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Thorium: An energy solution - THORIUM REMIX 2011

gordonmcdowell · 804.5K views · 2011-10-04 · 1:59:59

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Overview

A 2011 remix of over six hours of talks by Kirk Sorensen and other thorium advocates, explaining thorium as a nuclear fuel and the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). It argues LFTRs could produce energy without long-lived transuranic waste.

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HN users send it to anyone asking about thorium or molten salt reactors as a compact overview that answers common anti-nuclear objections.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2011–2022

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What people said

NatW · 2012-12 · Strong recommendation

For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend this video on liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR): [VIDEO] ! I passed the video by my uncle who was an expert/engineer dealing with control and safety of water cooled reactors. This is what he had to say: "I found the video very informative technically, as well as being effective in countering many of the the arguments of those who profess to be against nuclear power in any form. I also found the details of the design of the liquid thorium fluoride reactor intriguing. To become an advocate for further investment in this concept, I would have to learn more about how the concept deals with the safety issues involved in the handling of fluorine gas and fluoride materials."

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badloginagain · 2015-01 · Recommendation

When nuclear research was first being developed, it was for the specific purpose of building the bomb. When the war ended, and the industry switched to civilian applications, they decided to go with Uranium because they had already worked out many of the issues. Still, the US Airforce wanted a nuclear-powered bomber shortly after the Navy showed their nuclear sub and before ICBM's deprecated "end-of-days" long-range bombers. A water-contained reactor wouldn't work in an airplane, so they funded the development of the MSR (molten-salt-reactor). Unfortunately, when they shuddered the project after the implementation of practical ICBMs, industry politics discredited MSR's in favour of the reactor-types we have now. After fukushima, a grassroots campaign has been undertaken to resume research of MSR's as a replacement of fossil fuels for scalable carbon-free energy creation. If you are interested, you can get a great overview here: [VIDEO]

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badloginagain · 2015-01 · Recommendation

Uranium reactors use something like 2% of the total energy available in the uranium. Molten-salt-reactors use something like 98% of the available energy. Additionally, the 2% that is waste contain extremely rare derivatives that can be used as cancer "smartbombs", metals pivotal to deep space NASA missions, etc. This has a pretty good overview: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by gordonmcdowell, played through YouTube.

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