THORIUM POWER

Alternative Nuclear and Molten Salt Reactors

David K. Moser

What is Thorium?

www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

Naturally occuring Thorium-232, pre-dates the Earth itself and was created in supernovae. Radioactive decay of Thorium produces a significant amount of Earths internal heat.

What is Thorium?

sciencelearn.org.nz

Half life of 14.5 BILLION years. A chunk of thorium is no more harmful than a bar of soap. Richard Martin, Energy Expert and Science Writer

How do we use Thorium?

Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR)
High-temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTR) Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) Fast Neutron Reactors (FNR) Accelerator Driven Reactors (ADS) Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)

Uses flibe salts, combination of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluorid Must take advantage of the thorium fuel cycle to be worth it!

Protactinium-233

Thorium-233 decays quickly to protactinium233.

Uranium-233

Protactinium-233 decays slowly over a month to U-233.

Thorium-233

Natural thorium absorbs a neutron from fission and becomes Th-233.

flibe-energy.com

U-233 fissions, releasing energy and neutrons to continue the process.

Thorium-232

LFTR Functionality
flibe-energy.com

Hot salt to heat exchanger

Addition al ThF4
UF6

UF6
Uranium Reduction Fluoride Volatility

Uranium AbsorptionReduction

Hexafluoride Distillation

HF

xF6

Recycled LiF-BeF2 Fluoride Volatility Vacuum Distillation

F
2

H2

HF Electrolyzer Internal continuous

Fissile liquid Fertile liquid salt fuel salt core blanket (LiF-BeF2(LiF-BeF2-ThF4) UF4) Cold salt from heat exchanger

MoF6, TcF6, SeF6, RuF5, TeF6, IF7, Other F6

Fission Product Waste

Scheduled external batch processing.

LFTR Functionality
Proven at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Alvin Weinberg. Original intent to develop nuclear aircraft. Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) ran successfully from 1965 to 1972 with both a 2.5 MW and an 8 MW setup.

www.ornl.gov

Plans were made for scalable reactors anywhere from MWs to GWs.

Why Thorium?

Data from eia.gov and iea.gov

Why Thorium?
Not only potent, but abundant! 13 ppm Thorium (twice average dirt) 4 ppm Uranium

www.made-in-china.com

The nuclear energy potential of 50 times the mass of the entire granite block in coal.

Thorium in Earths crust estimated at 120 TRILLION tons. Common mining byproduct, no need for new mines with demand already exceeded. Significant high-grade deposits in India, Australia, United States, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, Norway, Egypt, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and China.

Why Thorium?
USGS estimates 300,000 tons of reserves, half of which are easily extractable.

Considering only the easy stuff, thats equivalent to ~1 trillion b oil, 5x Saudi Arabias reserves.
www.usgs.gov

Why Thorium?
Excess heat can be used for water desalinization, cracking of H and ammonia generation for fuel cells, and much more. The salts are chemically stable and dont react with air or water. The reactor operates at atmospheric pressure, reducing risk during failure. Completely automatic shutdown in an emergency. Thermal spectrum operation with liquid salts eliminates meltdown possibility, in addition to allowing the fuel to be consumed entirely.
250t U (1.75t)

215t

35t

Enrichment yields 35t fuel and 215t depleted U. Spent fuel contains 33.4t U-238, .3t U-235, .3t Pu, and 1t other fission products. Waste lasts 10,000+ years.

Only fluorination required for 1t Th use. Thorium fuel cycle yields 100% conversion to fission products containing insignificant amounts of actinides. After 10 years 83% is stable and can be separated 1t for use, while remainder lasts

(1 GW for both)

Why Thorium?
LFTR fuels and byproducts are nearly nonproliferate. U-233 is weak in bombs, and also yields U-232, which is difficult to handle and easy to detect. Spent fuels and waste from other reactor types can be burned down into standard LFTR waste
iissvoicesblog.files.wordpress.com

Why NOT Thorium?!?

President Richard M. Nixon Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

www.archives.gov

www.history.navy.mil

Why NOT Thorium?!?

Alvin M. Weinberg 1915-2006 Gone the way of Wernher von Braun and the Saturn V rocket. Startup costs for first plant ~$1 billion. This doesnt include the vast commitment of funds and interest needed for significant testing, analysis, licensing, and regulation infrastructure for the new forms of fuel, fuel-cycle, coolant, waste and Will require significant industry stream, and materials. government support.
www.ornl.gov

Sources
http://www.eia.gov/ http://www.usgs.gov/ http://www.ornl.gov/ http://www.iea.org/ http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://flibe-energy.com/

http://energyfromthorium.com/ http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/ http://www.archives.gov/ http://www.history.navy.mil/

http://theenergycollective.com/ http://newenergyandfuel.com/