How much energy does Thorium contain in relation to Uranium?

[gribbon]

How much energy does Thorium contain in relation to Uranium? I tried finding this out on the internet, but falied......does anyone know....it's supposed to have a vast amount of energy in it, but how much...

[moo]

http://www.uic.com.au/nip67.htm

Excerpts: "Thorium, as well as uranium, can be used as a nuclear fuel. Although not fissile itself, thorium-232 (Th-232) will absorb slow neutrons to produce uranium-233 (U-233), which is fissile."
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"Also, all of the mined thorium is potentially useable in a reactor, compared with the 0.7% of natural uranium, so some 40 times the amount of energy per unit mass might theoretically be available (withouit recourse to fast breeder reactors)."

moo

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by fxzeu

How much energy does Thorium contain in relation to Uranium? I tried finding this out on the internet, but falied......does anyone know....it's supposed to have a vast amount of energy in it, but how much...

In terms of it’s use in fission reactors, Th-232 has no usable energy – it can’t be made to fission by bombarding it with a neutrons. It’s value in nuclear power generation is due to the ability to transmute it into U-233 in a breeder reactor, then use the U-233 as fission fuel.

Th-232 is much more abundant than the main isotope of uranium used in fission reactors, U-235, so even though it needs to be transmuted before it can be used, it promises to be cheaper.

PS: wikipedia has good introductory information about thorium and other nuclear fuels.

[gribbon]

That is ALOT of energy...What are the economics of Thorium usage? I think India has done some experimnets with Thorium in reactors...

[Tormod]

There have been some news here in Norway lately about starting a thorium reactor.

[Michaelangelica]

A great web site
A Periodic Table of the Elements at Los Alamos National Laboratory

There is probably more energy available for use from thorium in the minerals of the earth's crust than from both uranium and fossil fuels. Any sizable demand from thorium as a nuclear fuel is still several years in the future. Work has been done in developing thorium cycle converter-reactor systems. Several prototypes, including the HTGR (high-temperature gas-cooled reactor) and MSRE (molten salt converter reactor experiment), have operated. While the HTGR reactors are efficient, they are not expected to become important commercially for many years because of certain operating difficulties.
Production

Several methods are available for producing thorium metal; it can be obtained by reducing thorium oxide with calcium, by electrolysis of anhydrous thorium chloride in a fused mixture of sodium and potassium chlorides, by calcium reduction of thorium tetrachloride mixed with anhydrous zinc chloride, and by reduction of thorium tetrachloride with an alkali metal. Thorium was originally assigned a position in Group IV of the periodic table.

Something is happening in Norway i am not sure waht?

1.11.2006
Safe nuclear power can avert the energy crisis


Physics Professor Egil Lillestøl is campaigning to build the world’s first safe nuclear power plant in Norway.



Facts/counter-arguments
According to the article alongside, Mr Lillestøl meets few counter-arguments. The following are his replies to some of the arguments he has encountered:

“This isn’t new. Thorium reactors have existed for years”.
Reply: Thorium has been used and is currently used in classical reactors where, among other things, thorium is mixed with uranium fuel to yield a little extra energy at the same time that this cuts down on the amount of plutonium waste that is produced. But this accelerator-driven reactor design is completely new and radically different from all other nuclear power plants found today.

“If it’s so good, wouldn’t someone already have built this kind of reactor a long time ago ?”
Reply: No, quite simply because the technology is completely new. The thorium reactor was under development on the drawing board right up until the EU’s final rejection in 2000. It requires advanced accelerator technology, which has not been developed until recently. Commercially available accelerators have yet to be developed, but it’s simply a matter of time.

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