alt.energy.renewable

On Feb 24, 8:04 pm, "Karl Johanson" wrote:
> "T. Keating" wrote
>
> > On Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:28:55 -0800 (PST), nada
> > wrote:
>
> >>Yes, it's basically irrelevant. In fact, many of us in the pro-nuclear
> >>blog area are in favor of *higher* prices so there is more exploration
> >>and prospecting. But...we should, for a variety of reasons, switch to
> >>thorium, there is just so much of it and can easily breed it out to
> >>30,000 years worth. There is enough thorium *already mined* to power
> >>the entire US electircal grid for 3,000 of those years.
>
> > It will take centuries for one to build and breed enough U-233 to
> > sustain the non-breeding reactors..
>
> > First you need to build the first one.. then the second,
>
> Wow. I was never aware that you can only ever build 1 thing at a time...
>
> >.then
> > several hundred, perhaps a thousand of them operating continuously.
> > All in the 3GWt range, just to get near self sustaining. @%20 of
> > world demand.
>
> Okay.
>
> Karl Johanson

Of course you don't need U233...! In fact, there are no plans at all
that START with U233...they all start with U235 or Plutonium. In fact,
building, for example, 1,000 breeder reactors one doesn't even need a
breeding ration greater than 1. The goal, really, is to build non-
fuelable breeder that creates it's own fuel.

Using thorium in a liquid salt solution, you would never need more
than a few hundred pounds of uranium and the rest is about 800 kg of
throium a year...essentially eliminating uranium from the fuel cycle.

For every 10 LFTRs, after about 1 year, you get enough U233 *anyway*
(breeding ration of 1.06) to start a new reactor, otherwise use U235
and Pu.

The US has already mined enough thorium...sitting in steel drums in
the desert in new mexico, to power the US for about 3000 years. 1 ton
of thorium per year for 1GW year. 300 tons of Uranium fuel for the
same power. This makes thorium about 3000% more efficient. And, it
produces only about .1 percent the amount of waste as well...and
because burnup is 100%, the half-life of the waste will be completely
harmless in 300 years.

David