You guys ever heard of a Thorium reactor?

[Ian S]

Are there any countries that actually have a working thorium reactor yet? Someone said china and india are working on it, but do they actually have one? If not, how close are they?

There have been thorium-based fuel reactors that have produced electricity. But thorium is "fertile" not "fissile" and it has to be irradiated first to produce U233, a fissile fuel material. Rather than get into the complexities, I'd refer you here for a fairly up-to-date discussion of the potential. I think it holds great promise but unfortunately, the nuclear "well" has been poisoned by previous unfulfilled promises and serious screwups so I think there's a tough row to hoe there. Since there is increasing R&D in the area, maybe we'll see better, safer nukes in the future. I just wouldn't hold my breath.

[Sunking]

There have been thorium-based fuel reactors that have produced electricity. But thorium is "fertile" not "fissile" and it has to be irradiated first to produce U233,.

Incorrect, it has to be refined just like U233 or 238 to become fissile material. Once refined it is seeded for example from existing U233 from spent fuel rods, and will generate its own fuel passively until the sun quits shinning.

Working Thorium reactors have already been in service and decommissioned. For example in 1972 and decommed in 1982 at Shippingport Atomic Power Station. In addition the USN and USAF uses thorium in Torpedos and Cruise Missile war heads as it is extremely safe to carry on ships, submarines, and airplanes. Basically a gas cylinder filled with thorium gas the size of a SCUBA tank, and a gun attached that fires a BB sized pellet of U233 into the cylinder to detonate it. You can even carry a small thorium nuke bomb in your briefcase into work with you unnoticed and undetectable. It can level a city block and burn every thing up within a mile.

[SunEagle]

Incorrect, it has to be refined just like U233 or 238 to become fissile material. Once refined it is seeded for example from existing U233 from spent fuel rods, and will generate its own fuel passively until the sun quits shinning.

Working Thorium reactors have already been in service and decommissioned. For example in 1972 and decommed in 1982 at Shippingport Atomic Power Station. In addition the USN and USAF uses thorium in Torpedos and Cruise Missile war heads as it is extremely safe to carry on ships, submarines, and airplanes. Basically a gas cylinder filled with thorium gas the size of a SCUBA tank, and a gun attached that fires a BB sized pellet of U233 into the cylinder to detonate it. You can even carry a small thorium nuke bomb in your briefcase into work with you unnoticed and undetectable. It can level a city block and burn every thing up within a mile.

Oh oh. You just got pinged by the NSA.

[Sunking]

Oh oh. You just got pinged by the NSA.

Nah the plans are on the internet. All you need to make it is nuclear reactor, a team of mad scientist, and a several million dollars.

[Ian S]

Incorrect, it has to be refined just like U233 or 238 to become fissile material. Once refined it is seeded for example from existing U233 from spent fuel rods, and will generate its own fuel passively until the sun quits shinning.

Working Thorium reactors have already been in service and decommissioned. For example in 1972 and decommed in 1982 at Shippingport Atomic Power Station. In addition the USN and USAF uses thorium in Torpedos and Cruise Missile war heads as it is extremely safe to carry on ships, submarines, and airplanes. Basically a gas cylinder filled with thorium gas the size of a SCUBA tank, and a gun attached that fires a BB sized pellet of U233 into the cylinder to detonate it. You can even carry a small thorium nuke bomb in your briefcase into work with you unnoticed and undetectable. It can level a city block and burn every thing up within a mile.

What malarkey! You could refine thorium until the cows come home and it still wouldn't be a useful fissile material. It absolutely needs to be first irradiated specifically with neutrons so that it absorbs a neutron to become Th233 then undergoes beta- decay to Pa233 and another beta- decay to U233 which is the fissile material useful in a reactor. Read the link in my previous comment.

The rest of your comment sounds like science fiction. Take "thorium gas" for example. Do you know the temperature required for thorium to be in gas form? Over 4000 degC! Maybe you're talking about the thorium plasma battery that would precipitate such a green revolution that nefarious government agents have suppressed knowledge of it and the inventors associated with it have all died mysterious deaths. You need to include some reliable links to support your fanciful claims.

[inetdog]

Take "thorium gas" for example. Do you know the temperature required for thorium to be in gas form? Over 4000 degC!

