coal2nuclear .com                                                To Contents Page                                                 May, 2012
Welcome to the "Thorium Cookbook."

Thorium energy is more than 1,000 times cheaper than coal.    There is enough for thousands of years.

Why the big cost difference?  Pound-for-pound, nuclear fuels have about 3 million times as much energy as fossil fuels.

PROOF:  Comparing The Cost of Thorium Heat vs. Coal Heat

(Coal:)  It takes about 3 million tons of coal (costing $120,000,000 at US $40 per ton, delivered) to make 1,000 megaWatts of electricity for a year.

(Thorium:)  "Once up and running, 800 kg [1,760 pounds] of thorium (costing $50,000 at US $28.40 per pound), would produce 1,000 megaWatts of electricity for a year [using a molten salt reactor]." (Stated by Dr. David LeBlanc, Ottawa, Canada,  Ottawa_Valley_Research_Associates_Ltd.  in a Google lecture on Feb 19, 2009.) 

Comparing 3 million tons of coal priced at $40 per ton delivered with 1,760 pounds of thorium priced at $28.40 per pound, we have $120,000,000 for coal [divided by] $50,000 for thorium.  This makes heat from thorium  2,400 times cheaper  than heat from coal.

Dr. LeBlanc's Feb 19, 2009, Google lecture on this subject:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So 

Please sign the thorium petition:   http://thoriumpetition.com/

Comparing The Efficiency of Fluid Fuel Molten Salt Reactors vs. Conventional Solid Fuel Reactors

Comparing uranium "mileage" with conventional Light Water Reactors, CANDU reactors, and MSR (molten salt) reactors.  Table   Article  (12 page pdf).

Comparing Thorium Power Plant Construction Cost vs. Conventional Nuclear and Coal Power Plants

Guesstimates are that a greenfield Molten Salt Reactor steam plant using generic coal plant steam turbines would cost perhaps 20% of an equivalent megaWatt new conventional nuclear plant and about the same as an equivalent megaWatt new coal plant.  Here are five cost estimates.

Power Plant Cost Estimate Documentation:  The 223 page, June 29, 1962, Sargent and Lundy cost study report, SL-1954, had direct cost estimates ranging from 65 to 77 million dollars for the nominal 1,000 megaWatt (electric) plant.  The 366 page, September 15, 1965, EBASCO "Molten Salt Converter Reactor, Design Study and Power Cost Estimates for a 1,000 Mwe Station, ORNL-TM-1060 report, page 291, was 149 million dollars.  Download pdf copies of these reports.

Comparing Reactor Starting Material Loads

"One major advantage is that while conventional PWR reactors are not too bad - say, 60 million dollars worth of fuel rods, compared with other advanced reactors such as the Sodium Cooled Fast (12 tons) and the Lead Cooled Fast (20 tons) the "Converter" Molten Salt Reactor takes only 1.5 ton (1,360 kg) - a much smaller initial starting load of radioactive materials to get under way."  - - Dr. David LeBlanc

This means the world has the resources on hand to build and start 8 times as many same size Thorium reactors as Sodium Fast reactors if the world decided to go as much nuclear as it could, as fast as possible.  (Why? To keep from pulling that final CO2 trigger in Climate Change's "Quick Thaw" methane hydrate catastrophe scenario as described in the book "Climate Trap" by Melvin Visser.  Click to enlarge.)

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The Molten Salt Reactor Leverages Thorium's Economic Advantage

A conventional uranium reactor will consume about 2% of the nuclear energy in its solid fuel rods before it stops running.  This is incredibly inefficient for a fuel source as scarce as platinum.  A 96% efficient molten salt reactor (MSR) will burn away almost 100% of its fuel along with its nuclear waste products.  It can even run on the unused energy that remains in a conventional reactor's nuclear waste.  This fuel-efficiency fact alone renders conventional reactors economically obsolete.  (How it works - click on image at right.)

In a solid fuel reactor, safety constraints limit the amount of fissile uranium-235 that can participate in the reactor's fission reaction to about 4% of the entire fuel load.

The "converter" liquid-fuel molten salt reactor is started on fissile uranium-235 but, once running, make-up fuel in the form of non-radioactive thorium is added and the reactor converts the non-fissile thorium-232 to fissile uranium-233 naturally.  The newly converted fissile (radioactive) uranium-233 atom is then fissioned to both make heat and to supply the neutron needed continue the thorium-to-uranium conversion process.  This can go on for up to 30 years, at which time the reactor's heat transfer salt has become saturated with thorium nuclear waste and needs to be cleaned by a simple precipitation process for another 30 years of use.  So, instead of 4%, nearly 100% of the thorium's nuclear energy is converted to heat.    Burn-up comparison.

Thorium is four times more abundant than uranium and, unlike uranium, does not need costly enrichment preparation.  Thorium produces 1% the nuclear waste of uranium, and cannot be used to make practical nuclear weapons.  It so happens that a molten salt reactor running on thorium is a wonderful combination.  This is due, in large part, to the fact that thorium (at 2.29 neutrons per neutron capture or "npnc") is more neutron-rich than either uranium (2.06 npnc) or plutonium (1.79 npnc) and that a single-fluid, graphite moderated, molten salt reactor provides the most efficient of all environments for neutron use. 

Raw, unenriched uranium will also work well in a converter molten salt reactor but substantial amounts of plutonium are produced during conversion.

Unfortunately, we are locked into the earlier high pressure solid fuel reactor designs by old government regulations all over the world.  It's going to be very difficult to get the world to progress to the newer, safer, and more efficient reactor technology.  Some motion is occurring.  China has a formal MSR project, the French are active at the academic level.

More:  http://thoriumpetition.com/video/  (The first 5 minutes of this video will do a lot to get you up to speed on the energy efficiency issue, the next 115 minutes are also very informative.) 

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There is a historical precedent for this kind of progress.  The 1712 "Newcomen" steam engine was an energy-wasteful monster that could barely pump water out of coal mines - but it was a big improvement over horseflesh.  50 years later, the next generation "Watt" steam engine appeared.  The obsolete Newcomen steam engine was quickly replaced by the far more efficient Watt steam engine.  Economical, small, and light enough to power railroads, ships, factories, and dozens of other applications, the Watt steam engine enabled the world to evolve beyond wind, horseflesh, and slavery. 

In 1957, the world's first commercial uranium reactor was connected to the grid.  10 years later the much simpler and far more elegant nuclear jet airplane reactor was redesigned and built as a small power plant reactor.  Named the "Molten Salt Reactor Experiment," it was run for 5 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.  It ran well on uranium, thorium, and nuclear waste.  Full-size power plant design studies and cost estimates based on this reactor were made by two top utility engineering companies - EBASCO and Sargent and Lundy.  

Now, after 50 years of enduring the shortcomings of early reactor technology, the time has come to stop renewing old reactor licenses and build newer, safer reactors.