The story of the Thorium atomic bomb continues...

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter banned commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, citing concerns with the proliferation of technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons. And with the high startup costs of developing new reactors, there would be no place for the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor in the energy market. With the end of research on thorium reactors came the end of ambitious research on protactinium separations. Over time, the role of protactinium in obtaining weaponizable uranium 233 from thorium was largely forgotten or dismissed by the thorium community.

Thorium reactors born again. Fast forward to 2018. Several nations have explored thorium power for their nuclear energy portfolios. Foremost among these is India. Plagued by perennial uranium shortages, but possessing abundant thorium resources, India is highly motivated to develop thorium reactors that can breed uranium 233. India now operates the only reactor fueled by uranium 233, the Kalpakkam Mini reactor (better known as KAMINI).

Thorium reactors have other potential advantages. They could produce fewer long-lived radioactive isotopes than conventional nuclear reactors, simplifying the disposal of nuclear waste. Molten salt reactors offer potential improvements in reactor safety. Additionally, there is the persistent perception that thorium reactors are intrinsically proliferation-resistant.

The uranium 233 produced in thorium reactors is contaminated with uranium 232, which is produced through several different neutron absorption pathways. Uranium 232 has a half-life of 68.9 years, and its daughter radionuclides emit intense, highly penetrating gamma rays that make the material difficult to handle. A person standing 0.5 meters from 5 kilograms of uranium 233 containing 500 parts per million of uranium 232, one year after it has been separated from the daughters of uranium 232, would receive a dose that exceeds the annual regulatory limits for radiological workers in less than an hour. Therefore, uranium 233 generated in thorium reactors is “self-protected,” as long as uranium 232 levels are high enough. However, the extent to which uranium 232 provides adequate protection against diversion of uranium 233 is debatable. Uranium 232 does not compromise the favorable fissile material properties of uranium 233, which is categorized as “highly attractive” even in the presence of high levels of uranium 232. Uranium 233 becomes even more attractive if uranium 232 can be decreased or eliminated altogether. This is where the chemistry of protactinium becomes important.

Protactinium in the thorium fuel cycle. There are three isotopes of protactinium produced when thorium 232 is irradiated. Protactinium 231, 232, and 233 are produced either through thermal or fast neutron absorption reactions with various thorium, protactinium, and uranium isotopes. Protactinium 231, 232, and 233 are intermediates in the reactions that eventually form uranium 232 and uranium 233. Protactinium 232 decays to uranium 232 with a half-life of 1.3 days. Protactinium 233 decays to uranium 233 with a half-life of 27 days. Protactinium 231 is a special case: It does not directly decay to uranium, but in the presence of neutrons it can absorb a neutron and become protactinium 232.

Neutron absorption reactions only occur in the presence of a neutron flux, inside or immediately surrounding the reactor core. Radioactive decay occurs whether or not neutrons are present. For irradiated thorium, the real concern lies in separating protactinium from uranium, which may already have significant levels of uranium 232. Production of protactinium 232 ceases as soon as protactinium is removed from the neutron flux, but protactinium 232 and 233 continue to decay to uranium 232 and 233, respectively.

The half-lives of the protactinium isotopes work in the favor of potential proliferators. Because protactinium 232 decays faster than protactinium 233, the isotopic purity of protactinium 233 increases as time passes. If it is separated from its uranium decay products a second time, this protactinium will decay to equally pure uranium 233 over the next few months. With careful attention to the relevant radiochemistry, separation of protactinium from the uranium in spent thorium fuel has the potential to generate uranium 233 with very low concentrations of uranium 232—a product suitable for making nuclear weapons.

The story of the Thorium atomic bomb continues overleaf

Yes JuLiar,
U233 is a fissile material that has actually been used to make an atomic bomb by the Indians.
But what is your point of contention?
Maybe you are just trying to educate us?

Thorium is the answer to all our problems.
Cheap unlimited energy.
I am sure that the next 10,000 years will be called the Thorium age.

As I suggested, the Lunatic Extremist Greenies are campaigning already to BAN the evil Thorium Devil Juice!!!!



"How do I know if my preferred "green" organization, or group, or leader... is infected by the 'thorium church' trojan horse?". How to protect yourself from malicious propaganda of Thorium Church or from related compromised group or organizations.

Thorium Church: a trojan horse in the "green" movements. Here the Removal Tool.
By Massimo Greco (June 2015)


     
What are trojan horses?

