Can you invest in thorium

Only seven types are safe for thorium reactions, including heavy water reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, boiling light water reactors, pressurized light water reactors, fast neutron reactors, molten salt reactors, and accelerator driven reactors. Molten salt reactors and accelerator driven reactors are still conceptual, though the other five have all been operational at some point.

The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor LFTR , a type of molten salt reactor, is being touted by many as the best solution to thorium-powered nuclear energy.

These reactors have the potential to become self-sustainable, as they will be able to produce U the thorium isotope. Flibe Energy, a company started by nuclear technologist and former NASA aerospace engineer Kirk Sorensen, is conducting research on LFTR technology with a view to eventually incorporate these reactors not just into electrical energy generation, but also into fields as vastly different as desalination, cancer treatment, and deep space exploration.

Still, the fissile material that enables a thorium reactions is actually fairly difficult to supply Under the terms of the agreement, Russia would dismantle Soviet nuclear warheads and convert tonnes of highly-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, which would be sold to the U. By , ten years after the start of the program, all tonnes would be converted.

As a result, the U. But for thorium, it might not be as bad as it seems. U, an isotope of thorium, can react with thorium for a nuclear reaction. And this is the focus of the LFTRs, as it could lead to self-sufficiency of these reactors with the recycled waste. Thermal breeding, as the process is called, requires the reactor to produce more fissile material than it consumes, and it requires a highly specialized type of reactor. Regular nuclear reactors are unable to breed to the point where it is unnecessary to add more of the fissile material.

But many LFTRs are being designed as breeding reactors. While regularly adding thorium to these reactors would be necessary, adding U would not. Grab Your Report. In , the Manhattan Project showed the potential devastation atomic energy can produce when enriched uranium is used in weapons production, and that has remained top of mind since then. More recently, the dangers posed by uranium fuel rods, radioactive waste and reactor decay — widely publicized in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in — are a key reason why experts are giving thorium reactors serious consideration.

As thorium is not fissile on its own, reactions could be stopped in case of emergency. There is also concern that the isotope-dense heavy water used to cool the fuel rods could seep out into the water and surrounding areas. Thorium is considered a strong choice for non-proliferation when it comes to nuclear weapons, but it is also important to note that there have been occasions in history where nuclear weapons based off of thorium have been detonated.

While that is a risk, the nature of these weapons makes them difficult to handle and easy to detect. As a result, the use of thorium reactors could allow countries like Iran and North Korea to benefit from nuclear power by minimizing concerns that they are secretly developing nuclear weapons. Thorium can also be used to breed uranium for use in a breeder reactor. These nuclear reactors are unique because they produce more fissionable material than they consume, making them very efficient.

Put very simply, thorium can be used together with conventional uranium-based nuclear power generation, meaning a thriving thorium industry would not necessarily make uranium obsolete.

India holds the largest natural thorium reserves in the world , though reserves are also significant in China, Australia, the US, Turkey and Norway, as per Reuters. The metal can be found in epigenetic vein deposits , low-grade deposits and black sand placer deposits. Though it is abundant, few companies are currently exploring for thorium.

As mentioned, Thor Energy was the first to begin energy production through thorium, but it now faces competition from firms in the nuclear industry around the world. For example, India has been interested in thorium-based nuclear energy for decades, according to the US Geological Survey. China is also a major player in the development of thorium reactors. China hopes to have these reactors operating in the next few years. Thorium Power Canada, in partnership with DBI, has developed thorium reactor designs, including a planned 10 megawatt reactor in Chile.

Thorium Power Canada estimates the reactor will provide enough power to produce 20 million liters per day at the desalination plant, which is the equivalent of powering 3, homes. Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning. Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.

ON TV. On social media. Who are we? Fight the Fake. Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning Subscribe. Difficulties lie with the reliability of high-energy accelerators and also with economics due to their high power consumption.

See also information page on Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy. With regard to proliferation significance, thorium-based power reactor fuels would be a poor source for fissile material usable in the illicit manufacture of an explosive device. U contained in spent thorium fuel contains U which decays to produce very radioactive daughter nuclides and these create a strong gamma radiation field. This confers proliferation resistance by creating significant handling problems and by greatly boosting the detectability traceability and ability to safeguard this material.

There have been several significant demonstrations of the use of thorium-based fuels to generate electricity in several reactor types. Over half of its , pebbles contained Th-HEU fuel particles the rest comprised graphite moderator and some neutron absorbers. These were continuously moved through the reactor as it operated, and on average each fuel pebble passed six times through the core.

