Third Thorium Energy Alliance marks rapid progress toward fulfillment of dreams

My health, although still not as good as I would like has been improving since my hospitalization last December. I am, however, not in good enough health to travel. This is unfortunate because I would very much have liked to attend the Third Thorium Energy AllianceConference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Energy from Thorium has a brief account of the Conference in Energy from Thorium. In addition the Thorium Energy Alliance has posted Power Point Presentations from the Conference on its web page. Judging from the presentations it is probably safe to say that Molten Salt Reactor technology has entered the age of entrepreneurs.

Presentations by Kirk Sorensen, DavidLe Blanc and Charles S Holden indicated that they were either currently involved in entrepreneurial activities or were seeking entrepreneurial opportunities. Kirk has left Teledyne Brown to found a company, Flibe Energy, the purpose of Flibe is to product LFTRs and perhaps uranium fueled MSRs. The relationship between Teledyne Brown and Flibe is not clear, but the money to pay Kirk's salary has to come from somewhere. The Flibe prospectus indicates that the company founders envisage going after such markets as isolated communities, and medical isotopes, as well as stable fission product sales.

Charles "Rusty" Holden probably wants to go after some of the Same Markets Kirk is targeting. Holden's company, Thorenco LLC, is planning to build a 40 MW MSR. The reactor is designed to produce about 15 MWe at maximum. Holden intends to come out of the starting gate with a full LFTR. The reactor is a pool type reactor which involves a large pool of molten coolant salts acting as a thermal sink. I am not a big fan of pool type reactors, although they are safe. This is safety at a cost. The coolant pool will contain 93,200 Liters of coolant salt which will weigh 450 tons. The function of the pool is far from clear since the reactor design includes a dump tank.

The reactor core contains no graphite, Moderation will be by Beryllium in the form of BeF2 in the salts. This is a two fluid reactor with blanket salts doubling as coolants. The core structure uses metal (no doubt Hastelloy N) tubing. With the tubes containing fuel salts surrounded by outer tubes containing coolant salts. Since there is no core core graphite, neutron speed will be relatively bast, likely falling in the Epithermal range. The core is surrounded by a thorium reflector, neutron absorption in the reflector converts some thorium into U-233. The reactor will be a converter, and will require 1600 kilograms of U-233 fissile load, which is an enormous amount given the modest amount of U-233 14 kgs per year, which the reactor will burn,

At this point I will stop, and pronounce Holden's reactor DOA. Too much material goes into it, and too little electricity will come out. Fundamental questions are left unanswered, for example startup. 1600 kgs of U-233 is probably more U-233 than exists in the whole world right now. Where is the U-233 going to come from? There are quite a few more problems and questions. As David LeBlanc noted in his Conference talk, "Softer Spectrum" means "much smaller fissile start up." David is still on the outside looking for an opportunity. In his Conference talk, David noted,

␣ Corporate interest will always be difficult to attract
␣ No lucrative fuel fabrication contracts
␣ Min 15 year return on investment a tough sell to shareholders (no matter how big the return may be)
␣ Existing nuclear players have their choices in place

Money is still the hard part, at least for now. Despite this enormous progress is being made by LFTR/MSR advocates. A month ago, Kirk Sorensen marked the fifth anniversary of Energy from Thorium. At that time a handful of people knew what thorium was. Even fewer knew about Molten Salt Reactors. Kirk set out to educate people using social media tools, and others followed his lead. What Kirk has managed to do is to start a bottom up social movement.

Where are we headed? Japanese Researcher Takashi Kamei of Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan offered some answers in the wake of the great Japanese earthquake-tsunami of 2011, not to mention the crisis related to Fukushima reactors. Takashi pictures MSRs beginning a rapid increase around 2025and with the number of LFTRs growing more slowly before 2050. He also suggests a growing number of LFTRs after 2035. Takashi estimates a total MSR output of 258 GWe to 317 GWe by 2050. My view is that much more is possible. The future will belong to the dreamers.

The Molten Salt Reactor Family: Two Fluid Reactors

The two fluid Molten Salt Reactor uses separate fluids for fuel and carrier salts. In the two fluid desige, two seperate salt fluids are present in the MSR core. The first is the fuel carrier, that is it contains one or more fissionable isotope. U-233, U-239 or Pu-239. A second fluid carries a fertile material, in MSRs always Th-232. There were from the start a numbr of advantages to the two fluid approach, as David LeBlanc points out,

Advantages

* Much more practical fission product processing without thorium in fuel salt
* Have choice of Vacuum Distillation or Simplified Liquid Bismuth Extraction
* Strongly negative temperature/void fuel salt reactivity constants
* Pa removal easily avoided by simply increasing volume of blanket salt Neutron leakage near zero

There were also a number of disadvantages,

Disadvantages

* Interlacing of fuel and blanket salt within core is the “Plumbing Problem”
* Blanket salt has positive temperature/void coefficients
* Need for extra heat transfer loop for the blanket salt (5-10% of heat load)

The carrier salt is referred to as the blanket salt. David LeBlanc pointed out that one advantage of a two fluid design is that protactinium need not be removed immediately from the blanket salt, while its presence effects both the nuclear process and the chemistry of the one fluid design.

Protactinium 233 is the 27 day half life intermediate between fertile Thorium and fissile U233. The problem is that it has a moderately high cross section for absorption, such that if it stays in the reactor loop, it may capture a neutron and not become U233. The average neutron flux the Pa sees is the main factor on how many neutrons will be lost. By increasing the volume of salt that carries the Thorium, one can lower these losses and skip this processing step. However, in a Single Fluid design if one increases the salt volume (by a lower power density core etc.) then this also increases the amount of fissile U233 needed at the same time.

