[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

Andrew Mckee andymck35 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 27 02:23:48 UTC 2013


On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 08:07:29 +1200, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>  
wrote:


> All of today's reactors use only the rare U235 isotope, and that is only
> one part in140 of mined Uranium; Thorium has only one isotope and Thorium
> reactors can use 100% of it. But even so we are nowhere near to running  
> out
> of Uranium or Thorium, but there are other advantages to Thorium.
> ....

> ....
> Thorium reactors work at much higher temperatures than conventional
> reactors so you have better energy efficiency; in fact they are so hot  
> the
> waste heat could be used to desalinate sea water or generate hydrogen  
> fuel
> from water.
>
> Although the liquid Fluoride salt is very hot it is not under pressure so
> that makes the plumbing of the thing much easier, and even if you did  
> get a
> leak it would not be the utter disaster it would be in a conventional
> reactor; that is also why the containment building in common light water
> reactors need to be so much larger than the reactor itself. With Thorium
> nothing is under pressure and there is no danger of a disastrous phase
> change so the expensive containment building can be made much more  
> compact.

Sounds like there's a lot to like about them.

So why isn't anybody building thorium fueled power station(s)?



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