t suffer from the same proliferation risks as uranium reactors. This is because the thorium by-products cannot be re-processed into weapons-grade material.
Thorium also doesn’t require enrichment before use as a nuclear fuel, and thorium is an abundant natural resource, with vast deposits in Australia, the United States, India and Norway.
Another advantage of thorium-powered reactors is they can be used to ‘burn’ highly radioactive waste by-products from conventional uranium-fuelled power plants.
Over the past eight months, there has been a substantial rise in public support for thorium reactors in Norway. In June 2006, polls showed 80 per cent of the population were completely opposed to any form of nuclear technology. Then in February 2007, the same percentage were in favour of investigating thorium reactors as a potential energy source.
“It is an absolutely incredible surprise that it has been possible to turn around the population in a country, just by quietly campaigning and explaining the benefits of the technology,” said Egil Lillestøl, a nuclear physicist at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Lillestøl is a keen supporter of the ADS (Accelerated Driven System) technology used in thorium-fuelled reactors. Because thorium is incapable of achieving a self-sustaining chain reaction – unlike uranium or plutonium – it needs energy to be injected into the reactor to keep it running. This energy comes in the form of neutrons from a particle accelerator. For this reason, a thorium-fuelled reactor is also sometimes called a sub-critical reactor.
Statkraft is the third Norwegian company to express interest in thorium reactors this year; Thor Energi and Bergen Energi, have both applied for government licenses to build plants.
The announcement by Statkraft coincides with the first meeting of the Thorium Report Committee – an initiative commissioned by Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, in association with the Norwegian Research Council, to investigate the benefits and risks of thorium reactors.
The committee will submit its report at the end of 2007. Norwegian legislation currently bans the use of nuclear power, so the report is critical for gaining Government consent to build thorium plants in Norway.
“Norway has taken the lead on this. We are an energy nation; we have large supplies of thorium – not as much as Australia of course – but we have a very advanced energy industry, and we have a responsibility to the world,” said Lillestøl. “Without nuclear energy we will destroy the world, we will spend all the coal, oil and gas, and we will be left with an energy desert.”
Reza Hashemi-Nezad, a nuclear scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia agrees that thorium is a promising alternative energy source. However, while the European Union, India, the US, Japan and Russia are all working on thorium technologies, Australia is lagging behind.
“Australian industry is very interested in investing in this type of clean, safe and cheap nuclear energy,” says Hashemi-Nezhad. “But I am afraid that if Australian scientists and industry do not get adequate support from the government and research institutes in Australia, they may move offshore.”
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I really like the picture from Mr. Randall. It reflects the changing opinions (and in fact reality) that nuclear technologies do offer solutions to the complex and interdependent challenges of climate change and energy security; and furthermore that such solutions are feasible without the added burdens of significant waste generation or weapons proliferation.
All of this is well detailed in the article as is the opportunity for Australia to contribute – provided we have the foresight (we surely should have the motivation as indicated here and here).
Thanks for the article.
Ed
Given the fact that Australia has the world’s largest reserve of Thorium, it only makes sense to pursue a research program with the aim of producing a viable Thorium reactor. One initiative being explored world wide (US, Czech Republic, Russia) to develop Thorium technology is based on the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). This reactor design is quite innovative: it uses a mixture of molten Lithium and Beryllium Fluoride salts as the working fluid in the reactor. Added directly to these molten salts is a relatively small amount of Thorium and Uranium-233 Fluoride salts. The resultant salt mixture simultaneously works as a moderator, coolant, and fuel medium. As it happens, the technology was first successfully tested in the 1960s, but recent advances in materials, fuel processing, and energy recovery systems, have made the technology very compelling.
The advantages of such a technology are numerous:
In short, Molten Salt Reactors promise to be inherently safe, efficient and clean, and as such represent a significant departure from present designs. I believe that Australia, with its large Thorium reserves, would benefit immensely from such a technology.
A good resource for Molten Salt Reactor information may be found at the Energy from Thorium website, which contains an online reference library, a discussion forum, and a blog.
Sir,
Why bother with something that is still unsafe and dangerous. Hydrogen extracting from seawater is surely safer and cheaper solution, think lateral and live dangerous materials where they belong, underground!!James
It takes lots of energy to pull hydrogen from water. Where does this energy comefrom? So while hydrogen is a great fuel it is only really an energy conversion material: Put energy into water to get hydrogen, get some (less) energy out when you burn hydrogen.
We will need an actual energy generator to do all this. Nuclear, hydro & solar is really all there is. Any form of bio-mass energy is just solar in disguise.
A nuclear (fission or fusion) plant that would be used to produce hydrogen might seem to be a good idea until the distribution system is considered. Today nuclear energy is distributed by electrical wires. Fairly efficient. Soon this could be done with superconductors, more efficient.