In a 2 Fluid design with Thorium only in the blanket salt, one can increase its volume which does not increase how much U233 is needed. This is a financial burden in terms of carrier salt and Thorium but it is by no means excessive.

Skipping the Pa removal step is important for two main reasons. First, the process must be done very quickly, on the order of processing the whole volume of carrier salt in3 to 10 days. This is an enormous technical and economic challenge. Second is that this introduces a unique proliferation risk. When U233 is produced while in the reactor, significant quantities of U232 are also present. This is highly radioactive and leads to an extremely strong gamma ray being emitted. This would make working with the material extremely difficult if not impossible and also make detection of illicit material easily detectable. However, if the Pa is removed and allowed to decay outside the reactor it produces relatively clean U233.

Despite the disadvantages of the single fluid reactor in the late 1960's ORNL leaders felt that they were in competition with Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors, championed by Argonne National Laboratory. The LMFBR had some significant disadvantages, but it did feature a high breeding ratio, much higher, in fact than the breeding ratio of thermal cycle thorium breeders. Thus the slight theoretical breeding advantage of the single fluid MSR was attractive to them. Then ORNL scientists discovered

Liquid Bismuth reductive extraction process.

And although difficult, indeed quite possibly extremely difficult, it offered a route to staying in the breeder game for a little while. The breeder competition was itself evidence of the incompetence of the American Nuclear establishment. The LMFBR was a failure, that ended up costing billions of dollars only to end up being too expensive to build even a prototype. It could not compete with the MSR as far as safety or reprocessing technology. Eventually scientists at Argonne National Laboratory were to scrap the old LMFBR concept, and develop a new sodium cooled fast breeder design, the Integral Fast Reactor, that came much closer to matching many MSR advanced features. By that time the MSR was nothing more than a large series of research reports, and a shutdown prototype awaiting decommissioning.

At any rate, the ORNL two fluid MSR design from the 1960's was a very advanced reactor design that still looks very futuristic. reactor design. The design featured a 1000 MW power station, powered by 4 modular 250 MW two fluid MSRs. The motive for the modular design was not the cost advantage of factory production although ORNL researchers were no doubt aware of that. Rather, there intention was

replacement of an entire reactor vessel assembly after the core graphite received its allowable exposure to neutrons. [After] . . . about eight years of full-power operation.

ORNL 3996 stated,

An important factor in low power costs is the ability of the power plant t o maintain a high plant-availability factor. Thus design features
that can improve this factor are desirable if these features do not themselves introduce compensating disadvantages.

A four Modular Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MMSBR) facility will clearly more reliable than a one reactor facility. If one reactor is down, 750 MWs of electrical power would still be available, while in a single reactor one GW plant the down reactor would mean that no power would be available.

Like all two fluid MSRs, the OENL Modular Molten Salt Breeder Reactor two fluid reactor design divided its core into reactive and blanket regions. A blanket suggests that the core would have an inner region for fissionable materials and an outer region for fertile materials. This was not in fact the case in the ORNL modular design. The graphite in the core was divided up into tubes and core and blanket tubes were interlaced. This feature was not viable. Graphite shrinks and then swells under neutron bombardment. This caused ORNL MSR designers one huge headache, because the core plumbing would vary in size as the graphite evolved, this would effect regional power output within the core in unpredictable ways, and introduce an unacceptable level of uncertainty into reactor operations. ORNL-4528 noted,

The major concern was whether mechanical failure of graphite tubes in the reactor core would cause the effective lifetime of the core to be significantly less than the eight years imposed by the effects of irradiation on the graphite.

ORNL-4528 added,

The change in radial dimensions presented a more difficult problem. Densification of the graphite to produce a 2.5% reduction in distance across the flats of the hexagonal tubes would cause the fraction of the cross section of the core occupied by fuel cells to decrease by 5%, and the space occupied by the blanket salt would increase correspondingly. For the reactor with an average power density of 20 kw/liter, the volume fractions in the core would change from 0.802 to 0.762 for graphite, 0.134 t o 0.127 for fuel salt, and 0.064 to 0.111 for blanket salt. Changes of equal magnitude, but opposite in direction, would occur during the expansion phase. The rates of change of dimensions would vary with local power density, so at no time during the life of a core would the volume fractions corresponding to the maximum contraction or expansion exist throughout the core. At the end of life the graphite at the center of the core would have reached its maximum volume; graphite in the regions of average power density would be about at its minimum volume, and graphite in the outer fuel cells would be about halfway into the contraction stage.

ORNL 4528 explained,

Under irradiation the isotropic graphite being con-sidered at the time of these studies would decrease in volume by 7.5% during the contraction stage and then would increase in volume by as much as 7.5% over its initial volume by the end of its useful life. These changes in volume correspond to changes in linear dimensions of M.5% over the initial dimensions and create several design problems.

The MMSBR was intended to be a true breeder and depending on core design could breed at about a 1.05 or 1.06 ratio, with a fissile inventory as low as 220 kgs, or about a ton of U-233 per GW of rated electrical output. This was spectacular, but a larger core would mean longer graphite life and would nearly double the fissile inventory of the MMSBR. In order to capture every spare neutron, 150 times as much thorium was to be pumped through the MMSR core. The fissile inventory performance of the MMSBR is quite impressive when compared to that of recent French Fast Molten Salt Reactor designs that require as much as a six times larger fissile inventory. Sodium cooled fast breeders require a fissil inventory of as much as ten times as large.

