Thorium Power Presentation

7/29/2019 Thorium Power Presentation

1/15

THORIUM POWER

David K. Moser

Alternative Nuclear and Molten Salt Reactors


2/15

What is Thorium?

Naturally occuring Thorium-232, pre-dates the Earth itself

and was created in supernovae.

Radioactive decay of Thorium produces a significant amount

of Earths internal heat.

www.thoriumenergyalliance.com


3/15

What is Thorium?

Half life of 14.5 BILLION years.

A chunk of thorium is no more harmful than a bar of soap.

Richard Martin, Energy Expert and Science Writer

sciencelearn.org.nz


4/15

How do we use Thorium?Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR)

High-temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTR)

Boiling Water Reactors (BWR)

Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR)Fast Neutron Reactors (FNR)

Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)

Accelerator Driven Reactors (ADS)

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)

Must take advantage of the thorium fuel cycle to be worth it!

Uses flibe salts, combination of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluori


5/15

Thorium-232

Thorium-233

Protactinium-233

Uranium-233

Thorium-233

decays quickly

to

protactinium-

233.

Natural thorium

absorbs a

neutron from fission and

becomes Th-233.

Protactinium-233

decays slowly over

a month to U-233.

U-233 fissions,

releasing energy

and neutrons tocontinue the

process.

flibe-energy.com


6/15

Vacuum

Distillation

Fission

Product

Waste

RecycledLiF-BeF2

Scheduled externalbatch processing.

Fluoride

Volatility

Hexafluoride

Distillation

MoF6, TcF6,

SeF6, RuF5,

TeF6, IF7,

Other F6

F2

Uran

iumReduction

Fluo

rideVolatility

UF6

H2

HF

HF

Electrolyzer

UF6

xF6

UraniumAbsorption-

Reduction

Internalcontinuous

Hot salt to heat

exchanger

Cold salt from heatexchan er

Addition

al ThF4

Fertile liquid salt

blanket

(LiF-BeF2-ThF4)

Fissile liquid

fuel salt core

(LiF-BeF2-

UF4)

flibe-energy.com

LFTR Functionality


7/15

LFTR Functionality

Proven at Oak RidgeNational Laboratory

under Alvin

Weinberg.

www.ornl.gov

Molten Salt

Reactor Experiment

(MSRE) ran

successfully from1965 to 1972 with

both a 2.5 MW and

an 8 MW setup.

Original intent to

develop nuclearaircraft.

Plans were made for scalable reactors anywhere from MWs to GWs.


8/15

Why Thorium?

Data from eia.gov and iea.gov


9/15

Why Thorium?

www.made-in-china.com

Not only potent, but abundant!

13 ppm Thorium (twice average dirt)

4 ppm Uranium

The nuclear energy potential of

50 times the mass of the entiregranite block in coal.

Thorium in Earths crust estimated at 120 TRILLION tons.

Significant high-grade deposits in India, Australia, United States,

Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, Norway, Egypt, Russia, Canada,

Greenland, and China.

Common mining byproduct, no need for new mines with demandalready exceeded.


10/15

Why Thorium?

www.usgs.gov

USGS estimates300,000 tons of

reserves, half of

which are easily

extractable.

Considering only

the easy stuff,

thats equivalent to

~1 trillion b oil, 5xSaudi Arabias

reserves.


11/15

Why Thorium?

The salts are chemically stable and dont react with air or water.

The reactor operates at atmospheric pressure, reducing risk during failure.

Excess heat can be used for water desalinization, cracking of H and

ammonia generation for fuel cells, and much more.

Thermal spectrum operation with liquid salts eliminates meltdown

possibility, in addition to allowing the fuel to be consumed entirely.

Completely automatic shutdown in an emergency.

250t U(1.75t)

215t 35t

1t Th

(1 GW for both)

1t

Enrichment yields 35t fuel

and 215t depleted U.

Spent fuel contains 33.4t

U-238, .3t U-235, .3t Pu,

and 1t other fission

products. Waste lasts

10,000+ years.

Only fluorination required for

use. Thorium fuel cycle yields

100% conversion to fission

products containing

insignificant amounts of

actinides. After 10 years 83%

is stable and can be separated

for use, while remainder lasts~300 ears.


12/15

Why Thorium?

iissvoicesblog.files.wordpress.com

LFTR fuels and byproducts arenearly nonproliferate.

U-233 is weak in bombs, and

also yields U-232, which isdifficult to handle and easy to

detect.

Spent fuels and waste from other

reactor types can be burneddown into standard LFTR waste


13/15

Why NOT Thorium?!?

www.history.navy.milwww.archives.gov

President Richard M. Nixon Admiral Hyman G. Rickover


14/15

Why NOT Thorium?!?

www.ornl.gov

Alvin M. Weinberg

1915-2006 Gone the way of Wernher von

Braun and the Saturn V rocket.

Startup costs for first plant ~$1

billion.

This doesnt include the vast

commitment of funds and interest

needed for significant testing,

analysis, licensing, and regulation

infrastructure for the new forms offuel, fuel-cycle, coolant, waste

stream, and materials.Will require significant industry and

government support.


15/15

Sourceshttp://www.eia.gov/ http://www.iea.org/

http://www.usgs.gov/ http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.ornl.gov/ http://flibe-energy.com/

http://energyfromthorium.com/

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

http://www.archives.gov/ http://www.history.navy.mil/

http://theenergycollective.com/

http://newenergyandfuel.com/

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Thorium Power Presentation