But what if the nuclear plant were to output hydrogen? Could we just use a pipeline to send hydrogen from the plant to your house? Sure, this would work. Except for a problem: Hydrogen, being such a tiny molecule, can and often does escape thru the solid steel walls of pipelines at a considerable rate. This released hydrogen would then react with other materials in the atmosphere to produce very effective greenhouse gases.
So unless some very difficult engineering problems are solved hydrogen will never be a good solution to the energy problem.
Can somebody please get this article to the government.
It is an election year, and you never know what could
happen.
hydrogen is not the future, mentioning is silly.
Hydrogen is created by conventional fuel, with a loss %.
its not possible to make energy once with traditional fuel, then make hydrogen and with that energy make more hydrogen,
the cylce would be less energy each time, its no perpetuem mobile
hydrogen always needs to be created with energy from other sources.
tehrefor a nuclear start point woudl enable hydorgen production for small use such as in cars, u cant fit every car with a nulcear reactor aftehr all
Know your laws of thermodynamics before you post.
You write : Hydrogen extracting from seawater is surely safer and cheaper solution
Please explain to me how you intend to do this ?
With kind regards,
Evan in Norway.
evan@auen.no
Lief Erikson was radio active so have been all plants and animals from the beginning. The potassium in our blood exposes us and the people around us to radiation every day. It also comes from the earth and sky. Airplane flights result in substantial exposure above standard as do X rays. So far, far more people have been directly killed by by dam failures than by nuclear power plants, including Chernobyl. Automobiles kill far more people. Many, including polititians, have implied that radiation and nuclear power is far more dangerous than they know it to be and hide the fact that it is far less dangerous than many regular human activities, so that they can retain power or falsely promote some agenda. There is no such thing as nuclear waste only more or less concentrated forms of radiation than the soil around us. There are no spent fuel rods just some that are not suited for some form of reactor. With no chemical reprocessing, used light water fuel elements will yield more energy in a CANDU reactor than the elements now made of freshly prepared Uranium. In some cases the fuel does not even have to be removed from the original Zirconium tubes. The radiation from the sun kills thousands of people every year, but solar energy is considered safe and benign. Nuclear power has been demonized by people who don’t understand that the dangers of it are far less than most dangers including driving your own car or walking along a road. Burning gasoline from auto wrecks will kill far more people than the most dangerous accident of a truck transporting nuclear materials. A small propane tanker wreck can and has wiped out whole villiages. We have not yet built a SAFE town or even a safe single building. We, ourselfs, are not safe for others or ourself. Life is not perfectly safe, in fact, not at all safe; only death is. Nuclear reactors are safer than we ourselfs are but are still alive and bring aliveness to people. Even in Norway some people are dead because of the high price of oil, even if it was only because they died of working so hard to have enough money to fill the car’s tank or keep the house warm, and Norway produces more oil per inhabitant than almost any othe country. Electricity from nuclear plants may not be cheaper than that from coal in Australia, but it is far cheaper than that from any kind of petroleum. So go out and buy a new or old TH!NK and run your car from water falls or from imported nuclear power from France through Belgium or Holland on the newly installed cables….hg…
THORIUM RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YAY
it is only your opinion that these materials belong underground. progress can be difficult for narrow minded individuals like yourself…we either learn to embrace new ideas or in 100 years time our grandkids and great grand kids will be cursing our inability to change our ways
Not the first time it’s been suggested, like pumping water up hill then pass it through turbine to generate electricity, thus saving fuel in the generation process.
“Hydrogen is a perfectly clean fuel”
Produced either by electrolysis (requires lots of electricity) or from combining alkali metals with water (got to produce the metal first, again using lots of electricity) or from coal (basically 2C+2H2O -> 2H2+2CO2, endothermic, so even more CO2 is produced in providing heat for that reaction)
So whichever way you look at it Hydrogen is pretty “dirty”
Also – Half-lives.
The measure of time required for half the nuclei to break up. So, the shorter the half-life obviously the more intense the radiation, and the longer the half-life the less particles coming out per second.
So how come a longer half-life becomes equated with more virulence ???
The very reason there is less U235 than U238 in the world is that most of it already disappeared. So, Green-think tells us U238 is more dangerous because it has a longer half-life.
You don’t believe me? Haven’t you heard what they say about that awful, nasty, terrible, highly radioactive DEPLETED uranium ??
Oldgeek – I grew up
nuclear power has come a long way. it is safe, clean, & efficient. people tend to bring up chernobyl & three mile island but the reality is that three mile island caused no casualties & the people who had been exposed to this radioactivity received approximately the equivalent to a chest x-ray and chernobyl was a piece of shit reactor even by the standards of the 60s in soviet russia, it was a tragedy but a one time thing. these deaths don’t even compare to the amount of deaths that have occurred by mining for coal. since both those situations though, reactors have become much safer.
“Sir,
Why bother with something that is still unsafe and dangerous.”