Thus we have seen that the two fluid ORNL MMSBR although promising posed some significant materials and design problems. There was no advance in two fluid MSR design for nearly 40 years, until Canadian Physicist David LeBlanc proposed a radical change in two Fluid MSR core design. The old two fluid design had a diameter of 10 feet or more, while LeBlances new design had a diamiter of one meter.

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The LeBlanc tube core represents a potential breakthrough in reactor core design. It is extremely simple and manufacturing costs would be mainly material costs. The core itself could be built in a day. It can either be graphite moderated, coolant moderated or fast.

A recent paper by Reactor researchers from the Czech Republic, Jan Frybort and Radim Vocka argued that some problems of the ORNL MMSBR could be solved, while pointing out a new and previously unrecognized safety problem. The Paper, titled Neutronic Analysis of Two-Fluid Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (See Kirk Sorensen's discussion). Kirk summarizes,

In part 4A, they found that the temperature coefficient was strongly negative and that the breeding factor was good. In part 5, they looked at changing the design to improve it, and found that by making the fuel channels bigger than the original design, they improved nearly all parameters. This is an important result, since it’s not often that you change a parameter and find improvements in nearly all outputs from that parameter.

And then notes,

In part 7 of the paper, they mention the second key issue with a two-fluid reactor–the problem of the blanket void coefficient. Since the original ORNL design had the problem, and since they modeled only parametric variations on that original design, it’s no surprise that the problem still shows up. It must be fixed, probably through a new design approach to the two-fluid reactor. I have some ideas, most all of them based around physical situations where a loss of blanket fluid leads to a loss of moderation. I anticipate that this could be done by floating moderator elements (graphite) in the blanket salt, so that as the level of the blanket salt falls, the moderation decreases more than the absorption decreases from the loss of blanket. These ideas definitely need more modeling, but I think they are essentially sound.

Would the same effect apply to David LeBlanc's two shell design? Probably not. The Blanket void, positive coefficient of reactivity problem stems from the interlacing of blanket and fissionable salts in the MMSBR. David LeBlanc does not interlace blanket and core salts, thus a blanket void would not seem to increase core neutrons. A simple solution to the problem in the ORN design would be to keep core salt tubes in the center of the tube array, while blanket salt tubes form a ring around them on the outside. I suspect that Kirk has something like this in mind as his solution to the blanket salt void problem. At any rate, the two blanket solution appears to be alive and a very promising path toward a nuclear future.

Why the Chinese Commitment to the LFTR Matters

I changed the name of Nuclear Green to the Nuclear Green Revolution a couple of years ago. The Name Nuclear Green signified that Molten Salt/Liquid Fluoride Thorium technology had the potential to provide energy in a way that would protect the environment. The LFTR is the environmental reactor. (In fact however, nuclear power is very benign, the LFTR is just more environmentally benign than other forms of nuclear technology.)

The reason I added the word "Revolution" to the name of my blog, was that I believed that the LFTR had revolutionary potential, that it could change the lives of everyone on earth for the better. There is a huge amount of thorium in the earth, and the LFTR is up to 300 times more fuel efficient than conventional nuclear power plants. The LFTR could provide low-cost energy at the level now enjoyed in the United States to everyone on the planet, and provide it for millions of years.

During the last four years, this has all been thought about, argued about, and speculated in the Energy from Thorium Discussion pages. As of this morning, the EfT discussion has drawn over 33,600 comments on nearly 2200 topics, and no doubt those number will continue to grow. Energy from Thorium and Nuclear Green have participated in a campaign to increase public awareness. Both Energy from Thorium's Kirk Sorensen and I come from missionary religious traditions, and we have been spreading the word about thorium and the LFTR. Kirk has been especially vigorous in the use of social media. In addition to his blog, and its adjoining document archive and discussion forum, Kirk has used Facebook, YouTube videos, and Twitter to put his message across. Kirk has been to the United Kingdom twice, and has traveled several times to the Google campus to give presentations.

The consequences of our effort has been a steady increase in public awareness. Other Members of the Energy from Thorium community have reached out as well. Articles have appeared in The (UK) Guardian, The Economist, The (UK) Telegraph, and the Geek oriented, WIRED Magazine. Journal targeting scientists, engineers and technophiles including C&E News, Machine Design, American Scientist, and Mechanical Engineering have all carried thorium/LFTR related stories.

I have concentrated on spreading the word through the blog sphere. In addition to my own blogs, my posts have appeared on The Oil Drum, Daily Kos, The Energy Collective, Energy from Thorium and even the Liberal Zionist blog, Harry's Place. In addition I have posted energy related comments in dozens of other Internet sites.

If there is to be a Nuclear Green Revolution it will have worked from the bottom up, striving to create grassroots support. An energy from Thorium community has grown up, and people like David Le Blanc, Robert Steinhaus, and Robert Hargraves, and many other people have become active communicators about thorium LFTR advantages. Few of us doubt that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a major issue and perhaps the defining issue of this century. Global Climate Change is upon us:

While some hold out hope for a renewables-based approach to mitigation of climate change, critics of renewables point to daunting issues such as high costs and unreliability as lingering problems. Conventional nuclear power, while less expensive and far more reliable than renewable energy sources, is still more expensive than desirable. In addition the world supply of fissionable U-235 is far more limited than the world supply of thorium. A more advanced nuclear approach can transform Thorium into fissionable U-233, lower nuclear energy costs, while facilitating rapid global deployment of safe and clean nuclear power generating units.

