What do you get when you cross an accelerator with a nuclear reactor?

What do you get when you cross an accelerator with a nuclear reactor?

www.guardian.co.uk

It's called the Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor (ADSR), or Energy Amplifier

In the ADSR proposed by Rubbia, we wouldn't use uranium-235 as nuclear fuel at all. Instead, we would shift two spaces to the left in the periodic table, to uranium's unsung cousin: thorium. Despite being named for the god of thunder, thorium sits quietly in the Earth as a safe, unreactive mineral – and it sits there in great abundance, especially in Welsh earth.

(visit the link for the full news article)



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Thorium Power Plants Could Solve The World's Energy Problems

I think this is amazing. The combing of two technologies, nuclear reactors combined with an accelerator. They wouldn't even need URANIUM!! The possibilities for technologies to combine and give birth to new and previously unknown methods of generating energy is just full of hope. If mankind can hold off destroying itself for a century or two, I truly believe the world as we know it will be vastly better. Imagine infinite energy being born eventually after we master clean energy on a larger scale.

I firmly believe as well that the possibilities are endless for other technologies to combine and give us answers to the most common problems we have. Imagine quantum computing and robotics, Free energy and space travel.

The possibilities are infinite, we just need to hold out for a while and the knowledge we achieve will free us from our primitive tendencies.

So here is how the particle accelerator comes into play.

"In an ADSR, the thorium-containing reactor core would be coupled to a particle accelerator. This would fire up a beam of protons before slamming them into a block of lead inside the reactor core. The bombardment induces the lead to release neutrons, in a process called spallation. Those neutrons are then smashed into the thorium atoms, turning them into atoms of uranium-233, which is fissile – and so the reaction begins."

This process still generates fission but at a sub critical state. It is not self sustaining. We can see the problems Japan faced, had it been an ADSR reactor, the would have simply turned it off. No waste no danger.

It requires allot of energy to operate, but produces more on the other end, making it a true Amplifier. If we had a conjunction of these working in tandem, in the USA, we could be energy independent. No wars for oil, no pollution if we combine this almost free energy with electric motors and infrastructure.

We could sell energy!! Shoot we could make it the standard in trade. Since there is no need for a limit on how many you make being that they are clean and efficient, you could just keep building them. Create jobs , and security for the economy. Forget fields of solar panels, get a city of these to feed the country!! They get damaged, shut them off and switch another on.

Awesome!

Anyone an expert on thorium? safe or not?



www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

So, FINALLY a mainstream news article on thorium...

Took them long enough.

Yes, Thorium would revolutionize the energy markets. But a lot of people are pushing against it... the Uranium mining corporation, the current nuclear power corporations who have invested billions in their uranium plants and the coal industry, of course.

Not to mention... the mining of thorium is so small an industry... there's no one at the government level to LOBBY for it... while the 3 other big industry have TENS OF BILLIONS of $$$ to invest in lobbying.

Thorium-based plants won't get approved unless people who know their stuff, aka thorium is GOOD nuclear energy...which COULD be hard to sell to all the econazis and the people working in the uranium/nuclear industry who will be propagandized that ``they will lose their job if they support this plan``...

- Are elected.... this will be hard too... the big industry is gonna do everything they can to stop such politicians.

- And won't take bribes from the uranium/coal/nuclear industry... that too is a hard one because of human nature.

So... unless it's done by EXECUTIVE ORDER... it will be very hard.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Unfortunately; I hope you are wrong, but I know that it is likely you are speaking the truth. Sad really, money makes the world go 'round, but it's also, probably what will bring the world to it's knees.

I see the same thing that happened to the auto industry happening yet again. These people that are supposedly doing all this to our world in the name of "progress" try and argue that saving a few jobs, aka, executive positions, are acting in our best interests. Then a country like Japan or whoever takes our trash bin of ideas and makes it work, becoming a giant.

What would it take, once developed and proven for a country like Iran, or China to do exactly what we could. Become energy independent and strengthen their economy with the science we deem dangerous, to our elite.

Sucks, doesn't it. Vote Ron Paul, he would at least listen. Who else?

To argue for an ineffective system just for the sake of its preservation is insane. We need answers like this and soon.

If this was pursued at full steam, we could avoid the mess the ME is in to some degree. Not to mention that we could create a hell of allot of jobs while preserving the ones we have. Nuclear technicians and support personnel will be in higher demand if this was to be put into effect.
Sucks, doesn't it. Vote Ron Paul, he would at least listen. Who else?

To argue for an ineffective system just for the sake of its preservation is insane. We need answers like this and soon. If this was pursued at full steam, we could avoid the mess the ME is in to some degree.

Everyone reading this needs to forward it to everyone else they know and have them forward it to to their representatives. If we get enough attention to this subject, it will start to grow legs. There is lots of money to be made here, so it shouldn't be too hard. The promise of truly clean energy is just too big to ignore!

reply to post by Vitchilo

Thorium-based plants won't get approved unless people who know their stuff, aka thorium is GOOD nuclear energy...which COULD be hard to sell to all the econazis and the people working in the uranium/nuclear industry who will be propagandized that ``they will lose their job if they support this plan``...

