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Originally posted by Hellmutt
reply to post by Iamonlyhuman
Not China. I made a thread about this a while back.
The current thorium mineral reserve estimates (in tons)[1]:
* 360,000 India
* 300,000 Australia
* 170,000 Norway
* 160,000 United States
* 100,000 Canada
* 35,000 South Africa
* 16,000 Brazil
* 95,000 Others
Production
Domestic mine production data for thorium-bearing minerals were developed by the U.S. Geological Survey from a voluntary canvass of U.S. thorium operations. The one mine to which a canvass form was sent responded. Although thorium was not produced in the United States in 2006, the mine that
had previously produced thorium-bearing monazite continued to produce titanium and zirconium minerals and maintained its monazite capacity on standby. Production of monazite in Florida was expected to resume in 2006; Iluka Resources Limited planned to reprocess tailings mainly for the zircon
content. Monazite was last produced in the United States in 1994.
I should probably investigate Thorium. It could have changed since your thread too.
ETA: While the U.S. may have 160,000 metric tons on reserve (I assumed your number was right), none has been produced in the U.S. since 1994.
Originally posted by Aquarius1
There seems to be a lot of controversy on how long the waste lasts, hard to know what is truth,
Originally posted by Aquarius1
There seems to be a lot of controversy on how long the waste lasts, hard to know what is truth, if you remember they wanted to store Nuclear waste a few years ago at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the State and people were up in arms over that, the big concern was leakage in the future from an earthquake or natural earth movement. I can understand that, wouldn't want it stored in my back yard.
We were very lucky with the melt down at Three Mile Island.
Originally posted by GaryN
@Aquarius1
We were very lucky with the melt down at Three Mile Island.
Galen Winsor, who was one of a team that inspected TMI, both the hardware and all the operational logs, says it did not melt down. Here is an mp3 audio file, about 45 minutes, where Mr Winsor explained a lot of stuff that people should be familiar with. It's not a religious lecture despite the opening couple of minutes.
www.sheldonemrylibrary.com...
A couple of links with a little more honest info on Fukushima, and radiation in general:
Fukushima's “Radiation Leaks”
www.hiroshimasyndrome.com...
A Rational Environmentalist‘s Guide to Nuclear Power
-or-
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Glow
www.scribd.com...
Originally posted by wildespace
Not many people realise this, but the primary purpose of nuclear power plants isn't to produce electricity. That's just a useful side-effect. The primary purpose is the production of plutonium, for nuclear warheads.
This is why thorium, or any other plutonium-less source, will never be taken up by the powers that be.
Originally posted by AdamJack
The misinformation on thorium is highly promoted by the nuclear industry and various companies that want investment dollars for thorium reactors and fuel.
One myth is that thorium is safe.
The fact is that our world is highly effected by these chemicals and the result is global warming.
Originally posted by AdamJack
The misinformation on thorium is highly promoted by the nuclear industry and various companies that want investment dollars for thorium reactors and fuel. One myth is that thorium is safe.The fact is that our world is highly effected by these chemicals and the result is global warming.
Originally posted by mbkennel
The problem with thorium reactors is not the thorium.
The problem is that there's a very hot liquid. As in very hot in temperature, and intensely radioactive (death in minutes radioactive). There will be leaks, there will be explosions, there will be failures. In the liquid salt designs every single reactor has to be a radioactive chemical engineering reprocessing plant. Which no human can enter after it turns on.
Historically all the worst radioactive contamination (other than chernobyl) was from liquid processing of radioactive waste. It's a guaranteeed superfund site. Usually this takes place only in a very small number of sites, but with the proposed molten salt designs every single reactor will be a reprocessor. Do Not Want!