The potential promise of thorium and the LFTR technology can rapidly be brought into the effort to prevent further global climate change. China, perhaps more than any other country has realized the importance of energy in increasing the wealth of its citizens, and making life for its people better. At the same time, the Chinese have paid an enormous price for their reliance on fossil fuel technology. As many as 500,000 people die every year from fossil fuel related causes. Global Warming represents another large threat to the well-being of the Chinese people, and although China has made a large commitment to renewable energy sources, the Chinese leadership is aware that renewables cannot produce anything like the amount of energy that the Chinese people need to bring their standard of living to that enjoyed by people living in advanced Industrialized and post-industrial societies. At the same time, the Chinese leadership is far more technologically oriented than the leadership of the United States or Europe.

Thus, the leadership of China is far more open to promising new technology. In addition China has a large thorium supply that comes from its rare earth mines, and so far has not found any use for thorium. The LFTR allows China to kill two birds with a single thorium stone. First it offers a potential source of vast amounts of environmentally clean and safe energy at a low cost, and secondly it allows China to take advantage of an unused resource, which can easily replace coal. LFTR technology has the potential of providing China with abundant energy at a very low cost, and might solidify Chinese economic, cultural and political dominance of the world for a long time to come. This is what the Chinese leadership sees.

Have the Chinese Been Reading Energy from Thorium or Nuclear Green?

Last week the Chinese Academy of Science announced that it planned to finance the development of a Chinese Thorium Breeding Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) or as it is called in the United States, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). The announcement came in a news report from Weihui.news365.com.cn. The announcement was relayed to Westerners who were interested in Thorium breeding molten salt reactors in a discussion thread comment posted by Chinese Scientist Hua Bai, last Friday. Kirk Sorensen, Brian Wang, and I all posted about Bai's announcement on Sunday, January 30.

In addition to these posts, the thread which Hua Bai started contains the revelation that the engineer who heads the Chinese Molten Salt Reactor Project is none other than Jiang Mianheng, a son of Retired Chinese President, Jiang Zemin. In addition to being President of People's China, Jiang was the chairmanship of the powerful Central Military Commission, suggesting the likelihood that Jiang Mianheng has military ties. He is the cofounder of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, and a former lead researcher in the Chinese Space Program, as well as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The presence of such a well connected Chinese science leader suggests that the Chinese TMSR project is regarded as important by the Chinese leadership. Thus the Chinese leadership, unlike the American Political andscientific leadership has grasped the potential of molten salt nuclear technology.

Yesterday, "horos11" commented on my blog, Nuclear Green,

I read this, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After all, this site and others have been sounding the clarion call to action on this, and I should be glad that someone finally heeded it and its getting traction in a place that really matters, but I have a sinking feeling that:

a. its going to take far less than their planned 20 years

b. they are going to succeed beyond their wildest expectations.

Which means that the next, giant sucking sound we may hear is the sound of the 5 trillion dollar energy market heading east, further depressing our economy, weakening the dollar (and the euro) and ultimately making the US economy dependent on rescue from the chinese in the future (when they are done rescuing themselves).

Yet, in the large scheme of things, this is a definite good, and may be our savior from anthropomorphic climate change.

so again, laugh? or cry. I guess its up to how you view things - I guess I'm tentatively laughing at the moment, but mostly from the overwhelming irony of all this.

Jason Ribeiro added,

I can't help but have a feeling of sour grapes about this. While I congratulate China for doing the obvious, America has its head buried so far in the sand it can't see straight. With all the internet clamor about LFTR that's been going on the internet in the past 3-4 years, it was the non-English speaking Chinese that finally got the message that this was a great idea worth investing in. Our leadership ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The Chinese News story on the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor reflects the clear Chinese thinking about the potential role of LFTRs in the future Chinese energy economy. I will paraphrase,

"the future of advanced nuclear fission energy - nuclear energy, thorium-based molten salt reactor system" project was officially launched. . . The scientific goal is to developed a new generation of nuclear energy systems [and to achieve commercial] use [in] 20 years or so. We intend to complete the technological research needed for this system and to assert intellectual property rights to this technology. Fossil fuel energy is being depleted, and solar and wind energy are not stable enough, while hydropower development has reached the limit of its potential.. . .

Nuclear power seems to offer us a very attractive future energy choice, high energy density, low carbon emissions, and the potential for sustainable development. . . . China has chosen {to make an energy] breakthrough in the direction of molten salt reactors. . . . this liquid fuel reactors has a simple structure and can run at atmospheric pressure, [it can use any fissionable material as fuel} and has other advantages. "This new stove" can be made very small, will operate with stabile nuclear fuel, and will run for several decades before replacement. After the thorium is completely used in the nuclear process the TMSR will produce nuclear waste will be only be one-thousandth of that produced by existing nuclear technologies.

As the world is still in the development of a new generation of nuclear reactors, the thorium-based independent research and development of molten salt reactors, will be possible to obtain all intellectual property rights. This will enable China to firmly grasp the lifeline of energy in their own hands.

Let the word "nuclear" no longer mean war.

In the past, people always talk about "core" colors. The Hiroshima atomic bomb, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion, these are like a lingering nightmare that is marked in human history. But a new generation of nuclear power will take the color green, the mark of peace taking human beings into a new era.

Oh Wow! It sounds as if someone in China has been reading Nuclear Green or Energy from Thorium. And there is more!

