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The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor: Why Didn't This Happen (and why is now the right time?)

Google TechTalks · Youtube · 5 HN comments
HN Theater has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention Google TechTalks's video "The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor: Why Didn't This Happen (and why is now the right time?)".
Youtube Summary
Google Tech Talk
December 16, 2011

Presented by Kirk Sorensen
HN Theater Rankings

Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.
This discussion always leaves out LFTR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reacto...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY

Top comment: "Advantages of thorium:

Much safer than uranium-no pressure vesel, no fuel rods to melt down

Much simpler reactor-Thorium salt liquid is pumped from the reactor tank through a heat exchanger and back into the tank

Thorium is much more plentiful than uranium--in fact so plentiful it is considered a waste product from rare earth mining

Thorium doesn't need expensive enriching to make it usable

Thorium is of little use for weapons

If power goes off liquid fuel simply drains into a pit which stops reaction. No fuel rods to cool or melt down if power fails

This technology has been around for years. Why was it not developed long ago?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

goda90
I've heard the liquid salts are quite corrosive which is a hard issue to deal with.
rob_c
Yes, but high-temp corrosive liquids are something we have literally 100+ years in building big pots for in other industries. Compared to extracting lithium and other rare metals from batteries/circuits/dead-solar/dead-electronics this is effectively a solved problem.
Jun 02, 2015 · Difwif on Transatomic Power
From my understanding it comes down to part politics, part feasibility. When nuclear power first started becoming popular light water reactors were easier to make and their fuel/byproducts aligned with the production of nuclear weapons. As years went on regulation and inertia did a great job of cementing us into our old ways. Today, advances in (material) science have made producing molten salt reactors more feasible. They also seem more attractive now that the public is generally very adverse to nuclear waste and power plant failures. I'm paraphrasing what was explained to me so someone that knows more please chime in.

Kirk Sorensen has been a major advocate of molten-salt reactors and gave a great Google tech talk on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

What about the liquid fluoride thorium reactors? There's been some hype about these recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
rfvtgb123
This is just molten salt reactors all over again. They have disastrous security problems. Basically the salt eats away metal parts of the reactor, the graphite moderators are flammable and large parts of the reactor become radioactive because they catch neutrons which makes repair, maintenance and deconstruction almost impossible.

(edit:) I forgot about loss of fuel solubility events and the unsolved problem of tritium retention.

(edit:) It's interesting how the english wikipedia pages miss all the details on the failed projects in this field.

dsego
Strange, Kirk Sorensen (the guy in the video) seems very sure that these are much safer then any other alternatives. They don't have to be pressurised and water-cooled. Instead there's passive security with a frozen plug and a drain tank. Here's a longer documentary with lots of details (about 2 hours) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31HEijtqF5I
rfvtgb123
Yeah, I'm sure someone trying to make money off this is trustworthy http://flibe-energy.com/?page_id=87
Dec 12, 2012 · eco on Thorium
There is a Google Tech Talk on this very subject by Kirk Sorensen. He's a big thorium proponent so apply salt as you see fit but his talk seems fairly well cited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

KitemanSA
This is only one of MANY good presentations by Sorenson and others on LFTRs and what we can do with them.
The sad thing is we've already got the technology for clean(er), cheaper reactors now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

But we lack the infrastructure and investment to build them.

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