Trojan horses, otherwise known as trojans, are programs or applications that are inadvertently opened by the user, who expects the file to be something else..  by the same way "thorium supporters" are infecting forums, mailing list, debacts and environmental organizations.

It's a strategy that is working in progress from some year. In few years they infected large part of the web.

Like any malware, thorium's priests are insinuated through any open space or open port .. and they are able to act at different levels. Mutating depending on the circumstances, improvising them selves as technicians or economists with the sole purpose of creating deviationism which in practice consists of annoying redirect to their cause that is regularly touted as a "green" solution or, even, "pacifist" or as a miraculous solution for the "salvation of the climate".

Their function is aggressive, especially when you try to contradict them. They always want to have the last word in any discussion, obsessively, and only when it is too late you will realize how they can make you loosing your precious time. At that point you will no more than take note that they have achieved their goal. The infection has taken place and yours space is compromised. Whether it on youtube, any social network, forums or in any blog ... it makes no difference: the malware is mutant. And in this, their behavior is very reminiscent of the deviationist hysteria typical of the fanatics of "chemtrails". And this is not a "coincidence". In fact one of several strategies, probably the most important, of the priests of thorium, has been to adopt the method of the conspiracy. Internet is full of delusions offering thorium as ecological way prevented by the famous NWO .... This was the most successful strategy in the work of proselytism in previous years, because it could involve a considerable number of idiots on the net.

Read the rest of the Lunatic Extremist Greenies' plot to keep Australia energy poor here

http://www.nonukes.it/rna/news326.html

An oldy but a goody which explains in easy terms why there are almost no thorium reactors.

Thorium is far from being a benign Gift from God having its private share of hazards just like uranium reactors.





Don't believe thorium nuclear reactor hype
By Noel Wauchope | 27 January 2013, 5:33pm

Thorium reactors are the latest big thing in nuclear spin. Noel Wauchope says: don't believe the hype.


Thorium pie in sky

Thorium reactors are the latest flavor in nuclear power hype.

According to their enthusiastic proponents, these reactors will be “smaller, safer, cheaper, cleaner”, will take over the energy market in great numbers, and

...will  reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.

Yet the present situation of thorium nuclear reactors is a confusing one. While on the one hand, thorium as a nuclear fuel, and thorium reactors are being hyped with enthusiasm in both mainstream media and the blogosphere, the nuclear lobby is ambivalent about this.

The explanation becomes clearer, when you consider that the nuclear industry has sunk $billions into new (uranium or plutonium fuelled) large nuclear technologies, as well as into lobbying governments and media.  Would big corporations like Hitachi, EDF Westinghouse, Toshiba, Areva, Rosatom be willing, or indeed able, to withdraw from the giant international operations that they already have underway? Would they, could they, tolerate a mass uptake of the new thorium nuclear reactors — which is what would be needed, to make the thorium market economical?

Yet, the nuclear lobby, in Australia and overseas, doesn’t just tolerate the thorium hype, they participate in it — although with not as much enthusiasm as the diehard thorium fans.

Now, why is this?

The answer lies in just one concept — time. It is going to take many decades to  get the thorium fuel cycle happening. The global nuclear industry has the twin goals of prolonging the life of currently operating nuclear reactors, and of building new ones. Their rationale for this is often that, eventually, the energy solution will be nuclear fusion. So in the meantime, the world needs nuclear power — or so they argue.

But nuclear fusion is still little more than  a super-expensive glint in the eye of nuclear boffins. Some other dream is needed — something  that looks a bit more like it might happen. The thorium excitement fits the bill as, once again, the public can be made to believe that, after all the disasters and disappointment, now there really is safe, cheap  nuclear power.

The thorium advocates usually promote thorium reactors as a solution to both climate change and energy needs. But in reality, thorium nuclear energy is irrelevant to both.

Again, the first reason is time. Although there are current designs that could be established in 10 to 15 years, the most favored design – the  Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) – is estimated to have, for a significant deployment, a lead time of 40 to 70 years.

In the meantime, renewable energy – notably wind and solar technologies – are being developed and deployed at a fast rate.

Read the enlightening but depressing rest here

https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/dont-believe-th...

juliar wrote on Apr 15^th, 2019 at 3:00pm:



That's rubbish JuLiar,
there was already a working Thorium reactor in 1967.
Read my thread about it.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1519823686/0
make you comments there!