In addition, the "new stove" operating at atmospheric pressure operation, rather than the traditional reactor operating at high pressure, will be simple and safe. "When the furnace temperature exceeds a predetermined value, in the bottom of the MSR core, a frozen plug of salt will automatically melt, releasing the liquid salt in the reactor core into an emergency storage tanks, and terminating the nuclear reaction," scientist Xu Hongjie told reporters, as the cooling agent is fluoride salts (the same salts that also carrying the nuclear fuel), after the liquid salt cools it turns solid, which prevents the nuclear fuel from leaking out of its containment, and thus will not pollute ground water causing an ecological disasters. The added safety opens up new possibilities for reactors, they can be built underground, completely isolating radioactive materials from the reactor, also the underground location will protect the reactor from an enemy's weapon attack. Reactors can be built in large cities, in the wilderness, or in remote villages.

Well Kirk Sorensen and I wanted our ideas to become national priorities. We just did not know in what country it would happen first. Unfortunately the leadership of the United States, continues to be determined to lead this nation into the wilderness of powerlessness, while the leadership of communist China is alert to the possibilities of a new energy age. Possibilities that can be realized by molten salt nuclear technology. Lets hope that someone in the White House or Congress wakes up. The Chinese understand the implications of their venture into Molten Salt nuclear technology. The American leadership does not.

RT: Thorium Might Change the World

Energy from Thorium Discussion On Target.

Kirk Sorenson gave his blog, Energy From Thorium, an unusual three part organization. First, there is a document repository, which contains pdf copies of hundreds of research document, most of which originated in Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The repository documents ORNL research and thinking about a unique and until recently poorly understood Molten Salt Reactor technology that was developed in Oak Ridge over a period of a generation between 1947 and 1980. The document repository contains one of the larger energy related sets of documents accessible on the internet. The other two parts of Kirk's blog might be viewed as commentary on the documents.

The second part of the blog is conventional blog, with posts that date back from 2006 to the present. Most of the blog posts can be viewed as commentary on the document repository. Some blog Posts discuss the history of Molten Salt Reactor technology development at Oak Ridge. Some posts also describe scientists, engineers, bureaucrats and politicians whose lives at least touched on Molten Salt Reactor development. Other posts describe individual documents contained in the repository, and still other posts explore potential designs and uses of Molten Salt Reactors.

The third part of Energy from Thorium is a Discussion Forum. The EfT discussion forum contains a great deal of commentary on the documents found in the EfT archive. There are currently over 700 registered members of the EfT forum, and they are a diverse lot, including scientist, engineers, students, lay people, technophiles, geeks and bloggers. You do not have to be a nuclear scientist to read and participate in EfT discussions. No one gets put down for asking questions intended to fill gaps in their knowledge. Since Kirk Started started EFT in late 2006 over 700 people have joined the site. Those 700 + people have generated over 28,000 comments on over 1800 topics.

Although the the central focus of the discussion is on the thorium breeding version of the molten salt reactor, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), just about any matter that is energy related is fair gain for comment. Discussions are conducted on a technical, simi-technical and non technical levels. Anyone who has a passing interest in nuclear engineering, can learn all they would like to know about MSR/LFTR design. Even more exotic liquid chloride fast reactors receive attention. Water cooled, gas cooled, liquid metal, and hybrid liquid salt cooled reactors receive heir own sub-sections. Still other sections deal with Uranium Enrichment and the Uranium and Thorium supply.

The EfT forum is sometimes described as open science, but this is not quite accurate. EfT discussion at best attempts to draw plausible conclusions from reactor technology research that was conducted at ORNL between 1950 and 1980. ORNL researchers regarded their MSR research project a major success, with large implications for the future of energy, and human economic development. It is not absurd to speak of an ORNL Paradigm, which informs much of EfT the discussion. At its broadest, the EfT discussion reflects the earliest stage of a potential paradigm shift.

Discussions run far afield from MSR/LFTR technology. One current discussion focuses on the Cape Wind project. Topics such as the nuclear proliferation potential of MSR/LFTRs are hotly debated. Other discussions focus on cancer risks from the use of radiation and radioactive materials in medical settings. Potential nuclear waste associated with LFTR operations comes in for attention, as does the role of nuclear waste in public opposition to nuclear power.

One goal of the EfT is the growth of public knowledge of the potential of LFTRs and of the Thorium fuel cycle. A sub-forum, Thorium in the News tracks the increase of media attention to the LFTR/thorium story.

Other forum sub-sections deal with nuclear developments in the United States, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Europe and India. These sections allow for exploration of topics related to more conventional nuclear technology.

The discussion section format is flexible, and some of the ORNL and related papers found in the archive are reproduced and/or discussed here. Much of the discussion in the EfT discussion forum is dependent on acquaintance with documents found in the archive. EfT participants are skeptical of claims made by the renewable energy lobby. This cannot be simply due to pro, nuclear prejudice, most commenters take a fact based approach to questions about renewable reliability and cost. Critics of nuclear power get quite a pasting from EfT commenters., with well known energy writer Joe Romm standing at the head of the EfT unpopularity list.

For 2 1/2 years EfT participants have worked on a Thorium Grand Plan. Over 500 suggestions have been offered to date.

EfT is far from being a typical blog. It is a major venue for internet based energy discussion, with much attention focused on advanced forms of nuclear energy. The EfT discussion, as it explores the future potentials of nuclear energy, is beginning to effect broaded energy discussions in out society. 2010 is beginning to look like the year during which the EfT broak through to the mainstream media. A story in the January 2010 issue of Wired Magazine, featured Thorium, the LFTR and Kirk Sorensen. More attention has recently followed in science and engineering media. Thorium related stories and videos are showing up in unlikely places. There is a thorium buzz on Twitter, There is a growing interest in Congress.

All this is quite an accomplishment for a 3 1/2 year old endeavor.

