Other countries have made preliminary investments towards building thorium reactors. Scientists suggest a $5 billion investment over the next five years could net a viable reactor solution in the United States, but with limited funding for thorium, it is difficult to see this vision come to fruition. Each reactor would require some highly enriched uranium (such as uranium-235) to start the reactor, which is very expensive. The post-processing chemical facilities, which would separate uranium from the molten salts for re-use, haven’t been viably constructed yet. There are significant gaps in the research and necessary materials for LFTRs. Lastly, a thorium plant will operate at about 45 percent thermal efficiency, with upcoming turbine cycles possibly improving the overall efficiency to 50 percent or greater, meaning a thorium plant can be up to 20 percent more efficient than a traditional light-water reactor. In an ideally working reactor, the post chemical reprocessing would allow a LFTR to efficiently consume nearly all of its fuel, leaving little waste or byproduct unlike a conventional reactor. Since LFTRs use thorium in its natural state, no expensive fuel enrichment processes or fabrication for solid fuel rods are required, meaning the fuel costs are significantly lower than a comparable solid-fuel reactor. For a 1 GW facility, material cost for fuel would be around $5 million. With extraction, enough thorium could be obtained to power LFTRs for thousands of years. Historically, thorium was tossed aside as a byproduct of rare-earth metal mining. Thorium is found in a concentration over 500 times greater than fissile uranium-235. If thorium becomes popular, this cost will only decrease as thorium is widely available anywhere in the earth’s crust. The salts cost roughly $150/kg, and thorium costs about $30/kg. The fuel cost is significantly lower than a solid-fuel reactor. Any leftover radioactive waste cannot be used to create weaponry. If the core were to go critical, gravity would allow the heated, radiated salt to spill into passive via underground fail-safe containment chambers, capped by an ice plug that melts upon contact. LFTRs don’t require massive cooling, meaning they can be placed anywhere and can be air-cooled.
Additionally, the fluoride salts have very high boiling points, meaning even a large spike in heat will not cause a massive increase in pressure.īoth of these factors greatly limit the chance of a containment explosion. LFTRs are designed to operate as a low-pressure system unlike traditional high-pressure nuclear systems, which creates a safer working environments for workers who operate and maintain these systems. Thorium reactors generate significantly less radioactive waste, and can re-use separated uranium, making the reactor self-sufficient once started. The uranium is then sent back to the core to start the fission process again. The radiated salt flows into a post-processing plant, which separates the uranium from the salt. The salt melts into a molten state, which runs a heat exchanger, heating an inert gas such as helium, which drives a turbine to generate electricity. This creates a uranium-233 isotope, as the thorium-232 takes on an additional neutron.
As fission occurs, heat and neutrons are released from the core and absorbed by the surrounding salt. First, thorium-232 and uranium-233 are added to fluoride salts in the reactor core. LFTRs use a combination of thorium (a common element widely found in the earth) and fluoride salts to power a reactor.Ī typical arrangement for a modern thorium-based reactor resembles a conventional reactor, albeit with notable differences. A LFTR is a type of molten salt reactor, significantly safer than a typical nuclear reactor. Into this dynamic comes a resurgence in nuclear technology: liquid fluoride thorium reactors, or LFTRs (“lifters”). This trend could continue until market forces make nuclear technology obsolete. POWERGEN 2022 Call for Speakers: Tracks and Hubs Explained The cost of nuclear generation is on the rise-a stark contrast to the decreasing costs of alternative energy forms such as solar and wind, which have gained an immense amount of popularity recently. After disasters such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukishima, the public is acutely aware of the potential, though misguided, dangers of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy, however, carries a dreaded stigma. Nuclear energy produces carbon-free electricity, and the United States has used nuclear energy for decades to generate baseline power.
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