Because it’s the safest form of energy, bar none. More people die from coal particulates every few days than ever have or ever will die from Chernobyl. Per unit quantity of energy produced more people die from installing and maintaining wind turbines and solar panels than from nuclear power(including chernobyl; if you just count western power plant it’s not even in the same league).
It’s interesting how many have heard of Chernobyl but never heard of Banqiao Dam; despite the latter destroying 6 million homes and killing ~160 000 people. I don’t see anyone calling for a moratorium on hydropower(except for the anti-humanists like sierra club that protest against all forms of power and any encroachment on nature, anywhere, for any purpose and by extension an end to human civilisation).
“Hydrogen extracting from seawater is surely safer and cheaper solution, think lateral and live dangerous materials where they belong, underground!!James”
Hydrogen gas is a USE of energy, not a means to PRODUCE energy. Thermodynamics is not a conspiracy invented by the oil companies to keep you down.
Technology is soultion to most critical issue whether it is efficiency of the system or its safe operation.
We need to move forward and try to “PROVIDE SOLUTION TO ISSUES AND DEVELOP TECHNOLOGIES” for future.
Sitting ideal and criticising others does not create bight future for any one.
Quote”Sir,
Why bother with something that is still unsafe and dangerous. Hydrogen extracting from seawater is surely safer and cheaper solution, think lateral and live dangerous materials where they belong, underground!!James”
You sound like last Generation’s Jane Fonda Wannabe. I would posit that The Thorium Process is not used in the U.S. and other countries currently for one reason only: It’s cleaner process is incapable of producing any significant Weapons Grade Material. I really appreciate you exposing your ignorance on the subject matter though. It just shows us that some of our well meaning brethren have been perhaps too successful in brainwashing everyone into believing flat out that “Nuclear is BAD! (grunt)” IF you were fighting against Uranium Power, I’d say you have a point. Extracting Hydrogen to use as a fuel may SEEM safe, but there are greater perils with massive bombs on wheels if using that as your only alternative for energy. you may suggest others and others are part of the comprehensive solution. But you are being narrow minded in not suggesting a more comprehensive explanation. So for you to categorically call something “unsafe” without explaining your understanding or lack thereof is the pinacle of ignorance and hypocrisy…
Well thought addition. It is helpful to know that some people are trying to get helpful information out. Despite the fact that your average person could not hope to comprehend what you point out without some help, those of us who do can help explain your answers in ways that they can understand. Keep up the good work!
Some of the posts here indicate that a year of physics should be required for high school graduation, and that it should be impossible to get a degree without one year of physics at the college / university level.
Perhaps the worst thing about people who lack even an elementary understanding of basic physics is that some of them are totally unaware of their incompetence. And, unfortunately, these people sometimes, through the political system, cause decisions to be made which make no sense.
It’s fine to explain to people that the laws of physics make their ideas impossible. However, in addition to doing that, I suggest recommending physics texts which they can read so that they will acquire a good knowledge of basic physics. Unfortunately, I don’t have a list of physics texts available, but perhaps some posters here can recommend suitable and readily available physics texts.
YES I AM AGREE WITH STATKRAFT’S CONCEPT ABOUT USING THORIUM 232 IN PLACE OF USING URANIUM IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.BECOUSE AFTER FEW YEARS WE LOSS ALL NATURAL ENERGY {“CRUDE OIL,COAL,NATURAL GAS,ETC……….”} SO WE HAVE TO WELL PREPAID TO FACE THE PROBLEMS……….
Take coal mining, which kills more than 10,000 people a year. Admittedly, a startling proportion of these deaths occur in mines in China.
But coal deaths don’t just come from mining; they come from burning it. The Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC – a nonprofit research group founded by influential environmental analyst Lester R. Brown – estimates that air pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 U.S. deaths per year. It’s also responsible for 554,000 asthma attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks annually.Coal is also radioactive: most coal is laced with traces of a wide range of other elements, including radioactive isotopes such as uranium and thorium, and their decay products, radium and radon. Some of the lighter radioactive particles, such as radon gas, are shed into the atmosphere during combustion, but the majority remain in the waste product – coal ash. so i don’t think “thorium 232 is dangerous in front of coal”.
And where do you get the energy to “extract hydrogen from water”? Doing this consumes energy, Sir, either in the form of electricity (electrolysis) or insanely high heat (as in the core of a nuclear reactor).
What is really possible is to use this marvelous nuclear energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then the hydrogen can be used to fuel cars, etc, eliminating the need for gas, and since no carbon-based fuels were burnt at any stage, the planet — and us — is saved.
At least not yet, according to a released statement in 2008 ->
http://www.statkraft.com/presscentre/press-releases/2008/incorrect-information-regarding-statkraft-and-thorium.aspx
I know it’s an old article but it’s misleading.
Good job
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