Thorium Remix 2009

Kirk Sorensen, Dr. Robert Hargraves, and Dr. Joe Bonometti explain the importance of Thorium as a potential nuclear fuel and the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) in this digested version of their Google Tech Talks. 197 minutes of video have been digested into a 25 minute long video, which can serve as an introduction to these revolutionary ideas, and the talk is indexed for important ideas.

00:34	Thorium not fissionable, so how can it be a fuel?
01:30	Wartime perspective: Uranium vs Thorium. Uranium better suited for bombs.
02:48	Today’s light water reactors’ wasteful fuel cycles.
04:17	Nuclear criticality and self controlling reactors.
05:25	1944: A tale of two isotopes.
08:47	“We’ll build a fluid fueled reactor.” Easy removal of Xenon-135.
16:05	Alvin Wineberg fired. Program canceled.
18:48	Basic light water reactor problem: Incomplete combustion. LFTR solves problem of spent nuclear fuel.
20:58	What is LFTR’s biggest obstacle? LFTR is different and unknown.
23:11	U-238 Pu-239 chemical separation (fast breeder reactors): LFTR still better.

The video was prepared by Gordon McDowell who wrote:

If you are care about climate change, energy independence or nuclear fission byproducts (some take thousands of years to decay), then please check this out.

Kirk Sorensen's Google Talk

Kirk Sorensen in Manchester

A year and a half ago, I emailed Kirk and told him to get ready. "Your day will come," I said. And indeed the song "Our day will come," has been one of the theme songs for Nuclear Green:

(This is dedicated to Becky whose day has come at last, and to Kirk whose day, we all hope, will come on Sunday.)

We few, we chosen few, have set out to communicate that solutions to the global energy crisis need not be difficult, that in fact that the solution need not be painful nor expensive, and that the solution comes from a technology that is already known. We few, we happy few, believe that it is perfectly possible, given a chance, that this technology can spread around the world within a couple of decades, and be 2050 it can provide over half of the world's energy.

This weekend Kirk travels to Manchester, England to talk about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Kirk's presentation will be included in the Manchester Report, a summary on some 20 presentations on solutions to climate change that will be presented Saturday and Sunday at the Manchester Town Hall.

400,000 copies of the Manchester Report will be printed as a supplement to an edition of the Guardian. In addition the report will be avaliable on the internet for downloading. Copies of the Report will be sent to World Leaders prior to the December 2009 World Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Recipients will include British MPs, American members of Congress and policymakers in India, China and other regions; business leaders, think tanks and many others.

Members of the Panel preparing the report will include:

Lord Tom Bingham, former chief law lord and Lord Chief Justice for the United Kingdom
Dan Reicher, Director of climate change and energy at Google.org, and known enemy of the IFR
Chris Goodall, editor of carboncommentary.com.
Bryony Worthington, founder of sandbag.org.uk.

Kirk's solution will come as a shock to the pannel members, because they will not expect a solution that can be so easily deployed, and which will be so inexpensive. Most of all they will not expect a clean nuclear solution. Some panel members may be fanatic anti-nuclear types, or may be so in denial about the potential of nuclear energy, that they may not be ready to accept what Kirk has to offer. The important thing is that Kirk will have a chance to get his story across, and that some people will hear what he has to say.

Update: Kirk reports that he is the only 'Nuclear oriented Manchester presented. Of course, the LFTR answers all of the traditional Green complaints about nuclear power. Lets hope this means that the "greenness" of the LFTR will be recognized in Manchester.

The Rosy-fingered Dawn of the Second Nuclear Era

Our Day Will Come
Ruby & The Romantics

Our day will come
And we'll have everything.
We'll share the joy
Falling in love can bring.

No one can tell me
That I'm too young to know (young to know)
I love you so (love you so)
And you love me.

Our day will come
If we just wait a while.
No tears for us -
Think love and wear a smile.

Our dreams have magic
Because we'll always stay
In love this way
Our day will come.
(Our day will come; our day will come.)

Our dreams have magic
Because we'll always stay
In love this way.
Our day will come.
Our day will come

From the Amidah (Shemoneh Esreh)
Return in mercy to thy city Jerusalem and dwell in it, as you have promised; rebuild it quickly, in our days, as an enduring structure, . . .

Some time ago I told Kirk Sorensen to get ready because his time was coming. His time has now arrived, and far more quickly than I had anticipated.

Kirk Sorensen is a visionary. His vision recaptures the vision of Alvin Weinberg. Since last spring there has been a growing Internet buzz about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. There can be little doubt of the central role of Kirk Sorensen in creating this buzz. Kirk, after all rebranded the generation old Oak Ridge National Laboratory idea of a molten salt thorium breeder reactor, the LFTR. But he did more than that, he created a forum on which people would be free to think about the vision. Unlike many visions, Kirk's vision had taken real tangible form. I know, because my father had been there, had helped to shape those tangible forms, and he was still alive. I could talk to him, ask him questions, get his recollections of the tangible form of Kirk's vision.

"Energy from Thorium" has three parts. The Blog, the Discussion Form, and the document repository. Through the Document Repository, I was able to put together my childhood and youthful experiences of my father, with his own documentation of his research. Although largely unseen, the LFTR had been a part of my life for almost two decades. Much of my father's early work was a covered in secrecy, When I asked him what he did at work, he would reply that his work was a government secret. By the time the work ceased to be secret, the habit of compartmentalization of work and home had set in. Every now and then, my father might say a few words about stories that appeared in the Oak Ridge newspaper. Later he was to complain about a peer review of a paper he had written. "They complain," my father said, "that I refer too much to research that has been done at ORNL. What they don't realize that the research we do here is the best in the world". My father was and is a truly modest man, and a master of the literature review. If my father said that ORNL research was the best in the world, it was because he had good reason to think so.

