Power through thorium nuclear reactor

Blueprint for clean, plentiful energy thorium (Th)


thorium wiki, thorium energy india, thorium nuclear reactor

THORIUM  symbol Th


India has a a lot of thorium in the form of monazite

(almost a third of the world's total supply)

   


World thorium reserves according to OECD, NEA & IAEA 




Thorium is not fissile, but it is fertile, when it is bombarded with a neutron it undergoes beta decay twice to become Uranium-233 which in turn is fissile. This type of reactor is known as a breeder reactor as it produces more fissile material than you initially started with.

Unlike Uranium thorium cannot be used for nuclear weapons.

There are many types of reactors being designed and tested that runs on thorium like Molten salt reactors.

The water has to operate at 200 to 300 degrees Celsius in conventional reactors, and because water boils at a hundred degrees it has to be kept under high pressure with pumps to maintain a liquid state. Now if the pumps fail the water will expand suddenly, flash into steam and led to an explosion.

Molten Salt reactors avoid this because the salt can remain liquid up to temperatures of 2-3 thousand degrees Celsius. Hence it removes the need for high pressures. There are also intrinsic safety features:

1. Like a plug of frozen salt (which melts when the reactor overheats, and drains the fuel into storage tanks where the reaction will stop.

2. Water crisis could be solved by allowing for cheap desalination of sea-water.


Q. What about the drawbacks of this kind of technology?

A. Yes it has drawbacks as of now: The molten salts that act as fuels, cause corrosion in the tubes, it is huge problem as then they would be required to be changed or replaced and for that the entire reactor would have to be shut down.

 

Q. What are the countermeasures against this?

A. Thicker tubes can be used, different materials can be used focusing on reducing the oxidation property of the molten salt.



Thorium nuclear energy are we ready for it?

0 Comments

Post a Comment

Post a Comment (0)

Previous Post Next Post