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Why Thorium? 21. India is having an ambitious Thorium program, planning to meet 30% of its electricity demand via Thorium based reactors by 2050.

India has an active Thorium program. • India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power program and did at one time expect to have 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000 MWe by 2032, but being India and subject to Indian bureaucracy and economic limitation the goals tend to get delayed. It aims to supply over 30% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050. • Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons program, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, which has hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009. • Due to these trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium. • Now, foreign technology and fuel are expected to boost India’s nuclear power plans considerably. All plants will have high indigenous engineering content. • India has a vision of becoming a world leader in nuclear technology due to its expertise in fast reactors and thorium fuel cycle. • India’s Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world’s first reactor which uses thorium rather than depleted uranium to achieve power flattening across the reactor core. India, which has about 25% of the world’s thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype was fully operational by 2012, following which five more reactors will be constructed. Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India’s new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons. As accelerator-based systems can operate at sub-criticality they could be developed too, but that would require more research. India currently envisages meeting 30% of its electricity demand through thorium-based reactors by 2050.

“[F]ast reactors can help extract up to 70 percent more energy than traditional reactors and are safer than traditional reactors while reducing long lived radioactive waste by several fold,” Yukiya Amano, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, explained to the Times of India.

Uranium isn’t common in India, but the country has the second largest store of Thorium, so the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in Kalpakkam uses rods of that element.

Arun Kumar Bhaduri, Director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, told the Times of India that the technology is safe: “[F]ast breeder reactors are far safer than the current generation of nuclear plants.”

With the PFBR, India is pioneering a kind of nuclear technology that could potentially be the country’s greatest renewable energy source. That’s a big step, especially since nuclear fission remains the only kind of nuclear reaction we’ve managed to sustain, though efforts to make nuclear fusion viable are still in the works.

India used the heavy water, natural Uranium method to produce its Plutonium Nuclear bombs. This is not the cheapest way to produce Nuclear Bombs, but it worked for India as they refused to join the Nuclear proliferation treaty. This technology works slightly better with Thorium rods, as long as a Plutonium sparkplug is provided, but U-233 is not well suited to make nuclear bombs, so the reactors became available. It is very old technology, but it has given India good experience with the Thotium-U-233 breeding, and modern fast breeders is the next step. U.S. should immediately join their development efforts and start very close cooperation developing modern Thorium based reactors.

Why Thorium? 20. Russia has an active Thorium program.

Russia has an active Thorium program.This used to be true, but it was decided that for the Arctisc buildup this barge (below) would be outfitted with regular nuclear power the same type that are in Russia’s nuclear powered ice breakers.

This is a self-contained 7m MW electric or 200 MW heat cogeneration Nuclear Reactor on a barge. Coolant readily available. Hoist it a couple of cables and the town to be serviced will have all the power and heat it needs. This is especially useful in the Arctic. Russia is trying to establish Arctic domination, both commercially and militarily. They have over 30 ice breakers, about half of them nuclear. U.S. has two conventional ice breakers, of which only one is operational.

Now for the good news: Russia is also trying to commercialize hybrid fusion-fission reactors:

Nuclear Engineering International: 29 May 2018

Russia develops a fission-fusion hybrid reactor.
A new fission-fusion hybrid reactor will be assembled at Russia’s Kurchatov Institute by the end of 2018, Peter Khvostenko, scientific adviser of the Kurchatov complex on thermonuclear energy and plasma technologies, announced on 14 May. The physical start-up of the facility is scheduled for 2020.The hybrid reactor combines the principles of thermonuclear and nuclear power – essentially a tokamak fusion reactor and a molten salt fission reactor. Neutrons produced in a small tokamak will be captured in a molten salt blanket located around tokamak. The facility will use Thorium as a fuel, which is cheaper and more abundant than uranium. Moreover, unlike a fusion reactor, a hybrid will not require super high temperatures to generate energy.

A new paper describes computer simulations of a hybrid fusion-fission reactor that runs on thorium.
Thorium has benefits compared with uranium reaction and has been endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
In the reactor, plasma fusion generates neutrons that fuel subsequent fission.

Hybrid reactors reduce the impact of the nuclear fuel cycle on the environment. The concept combines conventional fission processes and fusion reactor principles, comprising a fusion reactor core in combination with a subcritical fission reactor. The results of the fusion reaction, which would normally be absorbed by the cooling system of the reactor, would feed into the fission section, and sustain the fission process. Thorium in a molten salt blanket will enable breeding of uranium-233.

Some of the expected advantages include:

Utilization of actinides and transmutation from long-lived radioactive waste;
An increase in energy recovered from uranium by a large factor;
The inherent safety of the system, which can be shut down rapidly; and
High burnup of fissile materials leaving few by-products.

The hybrid fission-fusion reactor is seen as a near-term commercial application of fusion pending further research on pure fusion power systems.

This is very interesting, and I will follow up when I get more information.

It seems that with the Ukraine war, Russia is preoccupied with other things than to reduce nuclear waste. Ah well.

