Thorium

S

sensei

New Member
Does anyone know if there are any plans to mine thorium? I read that Lynas and Iluka Resources mines contain thorium but it is not extracted, they just put it back in the ground. India, China and Canada are already running trials using thorium instead of uranium. Australia is sitting on the largest deposits. Thorium reactors are presently banned under Australia's anti-nuclear laws. It is more abundant than uranium and is found in sand and about as common as lead.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2007-08/08rp11.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/e...ed-as-uranium-alternative-20111106-1n1z3.html
 
sensei said:
Does anyone know if there are any plans to mine thorium? I read that Lynas and Iluka Resources mines contain thorium but it is not extracted, they just put it back in the ground. India, China and Canada are already running trials using thorium instead of uranium. Australia is sitting on the largest deposits. Thorium reactors are presently banned under Australia's anti-nuclear laws. It is more abundant than uranium and is found in sand and about as common as lead.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2007-08/08rp11.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/e...ed-as-uranium-alternative-20111106-1n1z3.html
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If it's that common I don't see much chance of it being profitable.
 
Smoothcriminal said:
Bring on thorium reactors - I've already joined the thorium brotherhood.
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A shame the thorium gear sucked after BC was launched though. I hit exalted with them as well whilst doing armoursmithing back in the day.

Remember the purple trinket you got back in Vanilla for being an armoursmith?

Ahhh, memories!
 
Thorium has some serious potential for the future. If the information coming out is correct, its ability to product excessive amounts of power is amazing. I think the use of thorium will come down to the people at the top... They 'company owners, bankers, governments' and the like, all make huge profits and revenue from our existing fossil fuels, will they give up these riches for a lesser known energy source? im not sure... but i would definatly be jumping into arafura in the near future with the hope that this technology 'salt thorium reactors' becomes widely available and used. Uranium/Gas/Thorium - energy for the future.
 
bellinvest said:
Thorium - energy for the future.
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Thorium: Nuclear Without The Nasty Stuff

Its not that surprising that thorium reactor technology hasn't been developed. In the 50s and 60s, you could either build a reactor that just made energy or you could build a reactor that could make energy and spit out weapons-grade plutonium to stuff into an intercontinental ballistic missile

Getting two for the price of one sounded like a pretty good deal.
 
Nah nuclear energy is a threat to our hydrocarbon based economy. Solar energy is also on the blacklist.
 
In the wake of Fukushima disaster the most sensible thing for every govt around the world is to switch from Uranium to Thorium which is low in radiation and produce alot more energy than Uranium does.

However, who said the world is govern by sane sensible people...?
 
chimpanchu said:
the most sensible thing for every govt around the world is to switch from Uranium to Thorium which is low in radiation and produce alot more energy than Uranium does.
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I agree. However, science and greed dictate. Uranium offers far more isotopic decay and fission products than that of Thorium, just simply observe Uranium's decay chain. More products equates to more discoveries and understanding, not forgetting Rhodium byproduct.
 
Thorium is far far more abundant than Uranium. It is a rare earth that is mined by Arafura and Lynas and stored on the side as it is illegal to sell it at this stage. With a Liquid Salt Reactor there is no risk of a melt down. Very very hard to create a weapon out of it. And most importantly the waste is far less hazardous and hugely lower half lifes (couple of hundred years as opposed to 10,000 years.)

You still need a small amount of Uranium to start the reaction though. Once started Thorium is used to keep the reaction going.

If and I emphasise IF carbon dioxide is proved to be the hazard the alarmists belief on faith. Then Thorium is the best known answer to cancel out carbon emissions.

Australia is estimated to have about 1/4 of the worlds supply of it too......!
 
Oh man, Now Goolia is gonna have to find something else to tax. Perhaps the not enough wast tax :D
Or the global cooling tax :lol:


In all seriousness I only just finished watching a 2 hour vid on Thorium and LFTR's.
Forget the IT boom, this will blow itaway. When, I don't know, but it is investable ?? get on it. It is a guarantee to hit the moon.
As an energy dependent species this will be the next step to future prosperity and advances.
 
Pilot, there is certainly some pretty serious advantages to developing LFTR's. At the end of the day though there is still hazardous waste to store for a few hundred years. Admittedly it's no where near as hazardous as Uranium, it is still, I think, the best source of transition power between hydro carbons and renewable.

Having said that, I think we should stick to the cheaper hydrocarbons until either AGW is an undeniable fact or coal and gas start to run out. Keep mining the Thorium with the other rare earth elements for now and start creating a huge strategic stockpile for when one of the two above scenarios come into play. It could be an economic game changer for the period between the above two come to fruition until a renewable alternative is found.
 
