
Norway is building thorium reactor - sasoon
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/norway-ringing-in-thorium-nuclear-new-year-with-westinghouse-at-the-party/6421
======
marvin
If I am correctly informed (would love to hear from people who are involved in
the project), this project is being done in spite of the Norwegian
government's stance on nuclear energy.

Thor Energy and its associated researchers have tried to stir up support for
thorium reserach for years now, but there has been very little support and
large amount of uninformed opposition ("nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad"). A number of
physicists, notably Egil Lillestøl at the University of Bergen, have talked to
official figures about this for a long time about this without getting any
kind of traction.

Thorium energy seems to be a very promising candidate for safe, clean and
cheap next-generation nuclear power. If these researchers manage to develop
something without official support, it would be impressive indeed. That the
Norwegian government isn't willing to support clean energy research is really
quite baffling, given that the energy sector is hands-down the largest
contributor to the Norwegian economy. And Norway has the world's second-
largest known thorium reserves. For all our supposed good policies, we are
still subject to mob rule and completely uninformed detractors.

~~~
polshaw
>nu-cu-lar is baaaaaad

Nuclear is not the panacea almost every 'informed' internet citizen thinks it
is. It is EXPENSIVE. Wind and hydro power are already cheaper, for example. On
top of that, whilst any new nuclear power plant will take many years to
produce, costs for renewables continue to fall, and, it obviously has a huge
number of risks (not just 'meltdown' but costs, security, long-term storage
etc). Off the top of my head i think a wind farm is also more energy dense
than a nuclear power plant, given all the space required around it.

That is not to say it is 'baaad' because it does have some uses; eg it can
provide a baseline power. Basically, we need many different sources, but there
are (more?) informed people who oppose nuclear for very good reasons.

OTOH thorium could be great, but it has not been proven commercially yet.
We'll see what happens but i remain sceptical until proven otherwise.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_cost_of_electricity_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_cost_of_electricity_generated_by_different_sources#Estimates)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> Off the top of my head i think a wind farm is also more energy dense than a
> nuclear power plant, given all the space required around it.

I checked some facts; 2W / m^2 for wind[0], 1000W / m^2 for nuclear[1]. Even
if they didn't account for some infrastructure, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't
decrease that number 500 times.

Nuclear fission is one of the most powerful energy sources (in energy per unit
of mass of fuel) known to mankind, to be replaced only by fusion and
annihilation. Renewables on Earth don't even begin to compare.

[0] -
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c4/page_33....](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c4/page_33.shtml)

[1] -
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_16...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_167.shtml)

~~~
zanny
I always wonder why people disregard nuclear like its low efficiency. It is
taking elements that are inherently (in the case of uranium / plutonium, any
passive nuclear power source) or situationally (thorium) emitting radiation
(photon emissions, a kind of light, which is a form of energy) and using that
heat energy to boil water.

And these unstable atoms were made by exploding _stars_. It is hard to get
more energy dense than that. Fusion requires you to put in so much power in
the first place to just _get_ to hydrogen burning that it seems ridiculous to
not take advantage of the dense energy gifts of destroyed stars.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> It is hard to get more energy dense than that. Fusion requires you to put in
> so much power in the first place to just get to hydrogen burning

Yeah, that's why a hydrogen bomb uses an _atomic bomb_ as a _trigger_. But
getting a stable, self-sustaining fusion reaction would quickly recoup for
initial energy investment.

Unfortunately, as for the third reaction, I don't see much future for us using
annihilation large-scale, at least in the coming centuries. It's simple: we
don't have any antimatter around in significant quantities [0] and making it
is a terribly inefficient process.

[0] - maybe it's fortunate; pure antimatter is probably the most dangerous
source of energy out there; one mistake and we'd kill ourselves with it.

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pjscott
This isn't one of the fancy liquid fluoride thorium reactors that people
immediately think of. It's a scheme for incorporating thorium into the fuel
mix in existing reactors. Still very cool.

~~~
leeoniya
awww, i got all excited :(

~~~
dthunt
Still a step closer.

I'm not a genuine nuke geek, but hopefully there are a few around who can shed
some light into what sort of impact the commercial use of thorium as a fuel is
on the viability of the fuel in the long-run.

~~~
forrestthewoods
A good starting point is Bill Gates TED Talk Innovating to Zero.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I>

~~~
dthunt
Great talk.

Gates's foundation has made a handful of bad investments (generally small) but
I'm generally really impressed with the thought they put into where to invest
and why.

While it's a little bit scary that Japan and Germany are both trending (more
than trending) away from nuclear, maybe that's not the worst thing in the
world. Neither country will go for coal. Both countries will need to invest in
other technologies (some basic, some consumer-oriented) in order to meet their
emissions reductions goals.

But I get scared about the possibility of additional countries backing away
from nuclear.

~~~
tehabe
I'm more scared about countries who start using nuclear power.

