Bet you never thought you’d hear those three words together. Safe Nuclear Power. Yes, there is a way to do it that we’ve ignored for 60 years.
Looking at the ongoing crisis in Japan, I’m expecting a worldwide reaction to nuclear power such as happened after Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. It doesn’t have to be.
In 1958, the Atomic Energy Commission published a book called “Fluid Fuel Reactors.” It’s all about using thorium instead of uranium. Why do all the nuclear reactors use uranium? A couple of reasons. All military. When Admiral Rickover decided on the power plant for the U.S.S. Nautilus submarine, he went for a solid fuel reactor. The other reason is the military needed plutonium for nuclear weapons. So, why do we still use these obsolete nuclear reactor designs? Because they’re approved. Because we’ve used them for 60 years.
From a Wired Magazine article in 2009 about thorium reactors[1]:
…you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. The design is based on the lab’s finding that thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts. This fission soup is poured into tubes in the core of the reactor, where the nuclear chain reaction – the billiard balls colliding – happens. The system makes the reactor self-regulating: When the soup gets too hot it expands and flows out of the tubes – slowing fission and eliminating the possibility of another Chernobyl. Any actinide can work in this method, but thorium is particularly well suited because it is so efficient at the high temperatures at which fission occurs in the soup.
Just remember that sentence in the article’s second paragraph: “zero risk of meltdown.” That’s what we’re all afraid of, meltdowns. Once they start, they really can’t be stopped. One starts in the U.S., and it goes all the way through the Earth and comes out in China, hence “The China Syndrome.” It was amazing see the movie released, and 12 days later Three Mile Island happened. One of the most amazing coincidences of all time. Unfortunately, it also began our current addiction to foreign oil because of the anti-nuclear backlash. But, they were also right. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima, all show how we’ve been doing nuclear energy production wrong. Why run operations that produce waste that only a slingshot into outer space can get rid of? Why not having something that runs self-sustaining?
Guess I forgot to mention that. Once you start it running, it sort of takes care of itself. The way it works makes it really hard to extract weapons grade material from it. Sounds like a win, win, doesn’t it? After 60 years the problems that needed to be solved, which is creating vessels that can handle the corrosive radioactive salts, have been solved. There is a American company operating in Russia, retrofitting the old style nuclear plants to running as thorium salt fluid reactors. If I were them, I’d also be talking to the Germans, who are quickly taking all their nuclear reactors offline. They can be retrofitted and run safely.
Thorium[2]. Yes, it was named after the Norse god, Thor. You don’t need to build thousands of centrifuges to concentrate it like uranium. Works just like it is out of the ground. And, there’s lots of it. One estimate was that at our current power consumption levels it could keep us running for 1,000 years. This doesn’t take into account that they can be breeder reactors creating more thorium.
Another problem that can be solved by a switch to thorium reactors is the political crisis caused by Iran and North Korea’s desire to be nuclear powers. Iran claims it wants to generate electricity and medical research isotopes. North Korea is pretty much a mystery beyond the nuclear “look at me, daddy” with their bomb tests. If you can generate electricity with nuclear power that doesn’t create the military aspect materials, the rug can be pulled out from under all their arguments.
First, we have to set the example. Build fluid thorium reactors that work, and the Chinese were already at work on this before the Japanese disaster. Whatever happened to the American ingenuity and intelligence that made us the leader of the world? Why do we wait until something becomes a crisis and then shoot from the hip at it, instead of understanding problems and come up with solutions before the disasters occur?
It doesn’t matter whether you believe in man-made climate change or not. Fossil fuels are finite. Nuclear power is still the answer, and the real answer is picking the right type of nuclear power. Something we should have done when the Soviet Union fell and the threat of nuclear war finally began to recede. Understanding change and reacting to it properly is how to make our future safe and secure.
[1] http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium