Thorium nuclear energy?

[Frances_iom]

the major problems have been a retreat from rational thinking based on some understanding of the technologies involved - much of the 'green' movement was taken over by outfits like Greenpeace whose grasp of science is tenuous to say the least - too many treehuggers who didn't think through what their policies would actually mean - nuclear could have provided a significant clean baseload supply for modern transport + industry but there was the highly successful but mostly irrational public relations exercise that prevented it, instead we saw natural gas being burnt as if no tomorrow and much of the UK infrastructure that should have remained in public control sold off, in many cases to companies outside of UK political control so making future changes more difficult.

[Lateralthinking1]

the major problems have been a retreat from rational thinking based on some understanding of the technologies involved - much of the 'green' movement was taken over by outfits like Greenpeace whose grasp of science is tenuous to say the least - too many treehuggers who didn't think through what their policies would actually mean - nuclear could have provided a significant clean baseload supply for modern transport + industry but there was the highly successful but mostly irrational public relations exercise that prevented it, instead we saw natural gas being burnt as if no tomorrow and much of the UK infrastructure that should have remained in public control sold off, in many cases to companies outside of UK political control so making future changes more difficult.

Frances_iom - I could read your response and be able to agree with a fair amount of it. I am though genuinely intrigued as to how you feel Greenpeace have held nuclear back here.

My understanding is that the industry was established between the 1950s and the 1970s. Yes, the mood changed from support to 50-50 for several reasons including the pressure groups. But I don't recall a vast expansion ever subsequently being considered in the UK and then dropped because of, say, the Rainbow Warrior.

Films like The China Syndrome and Silkwood hit a chord but then the safety record was what enabled the film industry to distort. What though did such things stop here? It wasn't as if many replacements were proposed. Now it is felt that the old plants need to be decommissioned. As far as I can see, new ones are coming here soon.

[Frances_iom]

there were no new orders, became almost impossible to get planning consent and development stopped with most of the experienced teams + support industy (inc Univ research) closed or disbanded

[Lateralthinking1]

there were no new orders, became almost impossible to get planning consent and development stopped with most of the experienced teams + support industy (inc Univ research) closed or disbanded

Sorry to grill you a bit on this but I am learning here or trying to. In your view, how many nuclear stations would we have now had there been no Greenpeace and similar pressure groups. Double?

And in a different political world, who would have brought them in? Had Labour been elected in 1979, it wouldn't have been Benn (would always have become anti) or Varley (for the mines) surely? So that leaves Howell, Lawson and Walker and you seem to be suggesting that they wouldn't have done so because of economic reasons. Or have I misinterpreted this?

What I am thinking - and I've never thought this bit through before - is that actually it was the politicians for their own reasons, much as supporters and opponents of the Green movement tend to think it is the Greens that have clout.

[Lateralthinking1]

.....I have just been Googling. Never a good thing. I am now wondering whether this goes back further to the early 1970s. In just sixteen months, CEGB chairman Arthur Hawkins went from saying to the Select Committee that no nuclear stations should be ordered to wanting two in 1974, one in each of 1975, 1976 and 1977, two in 1978, two in 1979, and nine between 1980 and 1983. It is said that the Committee's collective jaw dropped, particularly when he denied his earlier position.

At the time, there were concerns about the gas-cooled reactor but there was not enough faith in the American water-cooled reactor. FoE had just started up and got "dangers to nature" onto the front pages. The Committee may have decided that safety assurances were suddenly being given because of panic about the new green opposition. Then came a significant Windscale Inquiry and the accident at Three Mile Island. Benn learnt more about the military angle and that was it for him. I don't know about Shore. I doubt he was keen. Perhaps a Crosland would have thought differently. Just not sure. I was very young then and really wouldn't know.

Although there had been many problems, there is a speech in 1986 from Peter Walker that emphasised the Government's wholehearted support for nuclear. This is how I remember it following the Miners Strike. I guess though that there is wholehearted support and wholehearted support. He would have had monetarism in mind and would not have wanted 18 new stations. It wouldn't have been extended for application to new modes.