~~~
da3da
I'm curious why that is? I remember a table that showed the deaths per
terawatt-hour of each energy source [1]. Coal was the highest, and nuclear was
the lowest (below all the renewables even). I don't know if this data is
accurate, but assuming it is, I can't understand why nuclear doesn't have more
support.

[1] [http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-
so...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html)

~~~
tehabe
It is not so much a meltdown. Those meltdowns are rare. And most people don't
die at the point of the meltdown but from the long term consequences of the
meltdown. But many Nuclear supporters doesn't accept those death as
consequences of the nuclear meltdown. BTW, not knowing data is accurate but
assuming it is, is like finding a gun and assuming it is not loaded.

What I'm really concerned about nuclear power is the problem of waste. The
dream of fuel recycling has been dreamt for 40 years now and those existing
plants are everything but clean. Currently the idea of a closed fuel circle
for nuclear power is just a dream.

Also citing new reactor designs is pointless. Old designs are still running.
Old Russian designs are still running, and I don't speak about Chernobyl like
reactors. And it would take decades to replace those reactors and you still
have to deal with the old ones. E.g. Germany shut down all Russian WWER
reactors in the East after the reunification, those reactors are still there,
the deconstruction of those reactors has just started a few years ago.

In that time frame you might just as good replace nuclear power with a
decentralized system of renewable energy. I really wonder, why people who love
the internet, love freedom, love markets don't root for that. Decentralized
renewable energy are much less likely to create a monopoly for electricity. It
is much more likely that you could have an autonomous energy supply.

------
NatW
For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend this video on liquid-
fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P9M__yYbsZ4#)!

I passed the video by my uncle who was an expert/engineer dealing with control
and safety of water cooled reactors. This is what he had to say:

"I found the video very informative technically, as well as being effective in
countering many of the the arguments of those who profess to be against
nuclear power in any form. I also found the details of the design of the
liquid thorium fluoride reactor intriguing. To become an advocate for further
investment in this concept, I would have to learn more about how the concept
deals with the safety issues involved in the handling of fluorine gas and
fluoride materials."

~~~
politician
I just watched that video (2 hrs!), and I have to agree with NatW on his
recommendation. Really, really well done.

------
jfaucett
It seems this has sparked some debates on nuclear vs renewable energy so I
thought I'd add a ted talk that explains some pros/cons of each for those
interested:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_ren...](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.html)

------
allerratio
The title is misleading. They only test thorium in an already built
conventional reactor. Meanwhile in Germany they developed a conceptionally
more safe reactor type powered by thorium, built a test reactor
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor>) and an industrial reactor
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300>). They're both shut down now, partly
because of safety concerns: Water leaking into the cooling circuit can lead to
explosions (which happened in small amounts)

So I guess only time will tell if new reactor types really are better than
current ones.

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ScotterC
Interestingly this has already been done in the U.S. kinda. Back when I was
working on Indian Point Units 2 & 3 I found a paper about Unit 1 where - about
30 years ago - they mixed in some of the fuel bundles with Thorium to see how
well the neutron flux would turn it into Uranium and possibly breed more fuel.
It was really fascinating but, although they had some success, there was
really no need for it in the U.S. because Uranium is not in short supply and
as this article points out, solid fuel reactors kind of dismiss all the
advantages of thorium.

~~~
s_henry_paulson
Even prior to that in the 1960s the US _invented_ Molten Salt Thorium nuclear
reactors at Oak Ridge.

They were shelved not because of the abundant supply of Uranium, but rather
because they could not be used to make weapons.

<http://energyfromthorium.com/history.html>

~~~
ScotterC
Yup. And we had a running MSR at shippingport PA for awhile.

------
kayoone
While germany is getting out of nuclear power altogether... their
"Energiewende" plan is very ambitious but i wonder if its not better to invest
into nuclear power to make it saver instead of getting rid of it completely. I
dont know much about it though, what do experts think?

~~~
tehabe
Is that an offer to pay all the external costs of nuclear power? I mean, all
of them. From final deposit, over insurance policies in case of a meltdown to
environmental consequences of the entire nuclear supply chain?

Nuclear power is just too expensive for an economy. Nuclear power is limited,
there is just not endless amount of uranium on the planet. Also globally
nuclear power is pointless, IIRC nuclear power has a global market share of 6%
for primary energy. Too believe it could solve our energy needs sounds weird
to me.

Also nuclear power is inefficient. Efficiency is usually way below 50%, since
nuclear power plants are far away from anything you can't usually use the heat
an nuclear power plant produce for anything productive, so it's lost.

But of course there are new and better plants in development, they are safer
and bigger and produce less waste. But the old plants still exist. You can't
replace them within a few years, it takes decades. And the costs for such a
programme will be very high.

Since 2005, there is a nuclear power plant being build in Finland, called
Olkiluoto III. The reactor was priced at three billion euros, currently the
price increased to about six billion. The reactor might go online in 2015, a
decade after the construction started.

The reactor will provide 1600 MW of electrical power. For comparison, in 2011
alone wind power plants were build with the combined power of 9600 MW (Europe
wide, Germany about 2000 MW, GB about 1300 MW).

I know, this is not directly comparable but it gives you a hint, that you
could have easily get the 1600 MW in ten years with renewable sources.

Nuclear power might be an interesting technology, but for me it is just a
steam machine, which leaves a huge pile of waste behind. Nobody knows how to
handle it, and people got it wrong. Search for Asse II if you want to know
more about it. For Germany it will be very hard to find a safe final deposit
for all the nuclear waste.

