| Thorium (Th) is an alternative to Uranium for the production of nuclear energy.Unfortunately, only a small part of the nuclear industry selected it to develop civil power plants. Instead of that, the great majority decided to invest in the Uranium-based technology, developed for the submarines forces. The history showed us this was a very bad choice, due to the instability of the “controlled bombs” they created. It also revealed us that the nuclear industry never provided any solution to remove the long term “poisons” they created.With a proper use of Thorium, none of the actual problems faced by the nuclear industry should have been encountered. |
Thorium history
| “During the pioneering years of nuclear energy, from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s, there was considerable interest worldwide to develop thorium fuels and fuel cycles in order to supplement uranium reserves. The feasibility of thorium utilization has been demonstrated in high temperature gas cooled reactors (HTGR), light water reactors (LWR), pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs), liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactors (LMFBR) and molten salt breeder reactors (MSBR).The initial enthusiasm on thorium fuels and fuel cycles was not sustained among the developing countries later, due to new discovery of uranium deposits and their improved availability”(*).A second reason for the disinterest in Thorium-based reactors, lies in the fact that the Uranium-based industry received an enormous support from the military lobby, because their civil reactors could provide them at a very low price a by-product they dramatically needed… called Plutonium.
After the Three Miles Island accident and the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, the growth of nuclear power dramatically slowed down, particularly in the USA and Europe. Even the safe Thorium power plants operating in Germany (THTR300) has been stopped ! |
Thorium today
| Recent concerns about global warming, and the Kyoto accords limiting CO2 suggest that future energy demands cannot be met solely through the burning of fossil fuels. And on the other end, the sustainable energy sources will never be able to provide 100% of the energy needed by our modern civilization. Taking those constraints into account, a return to some reliance on the nuclear option is required.In this context, Thorium-based cycles that are proliferation-resistance, that have improved waste form characteristics, and that permit reduction of plutonium inventories receive renewed interest in in several developed countries.In the future, Thorium will also be mandatory to provide basic materials for the actual nuclear industry. “in fact, the annual world requirements of uranium is expected to grow from the present level of some 66.000 tonnes ‘U’ to nearly 82.000 tonnes ‘U’ by the year 2025. Nowadays, the world uranium production (36.042 tonnes) provides about 54% of world reactor requirements (66 815 tonnes), with the remainder being met by secondary sources, including civilian and military stockpiles, uranium reprocessing and re-enrichment of depleted uranium. However, by 2025, secondary sources will decline in importance and provide only about 4–6% of requirements, depending upon the demand projections used. At that juncture, introduction of thorium fuel cycle will play a complementary role” (IAEA, 2005) |