Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (lftr)

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LFTR (pronounced "lifter") is not a new concept. It was actually developed alongside the fast breeder fission reactors that were the Manhattan Project. They are simple, cheap, safe, and sustainable for theoretically millions of years (based on fuel resources available.

They use a tiny footprint compared to fast breeder reactors, in fact they could even be made portable, they are small enough to fit on a semi trailer.


http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll219/riggerbeautz/thorium_reactor.jpg

83% of their waste is reduced to stable background radiation in just 10 years, and the remaining waste stabilizes in only 300 years, as opposed to the 100000 plus years current waste takes to decay to safe levels of radiation.

So why didn't we use this technology instead of the reactors we use today?
Very simply put, you can't make a bomb from LIFTRs.

We have enough thorium already mined and stockpiled in the US to power the entire US for 6000 years, and enough still in the ground to power the US for another 400000 years.

Using this technology today would not only easily answer our problems with energy for a long long long time, it would also help to elevate third world nations to a higher level of living, and answer some sticky issues in regard to concerns about some countries going nuclear.

If I haven't bored you to tears yet, there's an excellent 16 minute summary of a 1.5 hour google symposium on the subject here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk&sn

Clean, safe, cheap nuclear energy is more than possible, the tech is already here.

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How a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) works
With concern about global climate change and oil prices both peaking, people are looking for alternatives. Wind and solar are possibilities, but have problems with inconsistency. Traditional nuclear reactors are a proven technology but have perceptual problems with safety and waste products.

The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor has the potential to create a safer and less expensive nuclear technology for generating electricity. The promise is expressed in this video:

The following video is a compression of several longer videos on LFTR technology:

Here is one of the long versions if you seek completeness:

This article presents an interesting statistic:

the thorium present in mine tailings and in surface monazite sands, burning coal at the average 1000 MWe power plant produces about 13 tons of thorium per year. That thorium is recoverable from the power plant’s waste ash pile.

One ton of thorium will produce nearly 1 GW of electricity for a year in an efficient thorium cycle reactor. Thus current coal energy technology throws away over 10 times the energy it produces as electricity. This is not the result of poor thermodynamic efficiency; it is the result of a failure to recognize and use the energy value of thorium. The amount of thorium present in surface mining coal waste is enormous and would provide all the power human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special mining for thorium, or the use of any other form or energy recovery.

A summary of how this technology works:
1) You start with a fluoride salt. In this reactor it will be heated so much that it melts.
2) You dissolve thorium fluoride in the liquid salt.
3) Thorium-232 absobs neutrons and turns info Uranium-233.
4) The Uranium-233 fissions and produces heat plus more neutrons.

The fission products are relatively benign and short-lived compared to those of a traditional reactor.

Advantages include:
1) There is no pressure – unlike traditional nuclear reactors which contain high pressue steam. So the reactor cannot explode.
2) The fuel does not need to be shaped into pellets
3) The reactor can add fuel and remove waste at any time
4) There are no weapon-grade materials involved
5) Thorium is abundant and most of it is used up in the reaction