~~~
scarmig
I think many nuke advocates go much too far in the "nuclear power will solve
all our problems!"

That said, the strongest arguments for nuclear power has always been as part
of a balanced energy diet, not as the off the shelf answer to everything. So,
how do we figure out where it's appropriate and where not?

Properly price carbon, and remove all distorting subsidies to all forms of
energy, from fossil fuels to solar to wind to nuclear. Then let the market do
what it does best: figure out the best way to allocate capital to produce
goods.

Nuclear certainly needs proper regulation and safety requirements, but
contemporary designs are much lower risk than the Fukushima reactor from the
1970s or the ancient design of Chernobyl: despite that, they're nearly
impossible to build. I've heard it wouldn't even be allowed, in the current
regulatory regime, to replace those old plants with new ones. Something's
broken there.

~~~
ianbooker
Dear fellow free market enthusiast,

I fear it is not possible to determine a price for the storage of nuclear
waste, because it needs to be taken care of so long. If one could estimate a
price, I would doubt that any of todays companies companies is yet big enough
to pay for it.

If you look at germany for instance: We are using nuclear power since decades,
in almost 20 plants. Yet there is no solution for waste storage, so far. And
it will be society paying for it, not the companies.

~~~
velodrome
The US had a ban on reprocessing nuclear material and the industry is
currently not commercially viable. However, other countries (France and
Germany) do recycle their nuclear material. This can help reduce the amount of
nuclear waste.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing>

~~~
billysilly
That's nice and all, but "help reduce" doesn't really equal a "solution for
waste storage", and does not change the fact that society, not the companies
that built, run and extracted profits from these plants, will have to pay the
costs (which we cannot even calculate as long as we don't even have a storage
solution, which makes shrugging them off even more criminal -- yeah, _maybe_
it won't be so bad, but we shrug it off because we'll be dead by then, not
because we _know_ , and that's rather weak at best, disgusting at worst).

In that wikipedia article you linked, Germany only occurs only once on that
page, with a facility that has been out of operation since 1990 - WTF?

~~~
arrrg
That’s kinda beside the point, you know. We already have all that waste. We
already have to deal with it somehow. There is no avoiding it. So we might as
well add to it.

~~~
lutze
Ah, the "in for a penny" school of thought.

A very sensible and reasonable approach to something that could affect the
future of our entire species!

~~~
arrrg
Don’t be so overdramatic. If we were to use modern technology we would likely
no greatly increase the amount of waste, if not decrease it.

The costs are already there. The costs are mostly fixed. The marginal costs
are minimal. It’s in for 99 pennies, in for a pound.

~~~
lutze
Why do some people on this site immediately jump all over the rep button over
disagreements?

What's wrong with just having a good old argument?

You think I said something stupid, call me an idiot and tell me why.

------
gingerbreadman
Kalpakkam, India has already been in works for years! The design for it
according to wikipedia had been started in the 80's.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_Fast_Breeder_Reactor>

------
Andrea1
A Liquid Fluoride Thorium Ractor is as safe a unit as is possible. Look it up
online. Much safer, cheaper, and more versatile than a bulky CANDU. It can be
throttled and scaled which is a huge advantage. There is plenty of easily
accessable thorium worldwide. It also can generate radioisotopes that are
extremely useful and much more readily extracted from the reactor than those
currently used. Time to begin building these.

------
patrickk
Peter Thiel's class had an interesting part on Thorium:
[http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/23787022006/peter-
thiels...](http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/23787022006/peter-thiels-
cs183-startup-class-14-notes-essay)

------
henrikgs
According to an article in a norwegian newspaper[1], there are much bigger
challenges in extracting the thorium from the ore in Norway. The thorium in
India is supposedly easier utilize.

The technology today requires use of a lot of nasty chemicals to extract
thorium. I think this is a big issue for the government in addition to running
nuclear reactors.

[1]In norwegian: [http://www.aftenposten.no/okonomi/Gigantisk-energikilde-i-
Te...](http://www.aftenposten.no/okonomi/Gigantisk-energikilde-i-
Telemark-7055485.html)

------
gregsq
There's no insinuation in my posting this link, and it's not directly
pertinent to Thorium reactors, but the free PDF downloadable from here is a
good reference for these kinds of discussions, I think. Helped me with
perspective anyway.

<http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html>

------
teeja
"I think from a long-range standpoint--I'm talking about humanity--the most
important thing we could do is start by having an international meeting where
we first outlaw nuclear weapons and then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too." -
Hyman Rickover, January 28, 1982

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zachshallbetter
no way!

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Empro
Awesome.

