On 01/09/2010 10:14, Dawlish wrote:
On Sep 1, 9:59 am, Martin
wrote:
On 31/08/2010 23:44, Lawrence Jenkins wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...a-could-kill-f...

Thorium could well be a viable nuclear fuel now. Molten salt thorium
reactors have been built in the past. I suspect that advocates for Th232
are cheating somewhat saying that it generates 200x more energy per
tonne than Uranium. I see no obvious reason why the energy released per
tonne should scale other than with binding energy per nucleon.

Thorium does have one obvious advantage in that it is easily obtained
from rare earth refining by products and 5x more common than uranium.
And requires no enrichment step to be fissile. But Uranium is a lot more
common than people think too at about 2ppm it is just that mineable ores
are uncommon. Tungsten is a rarer metal.

We will need to build some more nuclear power stations if the lights are
not to go out in a decade or twos time (or be reliant on EDF). At this
point in time they would have to be conventional tried and tested
reactor designs - the old kit will have to be decommissioned soon.

Regards,
Martin Brown

The first word in the Torygraph's article is "If". Says it all
really.

Looking more closely at it displays clearly the total ignorance of the
average British journalist about matters of science. He states:

"Thorium-fluoride reactors can operate at atmospheric temperature."

Funny planet he must live on with an atmosphere at 650C or thereabouts.
Not even Venus is that hot! He means atmospheric pressure. High working
temperatures are of molten salts are good for thermodynamic efficiency.
Their recommended eutectic mix doesn't melt at all until 490C. eg

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-2076...19731B7B1D6B39

I would take everything in the article with a *huge* pinch of salt.
Wiki has a little bit about the history of earlier fused salt
experimental nuclear reactors and their interesting quirks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_...ooled_reactors

Regards,
Martin Brown