08-04-2012, 08:24 PM
|
|
|
Confirmed User
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,901
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Si
Any links to this? The Science sounds interesting. And anyway, I don't see why any of the big power companies couldn't just purchase the technology and keep power bills flat if it is true.
|
which part?
I didn't find any legitimate links to "thorium plasma batteries".
There are a lot of potential problems with thorium reactors, which in theory will work, but in practice have a number of problems yet to be solved.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ar-renaissance
Quote:
|
Fears of such a uranium shortage led India, which has limited natural supplies of the nuclear fuel, to explore another fissile element, thorium, as an alternative. Wrapping highly fissile plutonium in a thorium blanket could produce enough nuclear fuel indefinitely, according to the vision laid out by the architect of India's nuclear program, physicist Homi J. Bhabha, in 1954. The Indian government is currently building such a prototype fast breeder reactor, despite limited success with a precursor, said Princeton physicist M. V. Ramana during the IPFM call. "The cost of electricity is 80 percent higher than from heavy-water reactors," he added. Uranium prices would need to increase 15-fold from current levels of roughly $80 per kilogram to make it economically attractive.
|
so far, we can only start the thorium fission with plutonium as a trigger - and there are huge problems with plutonium, even tho one of the possible future energy systems is a plutonium economy with breeder reactors, the risks of plutonium are pretty major.
some extra links
http://www.americanscientist.org/iss...t-with-thorium
Quote:
|
Given the commercial failures of the thorium-based high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) and the demise of the thorium-based Shippingport light-water breeder reactor (LWBR), however, I don?t envision the liquid fluoride thorium reactor concept playing a central role. The developmental, technical, safety, regulatory and financial challenges are probably insurmountable.
|
http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...-thorium-dream
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamp...fire-possibly/
Quote:
?
Although not fissile itself, Th-232 will absorb slow neutrons to produce uranium-233 (U-233)a, which is fissile (and long-lived). The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated from the thorium, and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle. Alternatively, U-233 can be bred from thorium in a blanket, the U-233 separated, and then fed into the core.
?
In one significant respect U-233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. Given a start with some other fissile material (U-233, U-235 or Pu-239) as a driver, a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U-238 and plutonium (in normal, slow neutron reactors) can be set up. (The driver fuels provide all the neutrons initially, but are progressively supplemented by U-233 as it forms from the thorium.) However, there are also features of the neutron economy which counter this advantage. In particular the intermediate product protactinium-233 (Pa-233) is a neutron absorber which diminishes U-233 yield.
|
|
|
|