There is no question that when my father started researching molten salt chemistry in July 1950, that ORNL thinking on reactor design was far in advance of of the rest of the world including Chicago. In fact ORNL thinking about reactor design in 1950 was two generations ahead of the rest of the world. The would began to catch up, when NASA asked Kirk Sorensen to look at the idea of putting a reactor into space. As he sought a viable design, Kirk discovered the MSR, but more than that, he rediscovered Alvin Weinberg's vision. Alvin Weinberg had published a visionary essay, "Energy as an Ultimate Raw Material, or Burning the Rocks and Burning the Sea," during 1959 in Physics Today (vol. 12, no. 11, p. 18).

Weinberg's vision was huge is scope as he later explained:

In this essay I speculated on the very long-range future-hundreds, even thousands, of years in the future. Where will our energy come from at that distant time when coal, oil, and natural gas have been used up? Solar energy is one obvious inexhaustible source. Another, if it works, could be controlled thermonuclear energy based on deuterium from the sea (thus "Burning the Sea"). My main point, however, was to stress what Phil Morrison and then Harrison Brown had already noticed: that the residual and all but infinite uranium and thorium in granite rocks could be burned with an energy yield larger than the energy required to mine and refine the ore—but only if breeders, which could burn nearly all the fertile material, are used. I spoke of "Burning the Rocks": the breeder, no less than controlled fusion, is an inexhaustible energy system. Up till then we had thought that breeders, burning 50% instead of 2% of the uranium, extended the energy derivable from fission "only" 25-fold. But, because the breeder uses its raw material so efficiently, one can afford to utilize much more expensive—that is, dilute—ores, and these are practically inexhaustible. The breeder indeed will allow humankind to "Burn the Rocks" to achieve inexhaustible energy!

In his autobiography Weinberg confessed:

"I became obsessed with the Idea that humankind's whole future depended on the breeder. For Society generally to achieve and maintain a standard of living of today's developed countries, depends on the avaliability of relatively cheap, inexhaustible sources of energy."

In 1969 as ORNL was, under orders from the USAEC, winding down its brilliantly successful Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, Alvin Weinberg wrote,

The achievement of a cheap, reliable, and safe breeder remains the primary task of the nuclear energy community. (In expressing this view, I suppose I betray a continuing frustration at the slow progress of fusion research, even though the Russian success with the tokamak has quickened the pace.) Actually not much has changed in this regard in 25 years. Even during World War II, many people realized that the breeder was central. It is only now, with burner reactors doing so well, that the world generally has mobilized around the great aim of the breeder.

As all readers of Nuclear Applications & Technology know, the prevailing view holds that the LMFBR (Liquid sodium cooled fast breeder) is the proper path to ubiquitous, permanent energy. It is no secret that I, as well as many of my colleagues at ORNL, have always felt differently. When the idea of the breeder was first suggested in 1943, the rapid and efficient recycle of the partially spent core was regarded as the main problem. Nothing that has happened in the ensuing quarter-century has fundamentally changed this. The successful breeder will be the one that can deal with the spent core most rationally—either by achieving extremely long burnup, or by greatly simplifying the entire recycle step. We at Oak Ridge have always been intrigued by this latter possibility. It explains our long commitment to liquid-fueled reactors-first, the aqueous homogeneous and now, the molten salt. groups working vigorously on molten salts outside Oak Ridge. . . .

. . . indeed, the enthusiasm displayed here is no longer confined to Oak Ridge. There are now several groups working vigorously on molten salts outside Oak Ridge. The enthusiasm of these groups is not confined to MSRE, nor even to the molten-salt breeder. For we now realize that molten-salt reactors comprise an entire spectrum of embodiments that parallels the more conventional solid-fueled systems. Thus molten-salt reactors can be converters as well as breeders; and they can be fueled with either 239Pu or 233U or 235U.

However, we are aware that many difficulties remain, especially before the most advanced embodiment, the Molten-Salt Breeder, becomes a reality. Not all of these difficulties are technical. I have faith that with continued enlightened support of the US Atomic Energy Commission, and with the open-minded, sympathetic attention of the nuclear community . . . the molten-salt reactors will find an important niche in the unfolding nuclear energy enterprise.

Alvin Weinberg's 40 year old expression of faith now seems at last to be on the virge of fulfillment, thanks to Kirk's vision and hard work.

The first thing that Kirk did was to give the Thorium fuel cycle Molten Salt Reactor a new name, The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). The reason was simple, liquid fluoride sounded far more benign than dangerous sounding term "molten salt". Aside from connotation, LFTR overtly tied the reactor concept to the use of the thorium fuel cycle. We hope the curious will ask, "what is that?" The term LFTR is an opening to tell the story of the Molten Salt Reactor, its safety, its potential to "eat" nuclear waste, to lower reactor costs, and the endless abundance of unused Thorium in the crust of the earth.

I once told Kirk that he needed to get ready because his day would come. I now believe that that day is upon us. kirk mwas invited to Washington on November 3, to give a presentation at a workshop on Post-carbon energy issues, sponsorder by the renouned Dr. Jim Hanson. kirk must have made an impression. In his latest briefing paper Tell Barack Obama the Truth – The Whole Truth
Hansen makes the following statement:

Nuclear Power. Some discussion about nuclear power is needed. Fourth generation nuclear power has the potential to provide safe base-load electric power with negligible CO2 emissions.

