The case for Thorium 28. The race for space colonies is on. Only Molten Salt Thorium Nuclear reactors can fit the bill.

US reveals plan for nuclear power plant on the MOON that could power lunar Space Force base

Harry Pettit, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter

Jul 27 2020, 10:56 ET
Updated: Jul 27 2020, 11:02 ET
Edited excerpts here

NASA astronauts could one day live on the Moon inside a base powered by a lunar nuclear plant.

That’s according to plans shared by the US Department of Energy, which hopes to have the sci-fi power station up and running by 2027.

Nasa may one day build a nuclear power plant on the Moon.

The DoE on Friday put out a request online for ideas from the private sector on how to build such a contraption.

Dubbed a fission surface power system, the station could help man survive harsh environments on the Moon, Mars and beyond.

“Small nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government,” the DoE wrote in the notice published Friday.

Nasa has plans to put astronauts on the Moon in 2024 – the first manned mission to the lunar surface in almost five decades.

Nasa plans to establish a permanent base on the Moon in 2028.

The space agency has said it wants to set up a permanent base on Earth’s rocky neighbour in 2028. The base will help launch future missions to Mars.

Questions remain over what will power the base. Nasa would like to use solar panels, but the most power is needed during the 14 day lunar night every month, so nuclear power is the only practical solution.

It seems the space agency, working with the The Idaho National Laboratory and Department of Energy, is at least exploring the nuclear option.

According to the notice published to the DoE’s website, officials are looking for ideas on how to build a mostly autonomous lunar power station.

Only Molten Salt Thorium reactors would fit the bill.

It should work for 10 years at full power and boast a modular design that allows power units to connect together like Lego bricks.

Would-be designers are asked to whip something up that can survive the surface of Mars without modification.

They can be made very compact and modular

The case for Thorium. 27. With electric cars and trucks replacing combustion engine cars, only Thorium Nuclear power is the rational solution to provide the extra electric power needed.

It seems that electric powered vehicles are finally taking off, and sales are ready to explode. The Tesla electric car company capitalization value has increased eight-fold in the last half year, and is now worth more on paper than GM, Ford, Chrysler and Honda combined .

If CO2 is the great driver of environmental destruction, never mind that the increased CO2 is feeding 2 billion more people than before thanks to the greening effect of increased CO2, then we should work at warp speed to develop the additional electricity needs that will arise with all electric vehicles coming to market needing charging stations.

It makes no sense to build more coal and gas fired electric plants, replacing one CO2 generator with another, the best wind power sites are already taken, waste, geothermal and solar power is still a pipe dream, so, what to do?

Conventional nuclear power is limited and requires a very long and extensive approval process, partly due to the not in my backyard regulation attitude. We are already the world’s largest importer of Uranium, and the world’s supply is to a large extent controlled by non allies. .

How do you eliminate all Coal and natural gas electric plants? Look at the U.S usage: (Last year 2016)

We can see that renewable energy will not suffice. The only real answer is to expand nuclear electricity, but we are already the world’s biggest importer of Uranium. (The Uranium One deal, when we sold 20% of our Uranium mining rights to Russia did not help, but we were in trouble even before ). No, the only real answer is to rapidly develop molten salt Thorium nuclear electricity production. They do not require water for cooling, so they can be placed anywhere where additional capacity is needed, eliminating rapid expansion of the electric grid.

Let us go to it now!

Three approaches to the Corona virus pandemic; Pennsylvania, Sweden, Florida.

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the world in ways we do not fully understand and is beyond our control, yet all are trying.

The state of Pennsylvania implemented a rigorous shutdown, but left the nursing home people unprotected. Early on in Lancaster County 75% of the deaths were from nursing homes, and the majority of deaths came from care facilities. In most of the state things were not that bad. In Centre county the two first cases were my pastor, who has been to Washington State, and my son’s pastor, who had been in Lousiana, both visiting conferences. Pennsylvania has now partially opened up, and the statistics looks like this:

After an initial peak, the case rate were dropping until June 20, and is now rising. (Do the protests have anything to do with the rise?)

The death rate is not rising, and has so far totaled 7,183 with about 16 new cases a day, and the rate is halved every month or so, which means that the total deaths would be about 8 to ten thousand. Pennsylvania has a population of 12.8 million, so the death rate from corona virus in Pennsylvania is about 0.07%. Total cases so far is about 110,000 and the sum total of cases should be no more than 256,000 or no more than 2% of the population would get the corona virus.

