downblending – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Why Thorium? 3. The best way to produce clean energy. Pass SB 4242.

This is insanity. In 2011 the Oak Ridge Laboratories had a stockpile of 1400 kg U 233. They have been busy downblending it into depleted uranium to render it useless, and there is now only about 450 kg left. Unless this insanity is stopped asap Thorium nuclear power will be set back immensely, since U233 is used as the startplug for the cleanest Thorium nuclear power production

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u8T8iAQgpwc%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

The bill is introduced. It should be immediately passed in the Senate, and be passed in the house without amendments. Any delay is critical. It is that important. We gave the technology to the Chinese so they can build up their naval fleet with molten salt Thorium nuclear power. Meanwhile we still have some u-233 left, worth billions as a National Security asset. At the very least, we must stop downblending immediately, even before the bill is passed.

Here is the bill itself.

Status

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 2-0)
Status: Introduced on May 18 2022 – 25% progression, died in committee
Action: 2022-05-18 – Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Pending: Senate Energy And Natural Resources Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

Summary

A bill to provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors, and for other purposes.
Tracking Information

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Title

Thorium Energy Security Act of 2022

History

Date	Chamber	Action
2022-05-18	Senate	Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Subjects

Energy

US Congress State Sources

Type	Source
Summary	https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4242/all-info
Text	https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s4242/BILLS-117s4242is.pdf

117th CONGRESS
2d Session

S. 4242

To provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors, and for other purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

May 18 (legislative day, May 17), 2022

Mr. Tuberville (for himself and Mr. Marshall) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

A BILL

To provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Thorium Energy Security Act of 2022”.

SEC. 2. Findings.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Thorium molten-salt reactor technology was originally developed in the United States, primarily at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the State of Tennessee under the Molten-Salt Reactor Program.

(2) Before the cancellation of that program in 1976, the technology developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was moving steadily toward efficient utilization of the natural thorium energy resource, which exists in substantial amounts in many parts of the United States, and requires no isotopic enrichment.

(3) The People’s Republic of China is known to be pursuing the development of molten-salt reactor technology based on a thorium fuel cycle.

(4) Thorium itself is not fissile, but fertile, and requires fissile material to begin a nuclear chain reaction. This largely accounts for its exclusion for nuclear weapons developments.

(5) Uranium-233, derived from neutron absorption by natural thorium, is the ideal candidate for the fissile material to start a thorium reactor, and is the only fissile material candidate that can minimize the production of long-lived transuranic elements like plutonium, which have proven a great challenge to the management of existing spent nuclear fuel.

(6) Geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear reactors continues to pose severe political and technical challenges, and costs United States taxpayers more than $500,000,000 annually in court-mandated payments to electrical utilities operating nuclear reactors.

(7) The United States possesses the largest known inventory of separated uranium-233 in the world, aggregated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

(8) Oak Ridge National Laboratory building 3019 was designated in 1962 as the national repository for uranium-233 storage, and its inventory eventually grew to about 450 kilograms of separated uranium-233, along with approximately 1,000 kilograms of mixed fissile uranium from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Program (commonly referred to as “CEUSP”), divided into approximately 1,100 containers.

(9) The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issued Recommendation 97–1 (relating to safe storage of uranium-233) in 1997 because of the possibility of corrosion or other degradation around the storage of uranium-233 in a building that was built in 1943.

(10) In response, the Department of Energy published Decision Memorandum No. 2 in 2001 concluding that no Department of Energy programs needed uranium-233 and directed that a contract be placed for disposition of the uranium-233 inventory and decommissioning of its storage facility.

(11) The Department of Energy awarded a contract for the irreversible downblending of uranium-233 with uranium-238 and its geologic disposal in Nevada, which downblending would create a waste form that would pose radiological hazards for hundreds of thousands of years, rather than to consider uranium-233 as a useful national asset.

(12) All 1,000 kilograms of CEUSP uranium-233-based material have been dispositioned (but not downblended) but those containers had little useful uranium-233 in them. The majority of separated and valuable uranium-233 remains uncontaminated by uranium-238 and suitable for thorium fuel cycle research and development. That remaining inventory constitutes the largest supply of uranium-233 known to exist in the world today.

(13) The United States has significant domestic reserves of thorium in accessible high-grade deposits, which can provide thousands of years of clean energy if used efficiently in a liquid-fluoride reactor initially started with uranium-233.