One thing I feel genuinely sorry about is the disappointment that people in the field must have felt. In the mid-1960s, a Minister declared "we've hit the jackpot" with this industry, presumably in terms of addressing needs. I would imagine that there was subsequently some vilification and people lost their jobs. That would have been awful. At the same time, I can't quite see that it was the green movement that stopped it in its tracks. Politicians couldn't make up their minds and had political angles on it all, there were clearly safety issues with the new as well as the old technology and the industry itself had shown concerns about those initially and then there were accidents at the old-style plants. That is how it looks to me but I could easily be wrong.

[teamsaint]

the tremors have been very small and highly localised - possibly more due to poor technique than an inherent problem - catch is that people want undisturbed nature yet cheap + abundant energy - I cannot see undisturbed nature winning - London + south was very happy to see coal being produced cheaply and didn't care one bit about the environmental cost in the coal producing areas - personally I regret Scotland didnt get independence when there was still much oil - S E England would be a very different place.

earth tremors are not the only issue with fracking.
Like nuclear power stations, I wouldn't want it near me.
I know that is no kind of an argument..........but I wouldn't.
(or a slag heap come to that).

[Frances_iom]

Lat - I've never been part of Nuclear industry - remember the first real hike in oilprices - that I think was the wakeup call for those in the electricity supply industry as suddenly they could see demand rocketing and the lead time for infrastructure is measured in decades not months - you can plot the French build up of their baseload nuclear stations - without orders there could be no development especially once the Thatcherite sell off meant that research labs were a drain on short term profits - recall the railways a property company with nearby tracks with no interest in maintenance hence responsible for many deaths for which very belatedly the Gov was forced to introduce the concept of corporate manslaughter - ie greed was quite happy to see people die if it increased profits - probably they killed more than die from effects of worldwide nuclear power (excluding the sheer stupidity of Chernobyl)

[Lateralthinking1]

Frances_iom - Thank you for these comments. To my mind, the most significant speech of the Thatcher era -

http://toryreformgroup.wordpress.com/2006/12/06/lord-stockton-found-in-the-trg-archives/

[PhilipT]

In your opinion, is there a comparable quantity of weapons grade plutonium produced in the different processes?

Sorry about the delay in replying - I've been busy in the real world. In a word: no. Some plutonium would still be produced, but it'll be tiny (U-233 plus six neutrons and two beta decays gives Pu-239). Once you have your mixed uranium/thorium reactor going you can in theory keep it going on pure thorium - in theory, but not in practice, because you'll have to go through the whole palaver again to restart it after shutting it down. Any practical fuel would be a uranium/thorium mix. The other snag for the bomb-maker is that one by-product of a thorium reactor is U-234, which is nastily radioactive but not short-lived, and that complicates the business of separating out the plutonium from the spent fuel. Switching to thorium doesn't resolve the problem of what to do with spent nuclear fuel, but it does make it harder to make a bomb from it.

[Lateralthinking1]

Sorry about the delay in replying - I've been busy in the real world. In a word: no. Some plutonium would still be produced, but it'll be tiny (U-233 plus six neutrons and two beta decays gives Pu-239). Once you have your mixed uranium/thorium reactor going you can in theory keep it going on pure thorium - in theory, but not in practice, because you'll have to go through the whole palaver again to restart it after shutting it down. Any practical fuel would be a uranium/thorium mix. The other snag for the bomb-maker is that one by-product of a thorium reactor is U-234, which is nastily radioactive but not short-lived, and that complicates the business of separating out the plutonium from the spent fuel. Switching to thorium doesn't resolve the problem of what to do with spent nuclear fuel, but it does make it harder to make a bomb from it.

PhilipT - I learnt quite a lot about this topic from a previous thread. Fukushima. I am still technically very hazy.

Not that I want to find difficulties with thorium but isn't there a third problem? That we have stockpiles of spent plutonium at Sellafield that couldn't be managed easily without re-use in new plutonium reactors? Isn't it also true that, whatever happens, spent plutonium is likely at some stage to be travelling around the country to be dealt with at Mox processing installations?

Isn't it the case too that this would be an absolute nightmare to manage and that any further plutonium use in new reactors will simply add to the burden? A position therefore of not really being able to win, whether we have thorium or not?

