Hi Mark, It would be ideal if nations were to form consortia around R&D on technology issues such as the development of clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels. But being the humans we are we just don’t get it! When nationalism and tribalism inserts itself into the picture we go our separate ways and group think gets confined within boundaries. Maybe the answer is crowdsourcing the problem and inviting solutions from the public.

ORNL, back in the 60s working under national security classification, did not judge thorium reactors as preferable to enriched uranium reactors, or even much worthy of further development. Really smart people worked on the thorium reactor project at ORNL. We will probably never know the real reasons the project was shelved. In principle it’s workable, but in practice not so easy.

I’m suspicious about long-term reactor material compatibility with molten fluoride salts. The Germans, Swedes, French, Dutch and Canadians have all tried to develop practical thorium reactors, but they aren’t up and running. The Chinese and Indians have their work cut out for them.

But there is another key factor we seldom hear about. Rumors are that the Silex prototype laser enrichment plant has proven uranium can be enriched with only 10% of the separation work units required by centrifuges. That drastically changes the economics of highly enriched fuel reactors, such as those that power US submarine and carrier fleets. These are safe and sealed high-power-density reactors that contain all the “fuel” needed for 40-years. They have already been operational without serious mishap for several hundred total years. But they never turn a profit. Unlike the US Government, the commercial world doesn’t want to buy expensive fuel it won’t burn for several decades. But, if licensing is facilitated and the government inherits the sealed depleted fuel package after 40-years, they might like to buy 40-years of reactor fuel at 20% the price.

I wish the Chinese and Indians all the best with their thorium reactors, but I’d rather bet on the highly enriched fuel sealed uranium reactors and wait a decade or so before marriage to proven thorium designs.

Short of the comment on dropping an atomic bomb on a thorium reactor, which is not what I had in mind when I was writing about the technology’s relative safety, what are your technical reservations about TMSR technology?

We could think of the Fukushima plant design and disaster as an example. When the reactors and power plant were designed, consideration was given to the possibility of massive earthquakes and giant tidal waves. All the plant designers understood the reactors could have been sited at a much higher elevation 1/2-mile further inland. No doubt some junior engineer suggested at least locating the control center and emergency generators at a much higher elevation. But it was a commercial project intended to turn a profit for the shareholders. It would have cost hundreds of millions more to site the emergency control generators further inland. The argument was made and agreed to that no tsunami/earthquake of a scale that would seriously damage the plant had ever been recorded, and so the design committee chairman pronounced, “It looks good enough to me.” Should be obvious that the planet Earth has experienced many meteor impact craters that are large enough to contain 100 Fukushima plants. Any sort of nuclear reactor design is vulnerable to catastrophic explosions. We shouldn’t be trying to kid ourselves that nuclear power on earth can be made risk free. But the world needs the power, and it needs to stop burning coal to produce it. It comes down to a tough judgment call whether the power and carbon abatement justifies the nuclear risks. And then it gets deeper as to how much extra costs should be added to large nuclear reactors to potentially reduce impacts of very unlikely catastrophe. Had I been a member of the Fukushima design committee, even understanding that a natural catastrophe of sufficient and unprecedented scale would produce huge contamination, I probably would have signed off on the design.

My mother lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Two nuclear reactors nearly identical to the Fukushima units are sited on the shore of Lake Dardenelle, about 70-miles from my mother’s home. Should be obvious that a New Madrid scale earthquake would likely produce Fukushima scale radiation contamination all along the Arkansas River watershed extending all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. I’m not advising anyone to move to a safer location.