Thorium initially seems fantastic but the gloss soon wears off in actual attempts at producing a practical design.



THORIUM VS. MOLTEN SALT REACTOR
MARKET INTELLIGENCE | 12/18/2018 | BY CANON BRYAN

To a limited group of technophiles and nuclear technology enthusiasts, thorium has become a unicorn. But does thorium really represent nuclear innovation?

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA developed the Molten Salt Reactor design – a liquid salt fueled and cooled nuclear reactor system. They designed it, they prototyped it, and they operated it. The experiment was called the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, or MSRE. The MSRE used a thorium fuel cycle.  It used a lithium beryllium fluoride coolant salt mixture, called FLiBe. It used a graphite moderator. It used a special material called Hastelloy N – a nickel alloy developed specifically to withstand the harsh environment.

The experiment was a great success. It proved that this liquid fuel system could facilitate nuclear fission, and that it was tremendously stable, and easy to operate. Dick Engel, the project manager, even called it “boring” because the engineers had virtually nothing to do while it operated.

At the rudiments of the technology lay the liquid fuel. Liquid nuclear fuel-coolant, the MSRE discovered, was a much more efficient mechanism for capturing the immense heat from fission than solid fuel/water coolant. Salt coolant was a much more versatile coolant, with a huge thermal range, compared to a water coolant, and capable of storing and easily conveying that immense heat from fission.

The thorium-232/uranium-233 fuel cycle that was used in the MSRE was a departure from the uranium-235/uranium-238/plutonium-239 fuel cycle that was being used in the Light Water Reactor design, also invented by the Americans. The LWR was being used in the US Navy submarine program, and by the mid-1950s, started to be used in commercial power plants. Thorium, it was projected, could have some advantages over uranium, particularly in a liquid fuel application.

In order to make thorium fuel, Th232 must either be blended with U235 or Pu239, or it must be bombarded with neutrons to make a supply of U233, which is also fissile. The Th232 and U233 is then blended to create a fuel that is capable of achieving criticality. Since the dawn of the atomic age, there have been a small handful of commercial applications of a thorium fuel cycle.

In order to make commercial nuclear fuel, U235, which is about 0.7% of naturally-occurring uranium, must be concentrated to between 3% and 5% of the uranium fuel element. This is not so easily achieved either, but there is a multi-decade legacy of uranium enrichment. The fuel cycle is well-understood by regulators, operators and the supply chain.

What are the advantages of thorium?

Thorium is abundant. That is certainly an advantage it has over uranium. It is abundant and broadly geographically dispersed and easy to extract from nature. Unlike uranium, thorium is found in great concentrations right on the surface of the earth, most commonly, in black sand beaches.

Thorium is not fissile, which means that thorium by itself could never possibly be weaponized. However, because it is not fissile, it means that thorium always requires fissile material to make fuel, and that creates new proliferation risks.

This is where the actual advantages of thorium end. All the other advantages commonly attributed to thorium are actually advantages of a Molten Salt Reactor – not of thorium itself. These virtues became conflated with the Molten Salt Reactor design. Because of the fact that thorium fuel was used, enthusiasts rediscovering this technology 40 years later have misplaced the rudiments of the innovation.

Molten Salt Reactors have tremendous safety, waste and proliferation virtues, which translate into substantial commercial virtues.  The following is a non-exhaustive list:

Fluoride salts have an approximately 1,000C range in which they stay liquid – neither freezing nor boiling;
Fluoride salts operate naturally at high temperature, obviating the need for immense pressure in a reactor vessel;
Fluoride salts are chemically very stable and inert, eliminating the risk of chemical explosions in a reactor system;
A liquid fuel is inherently easier and cheaper to chemically process, thereby creating a pathway for total nuclear waste elimination.
There are many others. These advantages are specific to Molten Salt Reactors, and not to thorium fuel.

The thorium enthusiasts will certainly find this controversial. However, if the goal is eliminating energy poverty and pollution, one must accurately assess the source terms of nuclear innovation.  The mystical nature of thorium has served its purpose by attracting all walks of life to develop an interest in advanced nuclear technology – including myself.  Now the market must focus on the most pragmatic way of commercializing true nuclear innovation.

https://4thgeneration.energy/thorium-vs-molten-salt-reactor/

Hi JuLiar,
I have copied your last 3 posts here:
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1519823686/90#95

as I want to go into this in more detail.
It will take a long time and I don't know if the readers would appreciate it?.