The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part 28 Subtitle: Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part 28

Subtitle: Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

Preface   

This article, number 28 in the series, discusses nuclear power via a thorium molten-salt reactor (MSR) process.   (Note, this is also sometimes referred to as LFTR, for Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor)   The thorium MSR is frequently trotted out by nuclear power advocates, whenever the numerous drawbacks to uranium fission reactors are mentioned.   To this point in the TANP series, uranium fission, via PWR or BWR, has been the focus.  Some critics of TANP have already stated that thorium solves all of those problems and

Thorium Molten Salt Reator process
source:  Idaho National Lab

therefore should be vigorously pursued.  Some of the critics have stated that Sowell obviously has never heard of thorium reactors.   Quite the contrary, I am familiar with the process and have serious reservations about the numerous problems with thorium MSR.  

It is interesting, though, that nuclear advocates must bring up the MSR process.  If the uranium fission process was any good at all, there would be no need for research and development of any other type of process, such as MSR and fusion.   Indeed, as already pointed out in TANP, uranium fission plants have barely captured 11 percent of world-wide electricity production after 50 years of heroic efforts.   One would expect, if nuclear power were as great as the advocates claim, that nuclear plants would already supply 80 or 90 percent of all electric power in the world.  Clearly, they do not because they are not at all great, they have enormous and insurmountable drawbacks in cost, safety, and toxic product legacy left for future generations.    Once the thorium MSR process is discussed in this article, the next article will discuss yet a third hope for the nuclear advocates, in case fusion fizzles out and MSR melts away to nothingness.   That next article will be on high-temperature gas reactors, the HTGR.   As will be seen, HTGR also has serious drawbacks.  

One final preliminary point: some of the nuclear advocates that push MSR lament the fact that, many years ago, thorium MSR lost in a competition with uranium PWR to provide propulsion for ships and submarines for the US Navy.   They say, wrongly, that Admiral Rickover chose uranium PWR over thorium MSR so that the US could develop atomic bombs.  What is much more likely the reason uranium PWR won is that the materials used for the MSR developed the severe cracking described below.   No Admiral in charge of submarines could take a chance on the reactor splitting apart from the shock of depth charges.   
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-28.html