Thorium, the green energy source for the future macsci details a very convincing case for developing thorium molten sodium reactors as soon as possible to fill the gaps in energy generation worldwide. Every other reactor design in history had used fuel thats solid, not liquid. In these types of reactors, thorium and uranium fluorides are combined into a salt mixture thats heated to a. Liquid fluoride thorium reactor design have been made over conventional solid fuel reactors. About lftr liquid flouride thorium reactors lftr now. Rarick2 and rajmohan rangarajan3 cleveland state university, cleveland, ohio 44115 an overall system analysis approach is used to propose potential conceptual designs of. This arrangement generally works best in a reactor type called an lftr pronounced lifter, a. While there are many advantages to lftrs, nothing is perfect, and the idea does have faults. Kirk sorensen at protospace the calgary hackerspace. It utilized a lithium7beryllium fluoride solvent into which was dissolved zirconium and uranium tetrafluorides. There are several pathways for using thorium and technical challenges which will not be fully covered here. Kirk sorensen at mount royal university liquid fluoride thorium reactor by gordon mcdowell. Discover delightful childrens books with prime book box, a subscription that.
Liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr simply too dangerous thats why it was stopped. Juhaszl nasa glenn research center, cleveland, ohio 445 richard a. New dawn for thorium nuclear reactor research the engineer. Thorium energy can help check co2 and global warming, cut deadly air pollution. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor is a type of molten salt reactor. Lftr lftr or liquid fluoride thorium reactor is a safer, cleaner, and more efficient nuclear reactor.
It is easier to control than a uranium cycle, can be failsafe, runs at a high temperature for good thermal efficiency and although the waste is radioactively hot, it decays more quickly. Then you stirred in a salt such as uranium tetrafluoride, which. Update on the liquid fluoride thorium reactor projects in. Why is the united states not pursuing liquid fluoride thorium reactors lftr more robustly as an inexpensive, environmentally friendly form of energy production. Publication date 20110331 usage attributionshare alike 3. In the reactor, 232 th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 u which is the nuclear fuel. Thorium dioxide tho2 is a challenging fuel in solidfueled reactors due to its. Now what with ryan duffy covers some of the innovative things people are doing about some of the worlds largest problems. Future is not looking good for thorium nuclear reactors. So once the thorium fuel cycle is started by adding fissile u 235, theoretically, no more fissile material will ever need to be added. This talk is incorporated into a feature length documentary called thorium remix 2011, featuring kirk and many other thorium advocates discussing the implications of thorium on global warming, manufacturing jobs, national security and management of todays light water reactors radioactive nuclear waste. Perhaps these technical problems can be overcome, but why would anyone bother to try, knowing in advance that the msr plant will be uneconomic due to huge construction costs and operating costs, plus will explode and rain radioactive molten salt when not if the steam generator tubes leak. Unlike natural uranium, natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material such as 231 th, which are insufficient to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. In a typical design, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an external heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to a nonradioactive secondary salt.
Thoriumbased nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the. One of the largest supplies of thorium in the world is in the country of india, where there is not much uranium. About the department department history contact us donate. Today were going to take a second look at a technology that, in the past few years, has become something of a cult icon. Lftrs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoridebased, molten. Thorium is a naturally occurring nuclear fuel that is four times more. This will provide a green, safe energy source using an abundant fuel which will also solve the problem of present uranium.
Im a fan of history of science books, so this was at least a 3 before i opened it. Lftr is fluoride based liquid fuel, that use the thorium dissolved in salt mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. With coauthor ralph moir he has written articles for the american physical society forum on physics and society. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors request pdf researchgate. The earliest thoriumbased reactor was built at the indian point energy center located in buchanan, new york, united states in 1962. At the dawn of the nuclear industry, the united states manhattan project developed the atomic bomb, or real two models of atomic. Kirk sorensen at mount royal university liquid fluoride thorium reactor. The goal of thorium breeding was deferred since the favored design at the time was a tworegion liquidfluoride breeder. Robert hargraves has written articles and made presentations about the liquid fluoride thorium reactor and energy cheaper than from coal the only realistic way to dissuade nations from burning fossil fuels. Why is the united states not pursuing liquid fluoride.
Thorium and the future of nuclear energy pbs space time. The liquidfluoride thorium reactor lftr, a type of molten salt reactor, is being touted by many as the best solution to thoriumpowered nuclear energy. The concept is simple, yet thoroughly investigated. If i actually knew the answer to that question knew as in i can prove it in. Proponents of renewable energy concede that thorium is preferable to uranium. Uranium is so last century enter thorium, the new green nuke. But then i learned about thorium, and the story got even better. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr offers promise for the future. Desired first demonstration at a military site to be determined. Should we consider using liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Thorium reactors, some say, can provide limitless energy. Kirk sorensen presented an introduction to flibe energy at the thorium energy conference 2011 55 pages flibe energy will initially design, develop and demonstrate a small modular liquidfluoride thorium reactor smlftr for the us military. Yet conventional nuclear reactors which could meet the need, in principle.
