More on thorium

Lars Jorgensen gives a presentation on how thorium technology company ThorCon sees the future of nuclear power and its inevitable battle with coal. How anyone came up with the name ThorCon I can't imagine but the video explains what their project is all about. While remembering that the presentation is a sales pitch, here are a few bullet points.

The ThorCon system is a modular off the shelf system which can be built by existing shipyards using automated ship-building technology.

The system uses thorium and uranium and is designed to be  “walk-away safe”. If it goes wrong the liquid fuel falls harmlessly into a containment vessel. Nobody needs to shut it down, the laws of physics take care of things.

The system is designed to be cheaper than coal.

Indonesia is already interested, but as ever we'll have to wait and see if ThorCon sinks or swims. There is no way we can usefully guess what new technologies will emerge over the next few decades but thorium seems promising. When will the world run out of thorium? These things are as much guesswork as anything, but 1000 years may be conservative.

Meanwhile here in high tech Britain we build windmills and convert power stations to burn wood. Presumably dried dung is our next big energy idea.

Thorium car

source

A piece in iknowtoday pushes thorium as the nuclear fuel of the future by asking us to imagine a thorium-powered car which needs refuelling every 100 years.

The Thorium car relies on nuclear thorium lasers to fuel it. And here is the knocker… the engine only requires 8 grams of fuel every 100 years or so. According to what Charles Stevens, CEO and chairman of Laser Power Systems, based in Connecticut, has to say, just one gram of thorium can yield energy equivalent to 7.500 gallons of gasoline.

Hmm - as things stand this seems more than fanciful, a means to raise public interest perhaps. Even so, there seems to be considerable and growing interest in thorium. For example, the recent HoC publication Small Nuclear Power has this to say.

We heard that there are a number of advantages to switching to a thorium fuel cycle. The UK must remain an active participant in thorium research and development. We recommend that the Government commission a study to confirm the potential benefits of thorium in the longer-term and how any potential barriers to its use might be overcome.

Or take this report from The Times Of India on the Indian government's interest in assessing thorium and uranium deposits in Andhra Pradesh.

According to GV Ramesh of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), who is the chief project engineer of the proposed Kovvada nuclear plant in Srikakulam, research is going on to ascertain the viability of setting up thorium-fueled power plants.

"India accounts for over 32% of the estimated global thorium reserves of 63,55,000 tonnes and that too of high quality. Keeping this in mind, it may be best for India to explore thorium-fueled power generation in the coming years. However, currently no country in the world has thorium-fueled power plants as its viability is yet to be proved," Ramesh told TOI.

So the car is pure hype, but the message behind it seems real enough. Potentially there is a huge prize to be won with thorium - those who get there first may be onto a winner.