SamuelRSmith said:
Are thorium reactors the same thing as those Breeder plants? If so, I remember a talk by Bill Gates about how they can actually use the waste from old nuclear plants to generate electricity, and how by using the waste generated by the old plants, they could power the USA for about 200 years (which, I'm guessing, is the most optimistic value, but still very good). If so... if they can provide so much energy, and the resource they require to do so is basically the waste that we currently don't know what to do with... why haven't we started building them, yet? Or is it all still theory? |
India will have the first Thorium-based nucclear power plant in the world. It goes online this year. The US is also working on a few thorium projects in the near future, so I imagine we may have a plant or two online this decade if the tech turns out to be as good as advertised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Thorium_as_a_nuclear_fuel
What thorium really boils down to for commercial usage is that its still being researched for implementation, but seems incredinly viable for the future of electric production. In the US, our problem is the damage done to public perception of nuclear-based jobs due to Three-Mile and other accidents, and the association that nuclear = bad. This caused a lot of research to be abandoned as our government was risk-adverse to nukes since the 70's.
However, that is changing, as we're building multiple new reactors, but such reactors are immense in terms of time and preparation. We aren't investing at the rate other countries are, which is hurting the development of more thorium-based reactors. However, if we (the US) and other countries continue to adopt a pro-nuclear policy, thorium reactors should become the norm over the next few decades. Its not a theory, but more of a problem with adaptation of thorium reactors into our current system, and the licensing of such systems. We've (America) have had some of the tech since the 1960's, but never researched and implemented due to our new-found aversion to the stuff.
Nevertheless, a molten salt reactor thorium would yield incredible results in terms of safety, cleanliness and cost, as a thorium-based MSR would be safter (doesn't need cooled down which is why we've had the Fukushima incedent), cheaper (4x the thorium reserves worldwide it takes 1/10th the thorium to provide the same amount of energy as uranium) and of course, is carbon-free.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