These were embedded in annular graphite segments not pebbles. It also used thorium-HEU fuel in the form of microspheres of mixed thorium-uranium carbide coated with silicon oxide and pyrolytic carbon to retain fission products. The reactor core was housed in a reconfigured early PWR.

Post-operation inspections revealed that 1. A NRC report quotes a breeding ratio of 1. Chemically reprocessing the fuel was not attempted. Indian heavy water reactors PHWRs have for a long time used thorium-bearing fuel bundles for power flattening in some fuel channels — especially in initial cores when special reactivity control measures are needed.

Research into the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel has been taking place for over 50 years, though with much less intensity than that for uranium or uranium-plutonium fuels.

Test irradiations have been conducted on a number of different thorium-based fuel forms. Eight ThO 2 -based fuel pins have been successfully irradiated in the middle of a LEU Candu fuel bundle with low-enriched uranium.

The fuels have performed well in terms of their material properties. Closed thorium fuel cycles have been designed 4 in which PHWRs play a key role due to their fuelling flexibility: thoria-based HWR fuels can incorporate recycled U, residual plutonium and uranium from used LWR fuel, and also minor actinide components in waste-reduction strategies.

In the closed cycle, the driver fuel required for starting off is progressively replaced with recycled U, so that an ever-increasing energy share in the fuel comes from the thorium component. An expert panel appointed by CNNC unanimously recommended that China consider building two new Candu units to take advantage of the design's unique capabilities in utilizing alternative fuels. The reactor will operate with a power of MWe using thorium-plutonium or thorium-U seed fuel in mixed oxide form.

In each assembly 30 of the fuel pins will be Th-U oxide, arranged in concentric rings. Construction of the pilot AHWR was envisaged in the 12th plan period to , for operation about As of , however, no site or construction schedule for the demonstration unit has been announced. See also information page on India. High-temperature gas-cooled reactors : Thorium fuel was used in HTRs prior to the successful demonstration reactors described above.

This reactor used thorium-HEU fuel elements in a 'breed and feed' mode in which the U formed during operation replaced the consumption of U at about the same rate. The fuel comprised small particles of uranium oxide 1 mm diameter coated with silicon carbide and pyrolytic carbon which proved capable of maintaining a high degree of fission product containment at high temperatures and for high burn-ups. The particles were consolidated into 45mm long elements, which could be left in the reactor for about six years.

About kg of thorium was used in some , pebbles. Light water reactors : The feasibility of using thorium fuels in a PWR was studied in considerable detail during a collaborative project between Germany and Brazil in the s 5. The vision was to design fuel strategies that used materials effectively — recycling of plutonium and U was seen to be logical. The study showed that appreciable conversion to U could be obtained with various thorium fuels, and that useful uranium savings could be achieved.

The program terminated in for non-technical reasons. It did not reach its later stages which would have involved trial irradiations of thorium-plutonium fuels in the Angra-1 PWR in Brazil, although preliminary Th-fuel irradiation experiments were performed in Germany. Most findings from this study remain relevant today. Thorium-plutonium oxide Th-MOX fuels for LWRs are being developed by Norwegian proponents see above with a view that these are the most readily achievable option for tapping energy from thorium.

This is because such fuel is usable in existing reactors with minimal modification using existing uranium-MOX technology and licensing experience.

This reactor platform, designed by Hitachi Ltd and JAEA, should be well suited for achieving high U conversion factors from thorium due to its epithermal neutron spectrum. High levels of actinide destruction may also be achieved in carefully designed thorium fuels in these conditions. The RBWR is based on the ABWR architecture but has a shorter, flatter pancake-shaped core and a tight hexagonal fuel lattice to ensure sufficient fast neutron leakage and a negative void reactivity coefficient.

The central seed portion is demountable from the blanket material which remains in the reactor for nine years f , but the centre seed portion is burned for only three years as in a normal VVER. Design of the seed fuel rods in the centre portion draws on experience of Russian naval reactors.

The fuel contained 2. The experiment was not representative of commercial fuel, however the experiment allowed for fundamental data collection and benchmarking of codes for this fuel material.

The reactor ran over at powers up to 7. There is significant renewed interest in developing thorium-fuelled MSRs. Safety is achieved with a freeze plug which if power is cut allows the fuel to drain into subcritical geometry in a catch basin.

There is also a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity due to expansion of the fuel. A third stream of fast reactors to consume actinides from LWRs is planned.