Day 167 of reading the Holy Bible in 365 days.

Acts 11 . The Jews did not like that gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit, but Peter explained God’s grace. Barnabas went looking for Saul and when found they went together to Antioch. It was there the believers were first called Christians, and it was from there they sent relief to fellow believers in Judea via Barnabas and Saul.

1 Chronicles 18 lists David’s victories and his officials.

1 Chronicles 19. Wars continued, the Ammonites and the Syrians were defeated.

1 Chronicles 20. Wars went on and on. Rabbah was conquered and the Philistine giants were destroyed.

1 Chronicles 21. David took a census of Israel and Judah. This was a great sin and the LORD gave David three options how the country should be punished. David chose to be in the hands of the LORD, and the nation was punished by being visited by the angel of the LORD. The angel stopped at Araunah’s threshing floor, the future site of the Temple.

Day 166 of reading the Holy Bible in 365 days.

Acts 10. Cornelius, a Roman centurion called for Peter to come. That same day Peter had a vision about eating all food, including unclean food. Peter protested, but the voice in the vision told him “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.“ Peter followed Cornelius’ servants from Joppa to Caesarea, where he met Cornelius and presented the Gospel to Cornelius’ household. They all believed, the Holy Spirit fell on them and they were baptized, and so they became the first gentiles to be converted.

1 Chronicles 16. The Ark was placed in the Tabernacle, and David’s song of thanksgiving is recorded. After that the regular worship resumed.

1 Chronicles 17. David wanted to build a temple for the Lord rather than the tabernacle, and God’s covenant with David was that his son would be allowed to build it.

Why Thorium? 19. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will lessen the need for an expanded national grid.

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will lessen the need for an expanded national grid. The National Electric grid is at the breaking point. It needs to be expanded, but neighborhood resistance is great in many areas where they need an expanded grid the most. The grid is also sensitive to terrorism activities.

As we can see the national grid is extensive. It is also under severe strain at peak demand. Wind power will only increase the strain since most wind power is generated where few people live and work. A way to lessen the dependency on the national grid is to sprinkle it with many small to medium sized Thorium Nuclear Power generators. They can be placed on barges in rivers and along the coast where the need is greatest, giving the grid maximum flexibility to respond in case of an emergency. LFTR’s do not depend on water for their cooling, so they can be placed anywhere, even in extreme arid areas. Since LFTR can be placed very close to urban centers, transmission losses are kept low. (The Texas grid is separately controlled from the rest of the grid.)

With the present push to convert energy sources to green energy, Thorium Nuclear energy is greener than both solar and wind energy if one includes the necessary mining to extract the materials needed for both solar and wind power. In addition thw wind blows where few people live or want to live, and the electric need is largest in the winter in the north when the sun is largely absent and the snow covers the solar panels, and the need in the south is largest in the summer when the wind blows less except for storms and hurricanes. This requires long transmission lines, and the grid is divided up in sections. The only way to solve this is to expand the grid through a HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current Network. This will be done through 1 MV cables, preferably using existing railroad rightaways when possible. One proposal is shown below. This would connect the Eastern, Western and the Texas network and significantly lessen transmission losses. (Transmission losses in the U.S. electrical grid is more than 50 Billion dollars yearly)

Transmission losses in a HVDC network are far less. Better yet is to place the energy source near the energy consumer. LFTR Thorium power would solve this problem. As we switch from gasoline powered to electric cars, the need to expand the grid will be more and more urgent, and the resistance to build more transmission lines is already great and growing, especially in already overloaded urban areas.

Why Thorium? 18. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will work both as Base Load and Load Following power plants.

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors will work both as Base Load and Load Following power plants. LFTR’s operate at a much higher temperature than conventional power plants and operate at up to 45% electricity conversion efficiency, as opposed to 38% or lower for steam generators. In addition, because of the higher operating temperature it is ideal for hydrogen generation. The reactor would use the electricity generation to satisfy the current demand and produce hydrogen during times of low demand. This hydrogen would be temporarily stored and used for electricity production at peak demand. And hydrogen fuel cells produce only water whenoxidized, no CO2 or polluting fumes are generated. With the objective of reducing the cost of hydrogen production, solid oxide electrolyser cells (SOECs) are especially well suited. SOECs operate at high temperatures, typically around 800 °C. At these high temperatures a significant amount of the energy required can be provided as thermal energy (heat), and as such is termed High temperature electrolysis.

Many years ago, I worked in a bakery as a helper, and we had a stone oven, heated at night when the electricity rates were a fraction of day rates, and in the morning when the oven was hottest we baked danishes, followed by buns, ended up with bread and cookies as the day wore on. Stone ovens make really good bread. Stone storage can store a lot of heat. They are used as heat storage in solar concentrators, up to 100 GWh. there may be a great future for heat storage with Thorium Nuclear plants. When demand is low it is kept at full temperature, up to 550 C and the gas, normally run through a generator is heating the storage tank or building, ready to be providing heat for the generators at high demand. This would help to limit the need for large batteries to stabilize electric output and provide fast response to varying load demands.