Moltensaltfueled reactors msrs supply the nuclear fuel in the form of a molten salt mixture. There is a great deal of useful information in this document. Liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr is an innovative design for the thermal breeder reactor that has important potential benefits over the traditional reactor design. That proved to be the most pivotal year in energy history, according to the. Nuclear technology abandoned decades ago might give us safer. First, we need to look at an extra bit of recent history in addition to the history, which. Energy cheaper than coal is a fantastic fact based book on the problems surrounding our use of energy, and the alternatives that we can pursue.
Robert hargraves is a study leader for energy policy at dartmouth ilead. High efficiency nuclear power plants using liquid fluoride thorium reactor technology albert j. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors an old idea in nuclear power gets reexamined robert hargraves and ralph moir what if we could turn back the clock to 1965 and have an energy doover. In a lftr, the reactor vessel contains two types of liquid fluoride salts.
Request pdf liquid fluoride thorium reactors the molten salt reactor. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor has several advantages. Thorium energy can help check co2 and global warming, cut deadly air pollution, provide inexhaustible energy, and increase human prosperity. Hank addresses a highly requested topic liquid fluoride thorium reactors and tells us how lftr might be the future of energy in. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors are seen as the future of energy. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors are designed to be meltdown proof. Lftr disadvantages liquid fluoride thorium reactors. A proven and highly promising thorium reactor technology is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr. Thorium, the green energy source for the future by. In june of that year, the mol ten salt reactor experiment msre achieved criticality for the first time at oak ridge national laboratory ornl in tennessee. New molten salt thorium reactor powers up for first time. It was a successful technology that was dropped because it was too different from the main lines of reactor development.
October 8, 2018, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the operation of the moltensalt reactor experiment msre using uranium233 as a fuel. Molten salt reactors, including liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Using thorium in a solid fueled, water cooled reactor, such as india is doing, does not give the safety and wastereducing benefits of a molten fueled, salt cooled reactor. The making of the atomic bomb by richard rhodes is one of the best books to explore that history. A brief history of the liquidfluoride reactor thorium. Lftr liquid fueled thorium reactor a moltensalt reactor using thorium a lftr is a different kind of reactor. Our world is beset by global warming, pollution, resource conflicts, and energy poverty.
Reactors containing molten thorium salt, called liquid fluoride thorium reactors lftr, would tap the thorium fuel cycle. High efficiency nuclear power plants using liquid fluoride. How a cold warera nuclear power plant could save us from. A team from the nuclear research and consultancy group nrg the netherlands has built the first molten salt reactor powered by thorium in decades. Now, this was sounding pretty good to me, and i was excited about the potential of using a liquid fluoride reactor to power a lunar community. A cold warera liquidfueled reactor design could transform thorium. U233 is a superior nuclear fuel, producing enough neutrons through its fission.
Maybe we can have them become interested in molten salt reactors such as liquid fluoride thorium reactor to provide power all the time, or all the time solarwind are not generating enough, replacing coal and oil. Lftrs have distinct safety, environmental, and economic advantages over uraniumbased and solidfuel nuclear power. A significant advantage of using thorium to breed u233 is that relatively little plutonium is produced from the th232 because six more neutron absorptions are required than is the case with u238. Public utilities, energy, and technology interim committee. The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, 232 th, as the fertile material. The other, the blanket salt, has enough thorium to absorb about half of the neutrons from fission and produce more u233. Molten salt reactors incl liquid fluoride thorium reactor.
Molten salt reactor wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. The thorium molten salt reactor website is a publication of the stichting thorium msr. Liquid fluoride fuel also removes the need for conventional fuel fabrication, which is. Lftrs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoridebased, molten, liquid salt for fuel. It operates at high temperatures and atmospheric pressure, and is hoped to provide a safe form of commercialscale nuclear energy. Despite the documented history of thorium nuclear power, many of todays. Liquid fuel nuclear reactors jan 2011 and american scientist. One, the fuel salt, holds the fissile fuel u233 that sustains the nuclear reaction.
In the united states, the lftr concept is gaining momentum, if more slowly. Thorium has been used as a power source on a prototype scale. It was invented during the 1950s and 1960s in oak ridge labs, but was quickly abandoned since the nuclear reactions were found to be not good for bombmaking. As the search for cheap, safe and noncarbon emitting sources of energy continues, a band of. Flibe energy liquid flouride thorium reactor company. What is a lftr, and how can a reactor be so safe molten. Chemical processing for liquidfluoride thorium reactors. Weinbergs personal favorite for a power reactor was the liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr. Search the history of over 411 billion web pages on the internet.
Kirk sorensen at mount royal university liquid fluoride. There is a viable option to replace current nuclear technology. When people started to do research in the field of nuclear energy in the midnineties, the molten salt reactors were soon invented. Private companies from japan, russia, australia and the united states, and the chinese government, have expressed interest in developing this technology. Molten salt reactors are generation iv nuclear fission reactors that use molten salt as either the primary reactor coolant or as the fuel itself.