The Thorium Dream
Narrator: (at 11:19 into the video) A decade before he called nuclear power "society's biggest Faustian bargain," Alvin Weinberg was one of the country's leading nuclear physicists. He invented the light water reactor, the world's most common kind today, the type used at Fukushima. But in the 1960's as director of Oakridge National Laboratory, he began to pursue another idea. called the molten salt reactor. Instead of operating at high pressure with a solid fuel made of uranium, it worked at low pressure, using a liquid fuel that could be made of thorium. Thorium has many advantages. It can produce about 90 times as much energy as uranium, at a fraction of the waste. And that waste isn't useful for making bombs. The reactor was considered "walk-away" safe, because it relied on physics, not machines or humans, to keep the reaction under control.
Please keep watching beyond the text, as there's some explanation of the differences between the two reactor processes. You'll hear some snarkiness from players in the video, but that's understandable in view of the neglect thorium energy seems to have experienced for decades.
I personally know little about nuclear energy (not much beyond what was included in general science classes of my youth) but I know the Traders-Talk community includes members who've worked in nuclear in both public and private sector positions. I will not be trying to direct the discussion, so I urge those with experience and knowledge to step forward with concise, thoughtful, and measured insights.
Every opinion is welcome, but please avoid rants. Attribution and background will be appreciated. -- Alton
Edited by Alton, 27 December 2014 - 02:07 PM.