(14) Recently (as of the date of the enactment of this Act), the Department of Energy has chosen to fund a series of advanced reactors that are all dependent on initial inventories and regular resupplies of high-assay, low-enriched uranium.

(15) There is no domestic source of high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel, and there are no available estimates as to how long the development of a domestic supply of that fuel would take or how expensive such development would be.

(16) The only viable source of high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel is through continuous import from sources in the Russian Federation.

(17) The political situation with the Russian Federation as of the date of the enactment of this Act is sufficiently uncertain that it would be unwise for United States-funded advanced reactor development to rely on high-assay, low-enriched uranium since the Russian Federation would be the primary source and can be expected to undercut any future United States production, resulting in a dependency on high-assay, low-enriched uranium from the Russian Federation.

(18) The United States has abandoned the development of a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain and is seeking a consenting community to allow interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, but valid concerns persist that an interim storage facility will become a permanent storage facility.

(19) Without a closed fuel cycle, high-assay, low-enriched uranium-fueled reactors inevitably will produce long-lived wastes that presently have no disposition pathway.

(20) The United States possesses enough uranium-233 to support further research and development as well as fuel the startup of several thorium reactors. Thorium reactors do not require additional fuel or high-assay, low-enriched uranium from the Russian Federation.

(21) Continuing the irreversible destruction of uranium-233 precludes privately funded development of the thorium fuel cycle, which would have long term national and economic security implications.

SEC. 3. Sense of Congress.

It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) it is in the best economic and national security interests of the United States to resume development of thorium molten-salt reactors that can minimize long-lived waste production, in consideration of—

(A) the pursuit by the People’s Republic of China of thorium molten-salt reactors and associated cooperative research agreements with United States national laboratories; and

(B) the present impasse around the geological disposal of nuclear waste;

(2) that the development of thorium molten-salt reactors is consistent with section 1261 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (Public Law 115–232; 132 Stat. 2060), which declared long-term strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China as “a principal priority for the United States”; and

(3) to resume such development, it is necessary to relocate as much of the uranium-233 remaining at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as possible to new secure storage.

SEC. 4. Definitions.

In this Act:

(1) CONGRESSIONAL DEFENSE COMMITTEES.—The term “congressional defense committees” has the meaning given that term in section 101(a) of title 10, United States Code.

(2) DOWNBLEND.—The term “downblend” means the process of adding a chemically identical isotope to an inventory of fissile material in order to degrade its nuclear value.

(3) FISSILE MATERIAL.—The term “fissile material” refers to uranium-233, uranium-235, plutonium-239, or plutonium-241.

(4) HIGH-ASSAY, LOW-ENRICHED URANIUM.—The term “high-assay, low-enriched uranium” (commonly referred to as “HALEU”) means a mixture of uranium isotopes very nearly but not equaling or exceeding 20 percent of the isotope uranium-235.

(5) TRANSURANIC ELEMENT.—The term “transuranic element” means an element with an atomic number greater than the atomic number of uranium (92), such as neptunium, plutonium, americium, or curium.

SEC. 5. Preservation of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors.

The Secretary of Energy shall preserve uranium-233 inventories that have not been contaminated with uranium-238, with the goal of fostering development of thorium molten-salt reactors by United States industry.

SEC. 6. Storage of uranium-233.

(a) Report on long-Term storage of uranium-233.—Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies, shall submit to Congress a report identifying a suitable location for, or a location that can be modified for, secure long-term storage of uranium-233.

(b) Report on interim storage of uranium-233.—Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Chief of Engineers shall submit to Congress a report identifying a suitable location for secure interim storage of uranium-233.

(c) Report on construction of uranium-233 storage facility at Redstone Arsenal.—Not later than 240 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Chief of Engineers shall submit to Congress a report on the costs of constructing a permanent, secure storage facility for uranium-233 at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, that is also suitable for chemical processing of uranium-233 pursuant to a public-private partnership with thorium reactor developers.

(d) Funding.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, amounts authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for the U233 Disposition Program for fiscal year 2022 or 2023 shall be made available for the transfer of the inventory of uranium-233 to the interim or permanent storage facilities identified under this section.

SEC. 7. Interagency cooperation on preservation and transfer of uranium-233.

The Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of the Army (including the head of the Army Reactor Office), the Secretary of Transportation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other relevant agencies shall—

(1) work together to preserve uranium-233 inventories and expedite transfers of uranium-233 to interim and permanent storage facilities; and

(2) in expediting such transfers, seek the assistance of appropriate industrial entities.

SEC. 8. Report on use of thorium reactors by People’s Republic of China.

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Administrator for Nuclear Security, shall submit to Congress a report that—

(1) evaluates the progress the People’s Republic of China has made in the development of thorium-based reactors;

(2) describes the extent to which that progress was based on United States technology;

(3) details the actions the Department of Energy took in transferring uranium-233 technology to the People’s Republic of China; and

(4) assesses the likelihood that the People’s Republic of China may employ thorium reactors in its future navy plans.

SEC. 9. Report on medical market for isotopes of uranium-233.

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, after consultation with institutions of higher education and private industry conducting medical research and the public, shall submit to Congress a report that estimates the medical market value, during the 10-year period after the date of the enactment of this Act, of actinium, bismuth, and other grandchildren isotopes of uranium-233 that can be harvested without downblending and destroying the uranium-233 source material.

SEC. 10. Report on costs to United States nuclear enterprise.

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, after consultation with relevant industry groups and nuclear regulatory agencies, shall submit to Congress a report that estimates, for the 10-year period after the date of the enactment of this Act, the costs to the United States nuclear enterprise with respect to—

(1) disposition of uranium-233;

(2) payments to nuclear facilities to store nuclear waste; and

(3) restarting the manufacturing the United States of high-assay, low-enriched uranium.

The inflationary aspects of the “Inflation Reduction Act”. The “Green New deal” is wrong. There is a better way to do clean energy.

Below is the experience from the European union of retail cost of electricity in all member nations from the year 2019, the last year to make any meaningful analysis, Covid and the Ukraine war has made worthless any newer analysis.

This slide tells it best. The real cost for Solar and Wind electricity is 5.7 times that of the average of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro-electric power. The real reason is that you still need all the generating power for when the wind doesn’t blow enough or too much, and the sun doesn’t shine, which is most of the time. In addition, solar panels and windmills require mining of rare earth metals, and are as such highly mining intensive. Then there is the cost of disposal, which has already begun for first generation wind mills and solar panels.

The solution is simple: Do not buy any more solar panels from China! Let them use them themselves, they may then only have to build a thousand new dirty lignite coal fired power plants instead of 1171 between now and 2030

The other inflationary thing is the rising cost of Lithium and rare earth metals. In 2020 the price of LiCO2 was around 40,000 yuan/ton (yes, Lithium and rare earth metals are traded in Chinese currency). The price since then has more than twelve-folded and is now close to half a million yuan/ton.

China produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries and is home to 70% of production capacity for cathodes and 85% for anodes (both are key components of batteries).

Over half of lithium, cobalt and graphite processing and refining capacity is also located in China. The U.S has a high quality rare earth metal mine in Mountain Pass, CA.,

but the refining is done in China. In June 2022 Amarillo, Texas had a groundbreaking ceremony for a rare earth metals refinery, so refining capacity will finally return to the U.S. See more here. Below is a chart of the worldwide mining of rare earth metals. Notice the prominent role Myanmar plays in rare earth metals. China is positioning itself to dominate Myanmar for their metals and to build an oil import pipeline to avoid the Malacca strait choke point.

In 2016, Hunter Biden’s Bohai Harvest RST invested in China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL), the world’s largest lithium ion battery producer.

Remember this every time you hear Joe Biden talk about Green new deal and electric vehicles.

So, my suggestion is simple: Do not buy any solar panels from China, let them install them in China at 4.7 times the price of coal power. this is a much cleaner global investment. China was planning to build 1171 new coal plants polluting more than our clean coal could ever do. Likewise do not buy any more wind mill generators from China, let them install them in China. Wait to promote electric vehicles until the grid is built up to handle the additional demand for electricity.

This would save about 430 billion dollars from the inflation reduction act. What can we do instead and achieve an even better outcome? Check this video.

What shall be done? Congress must immediately pass SB4242. Ten years ago I made the same observation, see here. At that time there was 1400 kg U-233 remaining at Oak Ridge. A ton has been downblended since then. It is late, but not too late to save the rest. Here is a very illuminating video:

I agree totally with this video. Molten salt Thorium reactors can produce electricity for less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable to coal and five times less than wind and solar when mass produced as SMR’s (small Modular Reactors. ) A 100 MW reactor can be built on an assembly line, and the vital parts can be shipped in 3 standard containers over road. They require much less mining to produce than the corresponding windmills and solar panels, and Thorium is already mined as a byproduct of mining rare earth metals. The only cost is therefore the cost of extracting the Thorium.

How is China dealing with Thorium nuclear power? They recently approved starting up their own molten Salt reactor, (source here.

In January 2011, CAS launched a CNY3 billion (USD444 million) R&D programme on liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs), known there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed to have the world’s largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology. This is also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR). The TMSR Centre at SINAP at Jiading, Shanghai, is responsible.

Construction of the 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 reactor began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. The prototype was scheduled to be completed in 2024, but work was accelerated.

“According to the relevant provisions of the Nuclear Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Safety Supervision and Administration of Civilian Nuclear Facilities, our bureau has conducted a technical review of the application documents you submitted, and believes that your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor commissioning plan (Version V1.3) is acceptable and is hereby approved,” the Ministry of Ecology and Environment told SINAP on 2 August.

It added: “During the commissioning process of your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor, you should strictly implement this plan to ensure the effectiveness of the implementation of the plan and ensure the safety and quality of debugging. If any major abnormality occurs during the commissioning process, it should be reported to our bureau and the Northwest Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision Station in time.”

The TMSR-LF1 will use fuel enriched to under 20% U-235, have a thorium inventory of about 50 kg and conversion ratio of about 0.1. A fertile blanket of lithium-beryllium fluoride (FLiBe) with 99.95% Li-7 will be used, and fuel as UF4.

The project is expected to start on a batch basis with some online refueling and removal of gaseous fission products, but discharging all fuel salt after 5-8 years for reprocessing and separation of fission products and minor actinides for storage. It will proceed to a continuous process of recycling salt, uranium and thorium, with online separation of fission products and minor actinides. The reactor will work up from about 20% thorium fission to about 80%.

If the TMSR-LF1 proves successful, China plans to build a reactor with a capacity of 373 MWt by 2030.

As this type of reactor does not require water for cooling, it will be able to operate in desert regions. The Chinese government has plans to build more across the sparsely populated deserts and plains of western China, complementing wind and solar plants and reducing China’s reliance on coal-fired power stations. The reactor may also be built outside China in Belt and Road Initiative nations.

The liquid fuel design is descended from the 1960s Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News.

As of yet China does not have any U233, so they have to use U235 as a start fuel. This will produce PU239 as well as U233, so the separation step is far more complicated. The U.S. still have 450 kg of U233, so the separation step can be made clean, and we can make a clean, breeding reactor with 0,01 % of the nuclear waste if conventional reactors.

The conversion of Thorium 232 to Uranium 233, leading to fission looks like this:

To remain pure, the protactinium mist be separated from the neutron bombarding environment as soon after it is generated as possible to avoid it to be transfered to U 234, which is non fissible, but radioactive. The breeding coefficient is 1.03, which means that 3% more U233 is generated than consumed. The half-life of the Protactinium is 27 days, so it will take up to 900 days for the U233 to double, which is two and a half years.

There is no time to spare. Pass SB4242 immediately, build a clean Molten salt Thorium reactor as soon as possible, remove Thorium as a source material and streamline the permit process so permits can be issued in weeks instead of years.

The thorium energy is the future clean energy until fusion is perfected, not solar panels or windmills, which do far more damage to the environment than Thorium nuclear plants!

This is insanity. Stop downblending our remaining U233 NOW!

Check out this video and see if you will get as upset as I did.

There is one minor error in the video. The Thorium-U233 reactors also produce Plutonium, but it only produces Plutonium238, which is needed for space exploration. We are out of Pu238, only Russia has some left.

The situation: The Department of Energy had 1400 Kg Uranium-233 stored at Oak Ridge National Lab. They are in process of downgrading it to natural uranium by downblending it with depleted uranium. They need 200 tons of depleted uranium to do the task, rendering it unusable for anything.

The decommissioning was approved in 2003 and in 2012 130 million had been spent, before the actual downblending started.

Stop the decommissioning immediately. Build our own Liquid Fluoride Thorium Nuclear Reactor and over time get 600 million dollars worth of electric power and 45g of Plutonium-238. We are out of Pu-238 and can do no more planetary exploration satellites.

The deep space satellites all had Pu-238 power sources. Only Russia has Pu-238 left, and the U.S. was banking on getting it for a friendship price. In addition there are significant unique medical applications in treatment of cancer that can be obtained by radiation from the byproduct of the Thorium process. Below are pictures of the Thorium process and what a Thorium Power plant might look like. (4)

Tag: downblending