Sweden, a country of 10 million people took a different approach. They did not close the schools, did not close shops and restaurants. They encouraged personal hygiene, social distancing, and wearing masks where social distancing was not possible. They closed sports and music events and encouraged remote work wherever practical. What were the results? The charts are enlightening:

The daily case rate peaked around June 28 and is now down by more than half. Total cases for Sweden is so far 79,000, and will probably, once this pandemic is over, total less than 100,000 or about 1%

Daily deaths are even more interesting. So far 5,700 have died from this disease. The death rate is now near zero, so the total number of deaths will be less than 6,000, or 0,06% of the population.

As we can see from the charts, Sweden is now very close to herd immunity.

The third case is Florida, a state of 21.5 million people. They did have a very small initial wave of cases, but the big rise started to appear at peak summer season. The charts tell a lot:

So far, the number of cases are 415,000, and following Sweden more than half of the cases occurred before the peak, which occurred on July 15, the total number of cases should be no more than 700,000 or about 3.25%

The total number of deaths so far total about 5,800 or about 0.027 percent of the population. About one third of the deaths occur before the peak, so the total deaths should be between 17,000 and 20,000 and then herd immunity is achieved. this corresponds to a total death rate of 0.08%

All three approaches yielded the same result, total case rate is between 1 and 3,25%, with Sweden, doing the least government interference faring the best.

The total death rates are between 0,06% and 0,08%, and when the corona virus pandemic has run its course, herd immunity is achieved.

The case for Thorium. 26. Can deplete most of the existing radioactive waste and nuclear weapons stockpiles.

LFTR is a type of Molten Salt Reactor with equipment to convert plentiful thorium into uranium (U233) to use as fuel. It can also use plutonium from LWR (Light Water Reactor) waste. LFTR is not very efficient at using depleted uranium (need a Fast-Spectrum reactor to fission U-238 effectively; in a thermal-spectrum reactor like LFTR or LWR, would convert some U-238 to plutonium which is fissile).

Because a LFTR fissions 99%+ of the fuel (whether thorium, or plutonium from nuclear waste), it consumes all the uranium and transuraniums leaving no long-term radioactive waste. 83% of the waste products are safely stabilized within 10 years. The remaining 17% need to be stored less than 350 years to become completely benign.

“LFTR technology can also be used to reprocess and consume the remaining fissile material in spent nuclear fuel stockpiles around the world and to extract and resell many of the other valuable fission byproducts that are currently deemed hazardous waste in their current spent fuel rod form. The U.S. nuclear industry has already allocated $25 billion for storage or reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and the world currently has over 340,000 tons of spent LWR fuel with enough usable fissile material to start one 100 MWe LFTR per day for 93 years. (A 100 MW LFTR requires 100 kg of fissile material (U-233, U-235, or Pu-239) to start the chain reaction). LFTR can also be used to consume existing U-233 stockpiles at ORNL ($500 million allocated for stockpile destruction) and plutonium from weapons stockpiles.”

FS-MSRs essentially avoid the entire fuel qualification issue in that they are tolerant of any fissile material composition, with their inherent strong negative thermal reactivity feedback providing the control necessary to accommodate a shifting fuel feed stream. Fast Spectrum Molten Salt Reactor Options,

See also point 17: Russia develops a fission-fusion hybrid reactor.

Some of the pictures are from a slide presentation given by David Archibald in Melbourne Feb 5 2011. He posted it “for the benefit of all” which I have interpreted as waving the copyright of the pictures

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/12/david-archibald-on-climate-and-energy-security/

The case for Thorium. 25. Will produce electrical energy at about 4 cents per kWh.

Produces electrical energy at about 4 cents per kWh.

The United States sources of Electricity generation is one third from Natural Gas, one third from Coal and one third from non fossil fuel sources.

