Safer than uranium, Thorium is backed as a 'future fuel'

Nuclear scientists are being urged by the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to develop thorium as a new fuel.

Mr Blix says that the radioactive element may prove much safer in reactors than uranium. It is also more difficult to use thorium for the production of nuclear weapons.


Thorium could prove to be safer in reactors than uranium


His comments will add to growing levels of interest in thorium, but critics warn that developing new reactors could waste public funds.

Mr Blix, the former Swedish foreign minister, told BBC News: "I’m a lawyer not a scientist but in my opinion we should be trying our best to develop the use of thorium. I realise there are many obstacles to be overcome but the benefits would be great.

"I am told that thorium will be safer in reactors - and it is almost impossible to make a bomb out of thorium. These are very major factors as the world looks for future energy supplies."

His enthusiasm is shared by some in the British nuclear establishment. Scientists at the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) have been encouraged by the government to help research on an Indian thorium-based reactor, and on a test programme in Norway.


The Norway tests at the OECD’s nuclear trials facility in Halden are conducted in a Bond-style underground bunker. Image source: BBC


How is thorium safer than uranium

When a uranium reactor overheats and the fuel rods can’t contain the chain reaction, as happened at Fukushima, the crisis continues. If something happened to a thorium reactor, technicians could simply switch off the stimulus which comes from uranium or plutonium in a small feeder plant and the thorium reaction would halt itself.

Read the complete article at BBC 

TheGreenMechanics: This surely is a very contentious issue, but if there's anything about alternatives that we need to be told about, we deserve to know it. Even if it's purely academic.

Why not just send nuclear waste into outer space?

Robin Hewitt wrote  - back in 1985 - about question a lot of people ask: Why not just get rid of radioactive waste by shooting it into space?

Isn't that seeming an easy way out? Maybe.

Dumping waste in space would not be a popular move. Pix: Swindon Climate

Why can't nuclear waste be sent into outer space?

The world's nuclear reactors have generated tens of thousands of tonnes of high-level nuclear waste, and the current solution is to simply store the stuff. This is not without its dangers: an explosion at the Mayak nuclear waste facility near Kyshtym, Russia in 1957 remains the third worst nuclear disaster in history, after Chernobyl and Fukushima.

In the search for alternatives, the possibility of firing the waste out of the Solar System or into the Sun has been investigated many times, but the use of rockets raises the threat of an accidental release of the waste into the atmosphere if there was an explosion. Some studies have looked at the possibility of using high-powered lasers to blast capsules into space, but economic, reliability and safety issues – plus likely legal challenges – have so far ruled out this option.

Putting thing into perspective: We must  send waste from Lynas Plant in Gebeng, Pahang out of Malaysia; although not into outer space!

Source: ScienceFocus

Japan to phase out nuclear energy by 2040

Wise move by Japan

On September 14, 2012, Japan announced that it too would phase out nuclear power generation by 2040 and would further develop renewable sources.

There are more than 50 nuclear plants in Japan. Graphic by AFP

World's biggest nuclear power producers

Japan trails only the United States and France in nuclear power generation capacity, and replacing the country’s 49,000-megawatt nuclear generating capacity could mean a big boost for both green energy and natural gas suppliers. A possible downside is that Japan would increase imports of crude oil, which it also has been burning to generate electricity to replace production from Fukushima.

According to the Financial Times, Japan’s remaining 50 nuclear plants will be shut down once they reach an operating lifetime of 40 years and no new nukes will be constructed. The last plants were built in 2006.

Japan’s nuclear plants provided about 30% of the country’s electricity and the country had planned to raise that to 50% by 2030. Today only one of the country’s nukes is still in operation and the rest were not restarted following shutdowns for safety inspections. That was not because the plants failed the inspections, but because the government responded to public demands to keep the nukes closed.


Positive impact on Japan's energy alternatives

Japan is the world’s largest importer of natural gas, virtually all of it in the form of liquid natural gas (LNG.) The large LNG projects in the Middle East, South Asia and Australia have already gotten a boost, and that boost will last longer and may get larger for big LNG producers like Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.

Japan currently has about 7% of the world’s total solar power capacity, and most analysts expect that number to rise significantly. Japan boosted its feed-in tariffs for solar power to $0.53 per kilowatt-hour in June over a period lasting for the next 20 years.

Japan’s Sharp is the world’s largest producer of solar PV panels, and with Kyocera poses a significant obstacle to foreign solar makers like First Solar and SunPower.


Wiser? While Malaysia plan to build, but Japan is shutting down

Malaysia, through MNPC (Malaysia Nuclear Power Corporation) is said to be preparing a Nuclear Power Infrastructure Development Plan by 2013 to deliver Malaysia’s first nuclear power plant by 2021.

Earlier this year, MNPC and TNB revealed that the Nuclear Power Plant project has tiptoed to an advanced stage of development and that the final decision to “go nuclear” would be made next year or in 2014.

Nuclear power program in Malaysia - snapshot of IAEA's presentation

Why oh why, Malaysia?

Malaysia's plan to go nuclear is of great concern because Japan and France - the two supporters of nuclear energy - apparently have made major decisions to back away from reliance on nuclear power.

Germany announced earlier, after last year's disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, that it would abandon nuclear power generation by 2022. So, it is very wrong for Malaysia to go the opposite direction. It does have many other alternatives other than nuclear.

Come on!