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Anonymous ID:sZADsAyt Sat 13 May 2017 12:03:54 No.416743 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>418410 >>420097 >>420150 >>421414

Why haven't we built any thorium reactors yet?
The US had a test reactor that ran for several years in the 60's.
It's completely harmless, causes no green house gasses, has almost no waste, the reactor can't melt down or blow up and it can't be used for atom bombs.
There's also like 400 times more thorium than fisionable uranium in the ground.
It's literally so common that it has no market value at the moment.
Why are we still using oil and coal?

Faggot

Faggot ID:TvwFKk5L Sat 13 May 2017 12:16:31 No.416878 Report

Quoted By: >>417589 >>420115

It costs money to engineer and build it to be as efficient as an uranium fission reactor. No need to waste money while there's no shortage of uranium

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:5ea+o+IP Sat 13 May 2017 12:42:02 No.417589 Report

Quoted By:

>>416878
Fission has nothing to do with a nuclear power plant.
Its just a giant fucking steam engine that uses the uranium as the heat source

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:csjptd/Z Sat 13 May 2017 13:12:16 No.418410 Report

Quoted By: >>420097 >>421021

>>416743
>no waste
Only some toxic elements like 231Pa, 229Th, 230Th with half-life ranging from 7500 to 75.000 years. This is only slightly better than transuranic elements produced in conventional reactors.
>it can't be used for atom bombs
A reactor designed to breed 233U is the perfect source of weapon grade material. Besides some Thorium reactors like the THTR-300 required highly refined 235U to start and upkeep the reaction.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:vjiVk+Fw Sat 13 May 2017 15:11:34 No.420097 Report

Quoted By:

>>418410
This.
>>416743
Also thorium reactors are a meme, just like fusion. Even back in the cold war with the best nuclear scientists and engineers, thorium reactors were never practical. Nuclear is a dead field now with little funding, you think some poorly funded newfag scientist or engineer is going to do what the gods of the cold war couldn't?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:UNeO0yhz Sat 13 May 2017 15:13:29 No.420115 Report

Quoted By:

>>416878
also we prefer to spend our money on things like tv and advertising instead of sweet engineering

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:/FKpL2Zf Sat 13 May 2017 15:16:29 No.420150 Report

Quoted By:

>>416743
There is good reason.
Having a Uranium reactor allows you to
produce Weapon-grade Uranium, which is used in the production of Nukes.

That and Big Oil/Corporate had been fucking the World Over.
The Anti-nuclear lobby also perma-fucked progress.

Right now, the World is barely innovating in Nuclear Fusion & Thorium
Reactors (Molten Salt) with technology that had been widely-available since the 80s.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO fc7.gif, 2MiB, 500x500

Anonymous ID:Exn7mKtl Sat 13 May 2017 15:16:50 No.420155 Report

Quoted By:

Uranium is a weapon, and a good one at that; theres a reason we have flouride i the water

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:sZADsAyt Sat 13 May 2017 16:07:29 No.421021 Report

Quoted By: >>421975

>>418410
A Uranium 233 breeder will always be slightly impure, which makes it highly inefficient for weapons (but possible i agree), we can't even efficiently seperate Uranium 235 from 238 for water based reactors, how would 233 be easier?
>231Pa, 229Th, 230Th with half-life ranging from 7500 to 75.000 years.
I hevn't heard about that, care to elaborate?
>THTR-300 required highly refined 235U
I could make a car run on ethanol, that doesen't ruin my gasoline car.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9fmIVtEC Sat 13 May 2017 16:34:14 No.421414 Report

Quoted By:

>>416743
because you dont get the plutonium needed for nuclear weaponry as a "waste"product

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:csjptd/Z Sat 13 May 2017 16:51:13 No.421975 Report

Quoted By: >>422654

>>421021
>how would 233 be easier
The trick is extracting Protactinium instead of Uranium. The impurities you mention are mostly U-232 which is indeed almost inseparable from U-233. However you can rather easily extract Protactinium that is part of the reaction chains, since Protactinium is chemically different.

This extracted Pa consists of three isotopes, Pa-231, 232 and 233. Pa-231 is fairly stable from a human viewpoint with a half life of several thousand years. Pa-232 is the stuff you want to get rid of, since this will decay in the unwanted U-232 with a half-life of 1.3 days. You want Pa-233 which decays (half-life of 27d) into U-233 you can use in weapons.
So, how to get almost pure U-233?
1. Extract Pa from the salt that consists of all three isotopes.
2. Wait for about a month. During this time Pa-232 has decayed virtually completely into U-232 and Th-232. Pa-231 is almost unchanged. Half of the Pa-233 is gone as well and became U-233.
3. Extract Pa again from. What is left can be put back into the reactor if wanted.
4. The once again extracted Pa consists of only Pa-231 and Pa-233.
5. Wait a year or so. Most Pa-233 has decayed into pure U-233, that is only slightly precipitated by Pa-231, which can be separated if needed.
6. Congratulations, you have now pure weapon grade U-233.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:sZADsAyt Sat 13 May 2017 17:25:07 No.422654 Report

Quoted By:

>>421975
Fascinating.
What about the waste you mentioned?
The amounts of 229Th and 230Th that would ever occur would be completely miniscule, wouldn't it?
Where does the 231Pa come from?

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