Day 165 of reading the Holy Bible in 365 days.

Acts 9:23-43. After Saul was converted, the Jews in Damascus decided to kill Saul, but he escaped at night by being lowered out through a window, hidden in a basket. Saul then went to Jerusalem. The believers were at first suspicious of him, but Barnabas told what had happened to Saul, and accepting Saul’s conversion the Church Prospered. Later Saul healed the paralytic Aeneas, and in Joppa a woman named Tabitha (or Dorcas) died. The believers immediately called for Peter, and he uttered the words “Tabitha cumi” and she rose up again.

1 Chronicles 13. The Ark was brought from Kirjath Jearim to the family of Obed-Edom the Gittite. “And the ark of God remained with the family of Obededom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the house of Obededom, and all that he had.“

1 Chronicles 14. David was firmly established at Jerusalem. After asking God if he should wage war with the Philistines he went to battle with his growing army and defeated them.

1 Chronicles 15. The Ark was brought to Jerusalem in a great procession with music and dancing. When David’s wife Michal, daughter of Saul saw David dancing in the street at the joyous occasion, she despised him.

Day 164 of reading the Holy Bible in 365 days.

Acts 9:1-22. On the road to Damascus Saul was Converted. Ananias met up with Saul and from that time on Saul preached Christ.

1 Chronicles 11. David was made King over Israel, after which he conquered Jerusalem and it was from then on called the City of David (as opposed to the town of David, which is Bethlehem). The chapter also lists David’s mighty men, describing some of their deeds.

Why Thorium? 17. No need for evacuation zones, Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors can be placed near urban areas.

No need for evacuation zones, can be placed near urban areas. Molten Salt Thorium reactors operate at atmospheric pressure and have a very high negative temperature coefficient, so there is no risk for a boil-over. They are easily made earthquake-safe and no pressure vessel is needed. This will greatly simplify the approval process, no need for elaborate evacuation plans have to be developed. Since the Three Mile Island accident there was a thirty year gap in approvals for new nuclear plants. The “not in my backyard ” mentality reigned supreme, and delay and denial was the rule of the years. But the lawyers still got their share, leading to escalating cost for new nuclear power. In the early days of nuclear power France took the approach of building some of their nuclear plants near the Belgian and German border, so they only had to develop half of an evacuation plan, leaving the other half to their ‘understanding’ neighbors. It also lead to placing the nuclear plants where there was least popular resistance, not where they were needed the most, adding to the strain and efficiency losses on the electric grid. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors have one additional advantage. They do not need access to water, so they can be placed even in desert areas. When a coal fired, or even a natural gas fired plant is decommissioned, it can be replaced in the same place, the electric connections are already there, so there is no need to go through lengthy and costly eminent domain processes ‘to acquire more land, or even expand the electric grid for that location. Thorium power is clean power.

Why Thorium? 16. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Nuclear reactors scale beautifully from small portable generators to full size power plants.

Thorium Nuclear Power generators scale beautifully from small portable generators to full size power plants. One of the first applications was as an airborne nuclear reactor.

Granted this was not a Thorium breeder reactor, but it proves nuclear reactors can be made lightweight. Thorium reactors can be made even lighter as long as they are not of the breeder type.

Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Argonne national laboratories are designing a self-contained nuclear reactor with tamper-resistant features. Called SSTAR (small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor), this next-generation reactor will produce 10 to 100 megawatts electric and can be safely transported on ship or by a heavy-haul transport truck.

This type of reactor can be transported to disaster areas, and provide emergency power, during rescue and rebuilding efforts. This particular reactor still uses solid fuel and steam heat exchanger. A LFTR reactor with a supercritical CO2 gas heat exchanger would be even more compact and efficient.

From these compact designs, Thorium power can be scaled up to any size. The LFTR reactor will be placed on barges and left moored in navigable rivers or in ocean harbors. This will typically be a one or two 250 MW LFTR with reprocessing capabilities. Where there is only road access the LFTR’s will be one or up to six 100 MW LFTR with one reprocessing fuel capability servicing the nuclear units one at a time on a rotary basis. These will come as complete units tested and ready for use on a number of trucks. It is to be noted that no water is necessary for cooling. There can also be 5 and 10 MW power units for freight trains and large towboats. They will not have reprocessing capabilities on board, but will be serviced regularily by refueling and reprocessing stations in key locations. Oceangoing ships will be fitted with LFTR reactors with reprocessing capability. When all of this is done the need for diesel fuel for nearly all shipping by train, barge or ship will be nearly eliminated.

Admittedly there are security risks associated with this arrangement. Locomotives and barges can be stolen, ships can be hijacked, when the whole reactor vessel came on a truck it can be stolen. By having minimum fuel at all time, it increases safety, but it also makes it possible for terrorists and common thieves to steal shipments of fuel and fissile by-products. This means that there must still be strict security measurements for maintaining chain of security for U-233 and Protactinium.