The cost to produce electricity with Thorium nuclear power should be about 40% less than Advanced Nuclear and about 30 % less than from Coal (with scrubbers) Solar generation is about 4 times more expensive (without subsidies) Wind power is cheaper when the wind blows, but the generation capacity has to be there even when the wind doesn’t blow, so the only gain from wind power is to lessen the mining or extraction of carbon. In addition, wind power kills birds, the free yearly quota of allowable Bald Eagle kills was upped from 1200 to 4200 during the Obama administration. (https://lenbilen.com/2019/04/12/what-is-more-precious-babies-eagles-or-fighting-climate-change/). Golden Eagles and a few other rare birds has a quarter of a million dollar fine associated with their kills. If wind power is increased without finding a solution to the bird kills, whole species may be extinct. Solar power is, and will be used in special applications such as on roofs for backup and peak power assist. Hydroelectric power is for all practical purpose maxed out, so nearly all future increase must come from Coal, Natural Gas, Petroleum or Nuclear. Thorium powered Nuclear Generators is the way to go.

The case for Thorium. 24. With Molten Salt Reactors, a catastrophe like Fukushima cannot happen..

With Molten Salt Reactors, a catastrophe like Fukushima cannot happen. It began with a magnitude 9.0 earthquake not far from the Fukushima 6 Nuclear reactor complex. The impact was a magnitude 6.8 earthquake and the operators immediately scrammed the safety rods to stop all the reactors. This succeeded! The reactors were designed with earthquakes in mind, and they passed the test. The backup power started up successfully so the cooling pumps could operate. There was one major problem though. The earthquake was so bad that the water in the spent fuel holding tanks splashed out and exposed the spent fuel rods to air, releasing enough radioactivity to make entering the buildings impossible.

Image result for fukushima reactor design

The water pumps worked for a while, but then came the tsunami. All the reactors were inside a tsunami wall, so far, so good. But the fuel storage tanks for the fuel for the backup power generators were outside the tsunami wall and were washed away. The batteries were only supposed to last until backup power was established, and with complete power loss and water circulation ended the meltdown started. This disaster was even bigger than Chernobyl and contamination is still spreading.

In a molten salt Thorium reactor, when power is cut off in an emergency, only gravity is needed for a safe shutdown, and gravity hasn’t failed us yet.

The case for Thorium. 23. With a Molten Salt Reactor, accidents like Chernobyl are impossible.

With a Molten Salt Reactor, accidents like Chernobyl are impossible. The Three Mile Island accident was bad. The Chernobyl disaster was ten million times worse. Ah yes, I remember it well.

One morning at work, a fellow co-worker, a Ph.D. Chemist working on an Electron Capture Detector, containing a small amount of Nickel 63, came with a surprising question: You know nuclear science, how come the reactors in Chernobyl don’t have a containment vessel? Well- I answered, it is because they are carbon moderated and their failure mode is that they go prompt critical, and no containment vessel in the world can hold it in, so they skip it. He turned away in disgust. A few weeks later my wife’s father died, and we went to Denmark to attend the funeral. The day of the return back to the U.S. we heard that there had been a nuclear incident in Sweden, too much radiation had caused two nuclear power stations to close down. The Chernobyl disaster had happened 26 April 1986, and this was the first time anyone outside of Chernobyl has heard about it, two days later. This was still the Soviet Union, and nothing ever did go wrong in it worthy of reporting.

Image result for the chernobyl disaster

(Photo Courtesy of EBRD)

(But the carbon moderated Uranium reactors are the most efficient in producing Pu-239 the preferred nuclear bomb material.)

This has nothing to do with anything, but Chernobyl can be translated wormwood. It is mentioned in the Bible, Revelation 8: 10-11 “ And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. ”

Molten Salt Thorium reactors cannot be used to supply bomb material, and they are far safer than even Light water Uranium reactors.

The case for Thorium. 22. With a Molten Salt Reactor, accidents like the Three Mile Island disaster will not happen.

With a Molten Salt Reactor, accidents like the Three Mile Island disaster will not happen. Ah yes, I remember it well, March 28, 1979. We lived in South East Pennsylvania at the time, well outside the evacuation zone, but a fellow engineer at work took off, took vacation and stayed at a hotel in western Virginia over the weekend fearing a nuclear explosion. My wife went to a retreat just outside the evacuation zone, and none of them so much as heard of any problem, there never was any evacuation. There was concern though, and a disaster it was indeed with a partial meltdown of the core, rendering the installation a total loss, leaving a big, forever cleanup bill. The cost so far has totaled over 2 billion dollars.

