Thor and the Thorium Solution for Plutonium from Commercial Nuclear Reactors

"Thor's battle with the giants" painting by Mårten Eskil Winge (1872)

by Marcel F. Williams

Because of the political inability to deal with the long term disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors in the US by the federal government, some states in the US have banned the building of new  commercial nuclear power plants.

California state law, for instance, has banned the construction of new commercial nuclear power plants until the US Federal government establishes a long-term policy on the disposal of spent fuel (nuclear waste). And with current plans to close its last nuclear power plant (Diablo Canyon) by the year 2025, California will eventually have no  nuclear facilities providing carbon neutral electricity to its nearly 40 million residents.

While the US has principally focused on finding a permanent site for the spent fuel from its commercial nuclear facilities, some nations, such as France,  have focused on recycling the plutonium component of spent fuel while storing away the fissile and fertile uranium for perhaps future use in commercial nuclear reactors-- plus the residual radioactive material that cannot be recycled

While France mixes plutonium with uranium 238 (MOX) to partially recycle nuclear waste in its current light water reactors, this process produces even more plutonium. But  a Swedish company (Thor Energy) has come up with an alternative solution. They propose mixing the plutonium from spent fuel with fertile thorium instead of fertile uranium 238. The utilization of such fuel in conventional light water reactors would allow for the plutonium to be incinerated while producing electricity while producing fissile uranium 233 that could be eventually extracted and used to enrich the spent fuel containing fissile uranium 235 and fertile uranium 238 stored away. This would allow most spent fuel produced from nuclear reactors to be recycled to produce even more carbon neutral energy.

North American Thorium Deposits

  
Countries with the Largest Thorium Reserves (tonnes)

India ......................    846,000
Turkey...................     744,000
Brazil ....................     606,000
Australia ...............    521,000
USA ......................     434,000
Egypt....................      380,000
Norway.................      320,000
Venezuela.............      300,000
Canada.................      172,000
Russia..................       155,000
South Africa........      148,000
China...................      100,000
Greenland..............     86,000
Finland..................      60,000
Sweden..................      50,000
Kazakhstan............     50,000

Thor Energy envisions using a mix of 90% thorium and 10% plutonium in conventional light water reactors.  Thorium Mox could also be used in future underwater light water nuclear reactors such as France's FlexBlue system.  Remotely sited underwater reactors could be used to produce carbon neutral synfuels (methanol, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, etc.) which could be shipped to coastal towns and cities around the world for  transportation and local heat and electricity production. 


Links and References

Thor Energy

California's last nuclear power plant to close by 2025

Spent Fuel and the Thorium Solution 

Blue submarine: The Flexblue offshore nuclear reactor

 The Case for Remotely Sited Underwater Nuclear Reactors

Siting Ocean Nuclear Power Plants in Remote US Territorial Waters for the Carbon Neutral Production of Synfuels and Industrial Chemicals

Will Russia and China Dominate Ocean Nuclear Technology?

The Future of Ocean Nuclear Synfuel Production

Floating Nuclear Power Plants, Floating Power Barges, and Marine Methanol

Nuclear Navy's Synfuel from Seawater Program: An interview with Kathy Lewis of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory