By Professor (adj) Kim Hassall: Are all energy options on the table? No, what about the green renewable nuclear? Thorium!
For some 15 years now, I have followed the re-emergence of nuclear Thorium. The green nuclear as it is often referred to.
Way back an experimental Thorium Molten Salt Reactor was built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It critically operated for roughly 15,000 hours from 1965 to 1969. In 1968, it was announced that the thorium-based reactor had been both successfully developed and tested.
President Nixon defunded Thorium research in the early 1970’s. You can’t make bombs out of it! So why bother. In fact up until recently the USA would not even license a Thorium reactor being built. However, when China burst ahead with establishing a Thorium reactor a few years ago, the USA changed tack and is now licensing nuclear thorium. Abilene Christian University, MIT and Georgia Tech have all obtained licences.
The Wuwei reactor in the Gobi desert located in the Gansu province , is a two-megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor(MSR),operated by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The permit was issued by the National Nuclear Safety Administration, and this allows the Shanghai Institute to operate the reactor for 10 years and it will start by testing the facility’s operations. This Chinese prototype probably helped the USA change its mind on Thorium. Even Canada has got a research reactor up and going.
Beware though…. Thorium nuclear is not a loved bedfellow of the Uranium nuclear industry. A bit like Rolls Royce vs a mini-minor. The Uranium nuclear lobby will often disregard Thorium down in my experience. The uranium nuclear lobby in fact does not want to know about Thorium. My queries when I tried to find their Australia’s Thorium expert I was laughed at.
However, Thorium was in fact mentioned in Ziggy Switkowski’s 2006 Nuclear report to government, but only really in passing. A lot has changed since then. Alan Finkel’s energy report did not mention Thorium at all and had a gas focus. (How things have changed since then on gas, although he did recommend that we do not go headlong in decommissioning all coal power stations too soon.) CSIRO and the Grattan Institute have not mentioned Thorium in the energy mix. Even the Department of the Environment may not at all be across Thorium. A few years ago I queried their views on thorium and they admitted that they had never heard of a Thorium reactor !!!
Germany has commissioned two companies to develop and commercialize modular Thorium reactors by 2030. Naarea and Thorizon are the two companies involved in this project. Also the Copenhagen Atomics group are at the forefront of promoting Thorium nuclear, well worth investigating.
A Thorium reactor can also be used to decontaminate its own nuclear waste. Also Thorium reactors do not melt down, ever !!!!! Have our politicians only spoken to the Uranium lobby?
References