Perhaps thorium gas in the same sense that you could call uranium hexaflouride "uranium gas"? The fact that the chemical energy is all bound up in a compound has no effect on the nuclear reactions in the thorium itself. But what density could you get?

[Ian S]

Perhaps thorium gas in the same sense that you could call uranium hexaflouride "uranium gas"? The fact that the chemical energy is all bound up in a compound has no effect on the nuclear reactions in the thorium itself. But what density could you get?

Except that thorium doesn't form a hexafluoride and the tetrafluoride is solid below 1100C. I have no idea what he's referring to but it's not "thorium gas." Thorium does have a decay product, radon 220 but that has a half-life measured in seconds and in any event, only miniscule amounts are produced and of course, it's a totally different element. Maybe there is some exotic gaseous thorium compound used to make suitcase nukes but I'm not aware of it. If Sunking expects us to accept his claims, he needs to provide some reliable sources.

My original comment was accurate regarding thorium's potential use in nuclear reactors. One wonders if we hadn't been locked in a Cold War back in the 1950's and needed the plutonium for bombs whether we would have pursued thorium reactors instead. Certainly, knowing what we do today, a clean slate approach for nuclear energy would probably use thorium.

[astrayan]

My understanding is that the reason that Thorium does not go ahead, is that the reaction process creates a fair bit of random fissile material, which can be used for bombs or dirty weapons. It should be OK in USA, but the Uranium industry has kept a keen lobby. If the world were to change over to Thorium, there would be reactors over every hill and dale, and terrorists/rogue states would have easy access to loads of junk. Protection against meltdown in a Thorium reactor is still based on cunning, rather than some innate passive obstruction. This doesn't please the average NIMBY.

http://phys.org/news/2012-12-thorium-proliferation-nuclear-wonder-fuel.html

I think Chernobyl made a good National Park.

[Sunking]

My understanding is that the reason that Thorium does not go ahead, is that the reaction process creates a fair bit of random fissile material,

That is a Straw Man Argument. Every reactor creates fissile material. That is where Plutonium comes from. Plutonium is an artificial element made by fission of U238.

The Thorium fuel cycle is superior to uranium and extremely resistant to producing weapons grade by products, and what amounts of weapons grade material is significantly less. Hence is far less likely to be used to produce weapons grade material.

The initial motive for using Thorium was the fear uranium supplies would dwindle and not be available. As it turns out we have enough uranium to last several million years, thus the push Thorium research went away. However due to the potential safety and security of using uranium has renewed interest and research into Thorium Reactors.

Really nothing new about Thorium Reactors as Oak Ridge Labs made the first working prototype in 1960. Commercial development is now taking place, and the core behind Smart Grid Technology.

[astrayan]

So, did you read the link I posted, where physicists from 4 universities detail how easy it is to get terrorist materials?

[Sunking]

So, did you read the link I posted, where physicists from 4 universities detail how easy it is to get terrorist materials?

Yes I did, but appears you did not or did not understand what you read. It is anything but easy to get U233 from a thorium reactor. Do not know of any Terrorist organization who can afford to build a small lab scale thorium reactor to produce such small amounts of U233. For the same money they can build a conventional reactor that yields thousands of times more U233, and even better yet Plutonium.

The article is simple Fear Mongering by a biased private university professor not under peer review.

[Naptown]

Most of our reactors and particularly the early ones were researched and designed by places like Oak Ridge.
They were looking at specifically producing weapons grade materials
One reason Thorium lost out was the difficulty or actually lack of ability to produce weapons grade materials

And don't lump Chernobyl in with any type or form of reactor in current use.
That design was abandoned a very long time ago as being too dangerous.

[russ]

"physicists from 4 universities" reminds me of the old TV commercials -- "9 out of 10 dentists recommend"

Meaningless statement unless there are university names and individual scientist's names provided.

[SunEagle]

"physicists from 4 universities" reminds me of the old TV commercials -- "9 out of 10 dentists recommend"

Meaningless statement unless there are university names and individual scientist's names provided.

They do list the physicists and Universities at the end of the article but I didn't search into their credentials.

They are all located in England. The U of Cambridge, The Open University, Lancaster U and Imperial College London.

But I do remember those dentists commercials where they actually found 10 dentists with 9 agreeing with the product. Of course they had to go through thousands to find that 9.