[PhilipT]

Lt1: I'm not sure I understand your question. In particular, I'm not sure what you mean by "spent plutonium".

An ordinary uranium reactor starts off with fuel that is enriched in U-235 but still has a lot of U-238, usually in the form of uranium dioxide, UO2. The U-235 undergoes fission; the U-238 is exposed to neutrons and is transmuted into plutonium, some of which itself undergoes fission. A lot of fission products build up which have widely varying characteristics of volatility, radioactivity and biological activity.

At some point you'll want to replace the fuel with fresh. It won't all be completely used up, and to start with the spent fuel rods will be highly radioactive, and can only be kept in cooling ponds. One approach is not to reprocess the spent fuel at all. If you don't separate out the plutonium you can't make a bomb with it. Another approach is to separate out the uranium and plutonium from the rest, producing mixed-oxide fuel that can go back into a reactor. This makes better use of the available uranium, and provides a route for disposing of unwanted plutonium for those countries that have it. The Fukushima incident gave Mox fuel a bad press for no good reason - all uranium reactors burn a mix of uranium and plutonium (see above). It may be that the Fukushima plant was built in the wrong way in the wrong place, but that's not the fault of the fuel.

Reactors with some thorium in the fuel will produce a different mix in the spent fuel - less plutonium, more U-234 etc. It may well be harder to reprocess, because of the U-234, but also harder to make a bomb from.

Ultimately we need to recognise that there is no ideal energy source, and the decision to be made is what the mix should be. I find the current emphasis on natural gas terribly short-sighted - using such a premium fuel to generate electricity can't be right. Renewables won't replace fossil fuels (including nuclear) without a vast improvement in our ability to store energy; coal produces vast amounts of fly ash. I see nuclear being a part of the right mix for some time to come.

[Lateralthinking1]

Lt1: I'm not sure I understand your question. In particular, I'm not sure what you mean by "spent plutonium".

An ordinary uranium reactor starts off with fuel that is enriched in U-235 but still has a lot of U-238, usually in the form of uranium dioxide, UO2. The U-235 undergoes fission; the U-238 is exposed to neutrons and is transmuted into plutonium, some of which itself undergoes fission. A lot of fission products build up which have widely varying characteristics of volatility, radioactivity and biological activity.

At some point you'll want to replace the fuel with fresh. It won't all be completely used up, and to start with the spent fuel rods will be highly radioactive, and can only be kept in cooling ponds. One approach is not to reprocess the spent fuel at all. If you don't separate out the plutonium you can't make a bomb with it. Another approach is to separate out the uranium and plutonium from the rest, producing mixed-oxide fuel that can go back into a reactor. This makes better use of the available uranium, and provides a route for disposing of unwanted plutonium for those countries that have it. The Fukushima incident gave Mox fuel a bad press for no good reason - all uranium reactors burn a mix of uranium and plutonium (see above). It may be that the Fukushima plant was built in the wrong way in the wrong place, but that's not the fault of the fuel.

Reactors with some thorium in the fuel will produce a different mix in the spent fuel - less plutonium, more U-234 etc. It may well be harder to reprocess, because of the U-234, but also harder to make a bomb from.

Ultimately we need to recognise that there is no ideal energy source, and the decision to be made is what the mix should be. I find the current emphasis on natural gas terribly short-sighted - using such a premium fuel to generate electricity can't be right. Renewables won't replace fossil fuels (including nuclear) without a vast improvement in our ability to store energy; coal produces vast amounts of fly ash. I see nuclear being a part of the right mix for some time to come.

Thank you for your detailed explanation PhilipT. This rather proves what I said about my technical knowledge being hazy. I accept the point about the location of Fukushima. I'm also aware of the arrangements that have had to be put in place just to transport Mox internationally. It seems unwise to restate them here but it leaves me with big concerns about any possible future transport in this country. My lifelong gut feeling against nuclear has softened slightly as a consequence of discussions on these boards recently and going back to the autumn. That is down to you technical experts. I don't think that in the event of a consultation, I would ever be able to support it, but more open engagement from the industry could make a positive difference among the public at large.