…what if there was a type of nuclear power that:
- Was radioactive for a few hundred years, not millennia
- Could not meltdown
- Could not be used to make weapons-grade materials
- Burns up existing high-level radioactive waste and weapons material?
There is. Or may be, if the current research versions of Thorium reactors pan out. I still don’t think nuclear is the way to go, and I still think that conservation should be the number one priority, but if this technology could be made to work, I could get behind it as a temporary measure.
The problem always comes, of course, when vested interests get their hooks into the government and arrange subsidies and favourable regulations for their industry, thus eliminating both competition and more efficient ways of doing things. And this type of nuclear power would be no different unless we make our governments much more transparent and accountable – and unless we prioritise sustainable power generation.
Keep in mind that there are no perfectly clean electricity generation options. Dams destroy habitat and use enormous amounts of concrete – with the corresponding vast amounts of CO2 that are released during its manufacture. Solar panels use all kinds of exotic and toxic materials and chemicals to make. Wind turbines are made of metal that must be mined and smelted.
Even direct solar, or passive, requires glass, and it is not adequate in our climate. Active combined with passive solar can do the trick, but again this requires mined and manufactured materials like copper and glass.
The most attractive feature of these new types of reactors is that they degrade current highly radioactive and extremely long-lived wastes into much less radioactive and relatively short-lived wastes. If we get stuck for energy because of governments that have dithered too long, and if it looks like nuclear is going to be pushed down our throats, let’s at least make it Thorium.
For a very thorough article and easy-to-comprehend article, check out Cosmos Magazine.
Originally posted Sun, Mar 30, 2008 to Environmental Graffiti.
UPDATE Dec. 16, 2009: India has announced it is going with thorium reactors for its own use, and will also be exporting the reactors. India has approximately 25% of the world’s thorium. It should be noted that thorium reactors are currently in the prototype stage, and have not yet been commercialised.
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This post was mentioned on Reddit by greengordon: This has been submitted in the past, but some recent events justify reconsidering thorium:
* India just announced plans to go with thorium nuclear in a big way, both for internal power and for expor…
A decaying America and its decisions count for little in the ways of the world for the next five or six decades! America can’t even get it together well enough to build a decent motor-car after leading in the field for a century! Too much dope in the streets? in the offices? in the government? Who knows, but what a burgeoning Asia does will determine the future even for the Americas! Even “backwards and primitive” China has Electric Bullet Trains in service! Today! Nuclear powered! America has none! Get this! China has the Shanghai taxis – Volt “knock-offs”, in service, tested for two years, while GM(America) goes bankrupt with the original Volt still on the drafting boards! Goddammit! America! What happened to you? China bought the South Azadegan Oil fields (largest find in the Middle East in last thirty years) from Iran, who sold out of fear instilled in them by the U.S. Military in Iraq!. China has placed “Secret” Chinese Nukes there to protect its interests, just as the U.S. has “Secret” Nukes in Israel! This balances “Mutual Destruction” in the region, leaves the U.S. out of the picture, and Israel pissing in the wind! America’s only choice, due to this lack of light sweet crude oil from anywhere in the world, proven by their own satellite reconnaissance, is to convert from liquid energy based economy to an electrical based energy economy throughout the whole country! This conversion will be accelerated by a strong, gold backed, product backed, Chinese Yuan bidding for more and more of the world’s oil, driving oil prices out of the U.S. fiat dollar’s range! The convulsive paradigm shifts in America will certainly crash some of America’s propagandized sense of superiority and entitlement and alter the very fabric of American lifestyles forever! The V-8 and its husky growl is dead! Long live the V-8! We have two, three decades at best, to get out of Asia’s way, or suffer third world-ship here in America, they grow as we decline and they grow at thirty per cent a year at GM(China) while GM(America) is sold for scrap steel!
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