alt.energy.renewable

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, .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.

Not even one Th breeder has been built to date. Reactors with breeding
characteristics have a terrible track record.. explosions, meltdowns,
major radioactive releases, etc.

Another minor detail..
Th breeders need Large Pu cores(3000kg)..
(U235/238 doesn't fly to well inside a Th breeder.. ).