Lovey80 said:
Having said that, I think we should stick to the cheaper hydrocarbons until either AGW is an undeniable fact or coal and gas start to run out. Keep mining the Thorium with the other rare earth elements for now and start creating a huge strategic stockpile for when one of the two above scenarios come into play. It could be an economic game changer for the period between the above two come to fruition until a renewable alternative is found.
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If it isn't rare, and we've got plenty of it, and it doesn't blow up, and it doesn't produce much dangerous waste, and it doesn't pump crap into the air, and it does provide a source of energy that we can use to run all our electrical gear...why not skip the stockpiling and just start using it now?
 
Some Thorium facts.

* 1 Tonne of Thorium produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of Uranium or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal.

* A fist full of Thorium would light up London for a week.

* Eats its own waste and can be fed current stockpiles of spent fuel rods, reducing current stockpiles.

* More efficient, using more than 90% of the fuel as apposed to the current 0.7% use of Uranium.

* Waste is measured in grams not tonnes.

* Waste is hazardous for a few hundred years instead of tens of thousands to 1 million years. Less of it and shorter life = realistically manageable.

* It is highly abundant in a lot of the worlds crust. Predicted there is enough to run the world for hundreds of thousands of years.

* creates by products that cannot be made any other way (we have run out), needed for realistic space exploration.

* enhanced medical benefits/research.

There is naturally occurring radiation all around us, our planet emits it. We emit lots more of it out of coal/gas fired power stations. If a nuclear power station emitted airborne particles with radiation levels anywhere near the same as a coal fired power station there would be a public outcry and it would be shut down. Not many realise this. I guess it goes with the saying what you don't know won't hurt you.

There is no perfect solution for our power needs into the future but thorium comes pretty close. What we currently have comes nowhere near it
 
Big A.D. said:
Lovey80 said:
Having said that, I think we should stick to the cheaper hydrocarbons until either AGW is an undeniable fact or coal and gas start to run out. Keep mining the Thorium with the other rare earth elements for now and start creating a huge strategic stockpile for when one of the two above scenarios come into play. It could be an economic game changer for the period between the above two come to fruition until a renewable alternative is found.
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If it isn't rare, and we've got plenty of it, and it doesn't blow up, and it doesn't produce much dangerous waste, and it doesn't pump crap into the air, and it does provide a source of energy that we can use to run all our electrical gear...why not skip the stockpiling and just start using it now?
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You see you are writing this from an already biased faith that we are pumping "crap into the air". Sure I would love to see all the other bad stuff that gets emitted with CO2 when coal is burnt reduced, but those elements are not seen as a catastrophic harm to life on the planet.

So the answer to your question is: Because we have enormous amounts of coal and gas that we can use now at much cheaper prices and the technology is already there. Only small (in comparison) technology advancements are needed to filter out the other harmful chemicals, so we should look to that first. While we are building a huge stock pile of Thorium reserves, other countries without the blessing of coal and gas can do all the legwork getting the LFTR technology up to spec and tested. Once the transition is actually NEEDED we can make it very very quickly and have saved this country multi-billion dollars in wasted revenue in the process. All the while we have MADE multi-billions of dollars selling the hydrocarbons all over the world. Win win.
 
Here are some videos in relation to Thorium by people who really know what they are talking about.
The first video is 2 hours long and well worth the time to watch it.
The second is a 16 minute condensed version, but gets many of the facts across.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk[/youtube]
 
Big A.D. said:
Lovey80 said:
Having said that, I think we should stick to the cheaper hydrocarbons until either AGW is an undeniable fact or coal and gas start to run out. Keep mining the Thorium with the other rare earth elements for now and start creating a huge strategic stockpile for when one of the two above scenarios come into play. It could be an economic game changer for the period between the above two come to fruition until a renewable alternative is found.
Click to expand...

If it isn't rare, and we've got plenty of it, and it doesn't blow up, and it doesn't produce much dangerous waste, and it doesn't pump crap into the air, and it does provide a source of energy that we can use to run all our electrical gear...why not skip the stockpiling and just start using it now?
Click to expand...

We probably don't really need to build up stockpiles when you only need 500 tonnes to power the world for a year. At the moment it's cast aside like waste.
Perhaps one reason for dragging the chain is that the coal, gas and to a certain extent oil industry would become non existent/irrelevant. Could you imagine the loss
to government revenues worldwide and big business. There is no cost advantage to take up such technology, just trillions of lost profits.

Why would we use something as rare as Gold, Silver and Platinum to produce our energy and then our lack of efficiency only use 0.7% of it. Uranium sits beside the 3 fore mentioned metals in rarity.
 
I would highly doubt that a transition to LFTRs inspite of coal and gas would be economically advantageous for a country rich in coal and gas like Australia. I am only assuming but it surely is much more expensive.

Uranium however I think will become redundant with the emergence of thorium reactors. A good thing for the whole planet.
 
I disagree - did people throw away the radio now that the internet is here? There is intergration but both obviously come with their own strengths.

There is no source of energy that has been discovered that wont be utilised in the future to make up SOME part of the future production.
 
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