I'm just learning about this idea of Thorium as a replacement fuel source in nuclear energy production....anybody smarter than me know what the downsides are?

Lokium?

Ask Brotoro.

Thorium reactors are cool.




The disadvantage is that they are nuclear. They have scary neutrons in them. Scary, scary. People are afraid of nuclear, because it makes their little hearts go pitter-pat with fear.

Call them nucular. It's less scary.

But they're less scary, right? The waste material radioactivity is something like 300 years, versus the thousands of years produced by uranium waste. Not to mention that the material for fission is liquid instead of solid, meaning smaller plants, and easier cooling requirements.

I'm usually a guy that assumes if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This sounds too good, but I haven't found the "catch" yet. Do we have the capability to build a LFTR reactor tomorrow, or is there a scientific hurdle that hasn't been leapt yet?

Less scary? Do you mean are Thorium reactors less dangerous? Because that's a matter of rational evaluation of the dangers involved, whereas most people's fears of nuclear power are not based on rational evaluations.

We have less experience with building liquid fuel Thorium reactors than we have building and maintaining Uranium and Plutonium solid fueled reactors, so we know a lot about what degrades over time with the more conventional reactors. The experiments done with liquid fueled reactors certainly looked promising, however. But there is little incentive to get a new reactor design certified if there are more unknowns about it (it has taken a very long time to get the new designs for passively-cooled conventional reactors approved, even with decades of more applicable experience to draw upon).

Maybe the French will do it.

I've read the Indians are really pushing hard on it. I've heard Americans used to innovate.....once upon a time.

India has a lot of Thorium.

Short half-life isn't usually a good thing, because for those 300 years, it's putting out WAY MORE rads than something with millennia-long half-life.

Normal spent nuclear fuel has short half-life nuclides as well.

You just have to keep the stuff cool ...in water pools at first ...spaced out in dry casks later. PREFERABLY in some remote location, like Yucca mountain. NOT PREFERABLY all around the damn country at every nuclear power plant.

I got bored about 4 minutes into the video, but I'm ready to go ahead and roll it out.

I for one welcome our new Thorium overlords.

Dave Powell would know about Thorium. Too bad he isn't around anymore.

Dave Powell needs to get his ass back in here, that's what *I* say.

Indeed.

The question has been posed to him.

(Gee that sounds a lot more ominous than "Yeah, good idea, I sent him a message on Facebook")

I should ask my brother about this. He and Dave Powell went to Nuke School together.

Small world, huh?