Thorium research projects have been active for a number of years. There are also a number of commercial plants planned, and at least one operating.

The German THTR-300 was the first commercial power station powered almost entirely with Thorium. India's 300 MWe AHWR CANDU type reactor will begin construction in 2011. The design envisages a start up with reactor grade plutonium which will breed U-233 from Th-232. After that the input will only be thorium for the rest of the reactor's design life.[36]

The primary fuel of the HT3R Project near Odessa, Texas, USA will be ceramic-coated thorium beads. The earliest date the reactor will become operational in 2015.[37]

Fort St. Vrain Generating Station, a demo HTGR in Colorado, USA, operating from 1977 until 1992, employed enriched uranium fuel that also contained thorium. This resulted in high fuel efficiency because the thorium was converted to uranium and then burnt.

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reply to post by casenately


Funny thing. Reading this article the first thing I thought about was the reactor Bob Lazar claimed powered his spaceship.

A particle accelerator shooting something into heavy elements.

Thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium.
It is fertile rather than fissile, and can be used in conjunction with fissile material as nuclear fuel.
Thorium fuels can breed fissile uranium-233.

The use of thorium as a new primary energy source has been a tantalizing prospect for many years. Extracting its latent energy value in a cost-effective manner remains a challenge, and will require considerable R&D investment.

Nature and sources of thorium

Thorium is a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is about three times more abundant than uranium. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium.

Thorium exists in nature in a single isotopic form - Th-232 - which decays very slowly (its half-life is about three times the age of the Earth). The decay chains of natural thorium and uranium give rise to minute traces of Th-228, Th-230 and Th-234, but the presence of these in mass terms is negligible.

When pure, thorium is a silvery white metal that retains its lustre for several months. However, when it is contaminated with the oxide, thorium slowly tarnishes in air, becoming grey and eventually black. Thorium oxide (ThO2), also called thoria, has one of the highest melting points of all oxides (3300°C). When heated in air, thorium metal turnings ignite and burn brilliantly with a white light. Because of these properties, thorium has found applications in light bulb elements, lantern mantles, arc-light lamps, welding electrodes and heat-resistant ceramics. Glass containing thorium oxide has a high refractive index and dispersion and is used in high quality lenses for cameras and scientific instruments.

The most common source of thorium is the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium phosphate, but 6-7% on average. Monazite is found in igneous and other rocks but the richest concentrations are in placer deposits, concentrated by wave and current action with other heavy minerals. World monazite resources are estimated to be about 12 million tonnes, two-thirds of which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south and east coasts of India. There are substantial deposits in several other countries (see Table below). Thorium recovery from monazite usually involves leaching with sodium hydroxide at 140°C followed by a complex process to precipitate pure ThO2.

Thorite (ThSiO4) is another common mineral. A large vein deposit of thorium and rare earth metals is in Idaho.

The 2007 IAEA-NEA publication Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand (often referred to as the 'Red Book') gives a figure of 4.4 million tonnes of total known and estimated resources, but this excludes data from much of the world. Data for reasonably assured and inferred resources recoverable at a cost of $80/kg Th or less are given in the table below. Some of the figures are based on assumptions and surrogate data for mineral sands, not direct geological data in the same way as most mineral resources.


(Reasonably assured and inferred resources recoverable at
up to $80/kg Th)

World total =2,610,000 tonnes

The USA has 400,000 tonnes. That´s 15 % of the world total. Nice huh. If only we could use that to boost our economy.

"Thorite (ThSiO4) is another common mineral. A large vein deposit of thorium and rare earth metals is in Idaho."
Way to go Idaho, get on the band wagon.

!!!! More abundant than Uranium !!!!!.Go figure.

www.world-nuclear.org...

How about we through a reactor and a few buckets of uranium into the LHC?

That would make some power- and maybe a neutron star or quasar- but heck, it would give us some power!

Yes... but along with all the other remarks regarding big business, the industrial military complex will never use anything they can't make artillery shells from huh??? snicker, snicker..

reply to post by casenately


I was gonna say "Ironman" & Stark Industries...but your answer is better

After nearly 25 years they finally have made mainstream news. Alternative Nuclear reactor designs have been a kind of hobby of mine for many years. Great to see this thread.

reply to post by casenately


I think liquid metal thorium reactors are probably more efficient but this seems a unique way to obtain enough neutrons to react.

I haven't heard anything about proposed reactors using accelerators but I still remember linear particle accelerators being used for radiation sources.

There's still (I think) some particle accelerators used for this hanging around at the Hifar Reactor site in Menai, Sydney, Australia (actually, been years since I was there so they could have been decommissioned by now).

I have higher hopes for Rossi's E-Cat. But I'll take a look into this anyway.

"The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone."

One of the best phrases ever.

I pray for a world without individual greed, we would have reached beyond the stars long before now.