Nuclear Waste Thorium

They can actually burn up more radioactive waste than they produce.

Diocese of bathurst. Overlook a possible solution to nuclear waste. Also the use of thorium in most reactor types leads to extra safety margins. This still includes many dangerous alpha and beta emitters and isotopes with extremely long half lives including iodine 129 half life of 157 million years.

Staff writer feb 21 2019 is thorium the great hope for a clean viable and safe nuclear fuel alternative to uranium or is it. Knowledge waste 13 august p. The use of thorium as a fertile reactor input has the potential to greatly reduce high level reactor wastes 1 2.

If proven to work effectively they will start a second. But molten salt reactors are amazing. The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium 232 th as the fertile materialin the reactor 232 th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 u which is the nuclear fuelunlike natural uranium natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material such as 231 th which are insufficient to initiate a nuclear chain reaction.

This is often cited as a. Although thorium advocates say that thorium reactors produce little radioactive waste they simply produce a different spectrum of waste to those from uranium 235. The millions in subsidies thorium will require to become commercially viable would be better spent on solar wind and other alternative energy sources.

Can thorium offer a safer nuclear future. While lftrs like every other nuclear reactor generate fission products that are highly radioactive their half lives tend to be measured in dozens of years not thousands page 77. These transuranics are the major health concern of long term nuclear waste.

Thus th u waste will be less toxic on the 10000 year time scale. In their policy forum nuclear waste. Thorium is more abundant in earths crust than uranium at a concentration of 00006 vs.

Thorium fuel cycles offer attractive features including lower levels of waste generation less transuranic elements in that waste and providing a diversification option for nuclear fuel supply. Thomas net by david sims. The nuclear waste produced by thorium molten salt reactors is also much less long lived.

Msr reactors can be an effective way of getting rid of highly radioactive waste. Are there any additional benefits of thorium. Alternative fuel cycles particularly the thorium fluoride molten salt reactor thorium msr.