Making Safe Nuclear Power from Thorium | Thomas Jam Pedersen | TEDxCopenhagen

Thomas Jam Pedersen, engineer and co-founder of Copenhagen Atomics, was skeptical at first upon discovering and reading about thorium energy, which is present everywhere in the world and could technically provide an inexpensive energy supply for everyone for thousand years.

While the world is still heavily relying on fossil fuels, thorium energy and nuclear reactors, which reuse nuclear waste, are now part of the energy debate, proposing a pollution-free solution that could provide an unlimited supply of fuel for the next millennium.

Thomas Jam Pedersen aims to build a thorium molten salt reactor in Copenhagen, and introduce thorium energy to the public eye.

Thomas Jam Pedersen is an engineer, who has extensive experience in software and simulations. With a group of chemical engineers and physicists, he co-founded the startup Copenhagen Atomics. He also writes a blog about thorium energy on the website Ingeniøren.

[ravirustagi]

I'm a retired nuclear engineer and have worked on nuclear fuel and safety aspects. In those early years in the 1980s, Thorium was not utilized in NPPs. But its potential was always recognized, and India's 3-stage strategy included Thorium utilization in stage-3. Hopefully, good progress has been made in the last 40 years, and would not be surprised if Thorium bundles are loaded in the operating heavy water reactors. My best wishes.

[lunchplateboy]

The reason we don't use Thorium for energy is because it can't be used for weapons and isn't rare enough to monopolize the market so it can be controlled by governments. It's cheap energy which means no one makes money which means those making money on energy right now which includes renewable energy are not going to support this energy source.

[stackrisk]

India is leader in thorium and they have built reactors as well. There are so many scientists around the world studying how India is solving it's power problem with thorium.

[rixon]

Excellent talk. I’m glad to finally see the world waking up and realizing the future is nuclear energy. As many have pointed out work is ongoing on the use of Thorim

[thehaze]

It is kind of sad that one of the main reasons that the MSR project was scrapped was because it didn't produce any plutonium for the nuclear weapons.

[Jim_]

Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

[RicksPoker]

A good talk but he has a number of small errors. The two biggest are:

--- Current nuclear reactors burn only 0.5 % of the U235, not a couple percent as he says.
--- Thorium is about as common as Lead. We have enough Thorium on the planet Earth to power everyone for 100, 000's of years. You can take ordinary dirt, and the trace amounts of Thorium are equal to 12 barrels of oil. Energy wise, we can burn the Thorium in ordinary dirt, and make an energy profit.

I would have liked if the explained WHY Thorium based reactors produce fewer Actinides, and thus, the wastes are so short lived. (On the other hand, it likely would have added another 5 minutes to his talk.)

Warm regards, Rick.

[epsilon]

The only reason we don't use Thorium for nuclear power is because it's relatively stable and you can't use it for nuclear weapons. For the civilian market, however, Thorium is optimal.

[UrsBolt]

Great lecture, Thomas! It brings back confidence in the "Atoms for Peace"-vision. Energy must be cheap, clean and abundant so that humanity can prosper!

[discountfuturist]

I'm pretty sure that Thorium-based nuclear energy is a good idea. Thomas's pants, however, are not a good idea.

[helmuttdvm]

It’s insane that this technology isn’t being widely adopted. Solves many problems avid would provide energy independence throughout the world. Avoiding all the conflicts over oil would be enough justification to rapidly research this technology.

[dell]

The boiling water reactor was intended to be a stepping stone to better technology but industry never took the next step. There is just to much money to be made supplying uranium pellet fuel. Once the BWR reactor exists utilities have no choice but to buy your fuel pellets and the suppliers have managed to saddle the plants with the spent fuel that nobody knows what to do with.

That a fluoride salt based liquid thorium plant could use this existing waste could be the answer to existing nuclear waste. Just build a thorium plant next to existing BWR reactors and start using that waste as fuel. All the other properties of a thorium reactor are just a lot of icing on the cake.

This won't happen unless people start to push their governments to start work on it, without that push the solid fuel suppliers will just keep pouring money into the pockets of politicians to keep the status quo

[joseyang]

In fact Thorium reactor, which is usually called Thorium battery, has already been used for so many decades in both US and USSR satellites to power satellites. It's not unknown. It's in fact well-known in aerospace field, but the knowledge of it has been closed for public by big energy engineering companies.

[Vjdkgaming]

"The best way to compete with fossil fuel companies is to supply energy at so low cost that you make them go bankrupt."

[BrassknuckleRide]

His mouth says Nuclear, but his pants say Solar-powered hemp peace

[danmeuse]

9:00 while i know he's only talking about uranium nuclear power being expensive compared to thorium, i still find it very important to point out that even current gen nuclear energy is by far the cheapest safest cleanest and most reliable source available today compared to renewables and fossil fuels

[jvburnes]

This is a great speech. Thank you. Other issues not mentioned (a) much safer inherently because it doesn't require high pressure reactors just waiting to explode (b) ultimately if something goes wrong it shuts down (c) LFTRs are load-adaptive. As demand increases they generate more power (d) you don't need to store energy. it's stored at the atomic layer in the matter itself. you don't have to worry about solar availability. (e) thorium isn't scary, it's what heats the core of our planet. what could be more green? (f) there is plenty of thorium around the world so it can't easily be monopolized by a single country (g) the US has a huge stockpile of it right now and the energy department is requiring coal miners to collect it as they consider it nuclear waste. insane. (h) there is plenty on earth as well as the lunar nearside and mars. (i) the original molten salt reactors were an effort to make a reactor you could use to run an airplane, so its already scaled down and could be used in larger spacecraft and space colonies. (j) we have enough of it for 1000 years so that should easily get us to fusion power. this is something that tesla should be funding. chinese scientists have already gone to oak ridge to copy their designs and are now finishing their first reactor. maybe we should be starting on ours to avoid buying them from the chinese.

[saikrishnajalagam]

India is building thorium plant right now and you called only first world or rich people to do it, the main thing you have forgot is the necessity is mother of every thing.

[drluckymohan]

India has already developed thorium based reactor, currently working from last two years.

[TheKenttt]

If you're an environmentalist, this seems like the most perfect solution anyone's ever come up with.