A combination of personnel error, design deficiencies and component failures caused the TMI accident, which permanently changed both the nuclear industry and the NRC. Public fear and distrust increased, NRC’s regulations and oversight became broader and more robust, and management of the plants was scrutinized more carefully. Careful analysis of the accident’s events identified problems and led to permanent and sweeping changes in how NRC regulates its licensees – which, in turn, has reduced the risk to public health and safety.

The side effect of increased regulation is increased cost and delay in construction of new nuclear plants. Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled, and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled.

Another side effect of the TMI accident is fear of trying a different and safer approaches, since they conflict with existing regulations. The next Nuclear power reactor came online in 2016, but it is the same type of boiling water reactor as before, not a Molten Salt Thorium reactor with its inherent radically increased safety.

The case for Thorium. 21. United States used to be the leader in Thorium usage. What happened?

United States used to be the leader in Thorium usage. What happened?

The 40 MWe Peach Bottom HTR in the USA was a demonstration Thorium-fueled reactor that ran from 1967-74. and produced a total of 33 billion kWh.

The 330 MWe Fort St Vrain HTR in Colorado, USA, ran from 1976-89. Almost 25 tons of Thorium was used in fuel for the reactor.

A unique Thorium-fueled light water breeder reactor operated from 1977 to 1982 at Shippingport in the USA– it used uranium-233 and had a power output of 60 MWe.

However, after 10 years passed and billions invested, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission abandoned thorium research, with uranium-fueled nuclear power becoming the standard. In the 1980s, commercial Thorium ventures failed, such as the Indian Point Unit 1 water reactor near New York City, because of the vast financial costs of going alone in a hostile regulatory environment, and fuel and equipment failures. By the 1990s, the US nuclear power industry had abandoned Thorium, partly because Thorium’s breeding ratio was thought insufficient to produce enough fuel for commercial industrialization.

After the Three Mile Island accident, Middletown, PA in 1979 there was a 30 plus year hiatus in building another nuclear plant, and Thorium was not on any politicians list of areas in which to invest scarce research funds.

Some research and development was still conducted, but it was more concentrated in protecting the U.S. leading position in monitoring and controlling existing nuclear technology. As a contrast even the Netherlands is developing a molten salt Thorium reactor.

Will the U.S. again show leadership?

The case fatality rate of COVID-19 is reduced by a factor of 2.65 if HCQ + Zinc is administered as soon as possible. 1.25 Million cases are proof enough!

This picture was displayed at a Monday July 6 White House press conference. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that the American death toll has fallen for weeks and the virus fatality rate is below France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

She said the death toll has significantly dropped from the height of the outbreak when the U.S. logged 2,500 deaths per day to 254 deaths on Saturday July 3, according to the article.

To confirm it the case fatality rate for Germany is as of July 15: 4.54 %

The case rate for the world is 4.24%

The corresponding number for U.S.A.: 3.83%

Is that the lowest percentage in the world?

There are more than ten countries with a lower case fatality rate. At least ten of them have one thing in common. These ten countries prescribe the use of HydroxyChloroQuine to all people that show symptoms of COVID-19, even before a positive test is confirmed.

Turkey: 2.51%

South Korea: 2.14%

Senegal: 1.87%

Morocco: 1.58%

Russia: 1.60%

Malaysia: 1.39%

United Arab Emirates: 0.60%

Costa Rica: 0.44%

Bahrain: 0.34%

Qatar: 0.14%, but since 88% of the population are migrant workers between 20 and 60, the adjusted death rate for the permanent residents would be maybe 8 times higher, or about 1.1%

The total number of positive cases for these ten countries are over 1.2 million, far more than any double blind test could ever produce.

Taking the average, adjusted for the number of positive cases, the average adjusted death rate for ten countries, where people are taking HCQ + Zinc as soon as they are showing symptoms or diagnosed positive, is 1.60%.

This means that the risk of death is reduced by a factor of 2.65 if HZQ + Zinc is taken as early as possible after showing symptoms or after a positive diagnosis for corona-virus!

This means the daily could be reduced by 3700 a day in the world if the HCQ regimen was implemented worldwide.

For the U.S.A. the number of deaths would be reduced by an average of over 400 a day at today’s case and death rates, if HZQ + Zinc is taken as early as possible after showing symptoms or after a positive diagnosis for corona-virus!