There is about a million times more energy available in the nucleus, compared with the chemical energy of molecules exploited in fossil fuel burning. In today’s nuclear (fission) reactors neutrons cause a nucleus to fission, releasing energy as well as additional neutrons that sustain the reaction. The additional neutrons are ‘born’ with a great deal of energy and are called ‘fast’ neutrons. Further reactions are more likely if these neutrons are slowed by collisions with non-absorbing materials, thus becoming ‘thermal’ or slow neutrons.

All nuclear plants in the United States today are Light Water Reactors (LWRs), using ordinary water (as opposed to ‘heavy water’) to slow the neutrons and cool the reactor. Uranium is the fuel in all of these power plants. One basic problem with this approach is that more than 99% of the uranium fuel ends up ‘unburned’ (not fissioned). In addition to ‘throwing away’ most of the potential energy, the long-lived nuclear wastes (plutonium, americium, curium, etc.) require geologic isolation in repositories such as Yucca Mountain.

There are two compelling alternatives to address these issues, both of which will be needed in the future. The first is to build reactors that keep the neutrons ‘fast’ during the fission reactions. These fast reactors can completely burn the uranium. Moreover, they can burn existing long-lived nuclear waste, producing a small volume of waste with half-life of only sever decades, thus largely solving the nuclear waste problem.

The other compelling alternative is to use thorium as the fuel in thermal reactors. Thorium can be used in ways that practically eliminate buildup of long-lived nuclear waste. The United States chose the LWR development path in the 1950s for civilian nuclear power because research and development had already been done by the Navy, and it thus presented the shortest time-to-market of reactor concepts then under consideration. Little emphasis was given to the issues of nuclear waste. The situation today is very different. If nuclear energy is to be used widely to replace coal, in the United States and/or the developing world, issues of waste, safety, and proliferation become paramount.

Nuclear power plants being built today, or in advanced stages of planning, in the United States, Europe, China and other places, are just improved LWRs. They have simplified operations and added safety features, but they are still fundamentally the same type, produce copious nuclear waste, and continue to be costly. It seems likely that they will only permit nuclear power to continue to play a role comparable to that which it plays now.

Both fast and thorium reactors were discussed at our 3 November workshop. The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept was developed at the Argonne National Laboratory and it has been built and tested at the Idaho National Laboratory. IFR keeps neutrons “fast” by using liquid sodium metal as a coolant instead of water. It also makes fuel processing easier by using a metallic solid fuel form. IFR can burn existing nuclear waste, making electrical power in the process. All fuel reprocessing is done within the reactor facility (hence the name “integral”) and many enhanced safety features are included and have been tested, such as the ability to shutdown safely under even severe accident scenarios.

The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is a thorium reactor concept that uses a chemically-stable fluoride salt for the medium in which nuclear reactions take place. This fuel form yields flexibility of operation and eliminates the need to fabricate fuel elements. This feature solves most concerns that have prevented thorium from being used in solid-fueled reactors. The fluid fuel in LFTR is also easy to process and to separate useful fission products, both stable and radioactive. LFTR also has the potential to destroy existing nuclear waste, albeit with less efficiency than in a fast reactor such as IFR.

Both IFR and LFTR operate at low pressure and high temperatures, unlike today’s LWR’s. Operation at low pressures alleviates much of the accident risk with LWR. Higher temperatures enable more of the reactor heat to be converted to electricity (40% in IFR, 50% in LFTR vs 35% in LWR). Both IFR and LFTR have the potential to be air-cooled and to use waste heat for desalinating water.

Both IFR and LFTR are 100-300 times more fuel efficient than LWRs. In addition to solving the nuclear waste problem, they can operate for several centuries using only uranium and thorium that has already been mined. Thus they eliminate the criticism that mining for nuclear fuel will use fossil fuels and add to the greenhouse effect.

The Obama campaign, properly in my opinion, opposed the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. Indeed, there is a far more effective way to use the $25 billion collected from utilities over the past 40 years to deal with waste disposal. This fund should be used to develop fast reactors that eat nuclear waste and thorium reactors to prevent the creation of new long-lived nuclear waste. By law the federal government must take responsibility for existing spent nuclear fuel, so inaction is not an option. Accelerated development of fast and thorium reactors will allow the US to fulfill its obligations to dispose of the nuclear waste, and open up a source of carbon-free energy that can last centuries, even millennia.

The common presumption that 4th generation nuclear power will not be ready until 2030 is based on assumption of ‘business-as-usual”. Given high priority, this technology could be ready for deployment in the 2015-2020 time frame, thus contributing to the phase-out of coal plants. Even if the United States finds that it can satisfy its electrical energy needs via efficiency and renewable energies, 4th generation nuclear power is probably essential for China and India to achieve clear skies with carbon-free power.

Hansen adds

Prompt development of safe 4th generation nuclear power is needed to allow energy options for countries such as China and India, and for countries in the West in the likely event that energy efficiency and renewable energies cannot satisfy all energy requirements.

Deployment of 4th generation nuclear power can be hastened via cooperation with China, India and other countries. It is essential that hardened ‘environmentalists’ not be allowed to delay the R&D on 4th generation nuclear power. Thus it is desirable to avoid appointing to key energy positions persons with a history of opposition to nuclear power development. Of course, deployment of nuclear power is a local option, and some countries or regions may prefer to rely entirely on other energy sources, but opponents of nuclear power should not be allowed to deny that option to everyone.

I believe that we may be sining the dawn of Kirk's day.