Ask Peter Zeihan: Can Thorium Solve the Nuclear Problem?

Thorium is a potential substitute for uranium-based nuclear power, but will it solve our nuclear problems? If thorium could help with the proliferation of plutonium and make it harder to create weapons on the backend, adoption of more nuclear power might be easier....but thorium isn't our knight in shining armor.

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[Jacen]

I've worked in Nuclear Generation since 2002. Quick comment. Any "solution" that's ultimately decided upon will take at least 15 years to fully implement. That's about how long it takes to construct a power plant. Also, regardless of how environmentally friendly it is, anyone who attempts to build a facility will almost certainly get hit with at least a dozen lawsuits from environmental groups before they even break ground. Those lawsuits often take years to overcome. My company has tried to build two facilities in the last 20 years, and every single project was ultimately scrapped because it became too embroiled in lawfare and public outcry. There's other factors, of course, but that's what we're facing. There is a lot of regulatory red tape and numerous legal battles. Overcome that, and it's going to take another 15 years to see any benefits.

[redachhaibi]

Thorium is interesting and solves little on its own. Two other aspects need to be adressed:
- Molten Salt address any risk of explosion from current pressurized systems.
- Breeder reactors address the issue of storage and nuclear waste.
The issue is that there is so much to be done. Yet doing any single thing in nuclear requires fighting the bureaucracy, the scaremongers, the hippies on top of convincing the money guys...

[CliveWilmer]

In a Molten salt reactor (MSR) consuming thorium as its raw fuel, while you might produce very, very small amounts of plutonium (with other actonites) you can simply leave it in the fuel salt where it will be burnt up to generate energy - you never take it out of the reactor. The plutonium produced in this way is very fractional (much less than a quarter mentioned by PEter) unlike in a uranium 238 fuel cycle which produces significant amounts. This is due to the different decay cycles. Reduced waste, enhanced safety and a simplification of the fuel cycle are the other reasons to prefer MSR. I would also argue that the reactor costs are likely to be cheaper once the initial prototypes are out of the way.

[JayneCobb]

You’re missing the other benefits of thorium. It’s literally everywhere in the soil in such amounts as to make mining viable. It also can be recycled into the same reactor which means 98% gets “burned off” and the remaining 2% only lasts a few centuries vs several millennia.

[DianeMerriam]

The three biggest pluses for Thorium reactors are that they are not high pressure reactors, meaning they are much safer in that way, that they are fail safe; if the heat builds up, the thorium automatically drains from the reactor needing nothing but gravity, that they can use what is currently waste as their core fuel. Not only is there less plutonium, but there is less of the other dangerous byproducts. There's a difference between waste that drops significantly in radioactivity in hundreds of years vs waste that takes thousands of years to reach the lower radiation levels.

[mwojtera]

This is a gross oversimplification. That waste can be reprocessed into MOX fuel, which can be burned in normal reactors. Then there are fast neutron reactors (in actual operation in China and Russia), you can use them to reduce waste with 10k years half-life to ones with 200 year h.l. Nobody seems to mention that each "used" rod, is still 95% fuel and only 5% waste, which we don't process, because there was no need.

[marcobonesi]

no. Because the only problem for nuclear energy is not the fuel, but the regulations that since the 80s have killed the western nuclear industry. Especially in europe in countries like germany or italy. This is why russia, china ans s.korea are still able to build nuclear powerplants in less than 4/5 years.

[HiwasseeRiver]

WBN2 + Vogtle3 =2 new plants on line, not 1 as you stated, Vogtle 4 started fuel loading on 17 AUG 23 and plans to go on line first quarter 2024 so we are closer to 3 new plants on line than 1 as you stated. Thanks for taking a look at Thorium. The weapons side of the nuke power mix is just one of many advantages of Th, other advantages include 1) A Th reactor was design built and operated at Oak Ridge back in the day - It's much much further along as developed tech than other nuke techs 2) The genre of Th reactors is better understood as molten salt reactors - of which there are many incarnations some of which can burn spent PWR/BWR waste as part of their fuel cycle. 3) Short lived isotopes in waste vs long lived isotopes is a complex topic but the Th power cycle produces less long live waste - a huge advantage. 4) Reactor design - molten salt reactors run at very low pressure just slightly above atm. pressure - PWR/BWRs run at high pressures - making MS reactors less subject to pressurized release of nuclear materials. 5) Th offers many safety advantages which include means for the fuel to reconfigure and shut down without human intervention. 6) Geopolitical considerations - China's TMSR-LF1 is moving forward, leaving the US behind. General comment. Final note - The useful power in Th reactions come from U233 which is not good for weapons. PWR/BWR technologies were adopted primarily to supply the weapons makers and to power ships and subs. Th/MS reactors can be optimize in ways that PWR/BWR cannot making Th/MS the tech of choice if one wishes to have abundant, safe, & cleaner power. Keep looking at Th/MS Peter - listen to voices outside the weapons complex - those guys are married to the old inefficient power cycles.

[mikecogan]

Spent fuel only stays in a cooling pool for a few years. After that it goes into dry casks which are also on site. Then they could be transferred elsewhere in those casks if the chance came up.

[SavageTactical]

Peter you only told half the story about on site storage in cooling ponds. It’s only stored in cooling for 5 years because it has to be - it’s literally too hot and needs to be cooled down. After it’s cooled sufficiently, it’s put into a dry cask and stored on site. These casks are extremely durable and very hard to move, so damaging or stealing them isn’t easy.

[mintheman]

Most of nuclear “waste” can be recycled to make new fuel since it still contains 90% of its potential energy. Countries like France also do this. Also, Yucca mountain is not “oversubscribed” since it sits empty due to federal and state politics. The more I watch Peter’s video, the less confident I am about the information he presents.

[Simple_But_Expensive]

Reprocessing spent uranium fuel generates usable uranium, plutonium, and “ash”, which is the spent part of the fuel. Mixing the plutonium with the ash makes it non-bomb grade. The plutonium can be mixed to the point where it is non-bomb grade, but still reactor grade.

[Stealth]

Nuclear's more of a political problem than having physical supply issues.

[k]

Plutonium out of a PWR is not terribly viable for making weapons because most of the PU is 240, which is hot. Both radiation and thermal hot. And it's very hard to separate PU isotopes. There has been one weapon the US tested with Pu240, so it can be done by a nuclear weapons' state, but apparently it requires a cooling system on the weapon to keep exciting things from happening. To make weapons grade Pu you want short irradiation, not 18 months of irradiation.

[joeanonimous]

Yucca Mountain is not "oversubscribed, " it has yet to even open. We have NO operational waste storage facility.

[calvinroyals]

The waste stream from thorium salt reactors is 1/20, of a light water or cando reactors. They are walk away safe. The operate at much lower pressure. They do not require a vessel that is forged and machined in one piece. We buy our reactor vessel's from the Japanese. Because we lack the ability to manufacture them.

[blackwind]

Number one reason to go to thorium is not proliferation. Though that is a bit harder. It's the difference between using something that is more rare than gold vs something that is almost as common as dirt.

[dogman]

Nuclear waste is actually one its advantages. All forms of energy production have toxic waste. For example, manufacturing solar panels produces 300 times more toxic waste per Terawatt hour over the lifetime of the panels or power plant. This figure comes from Environmental Progress, a Berkeley, California, nonprofit. Nuclear produces relatively tiny amounts of waste. Many people don't seem to understand this. Also, today's nuclear waste is tomorrows nuclear fuel. 4th gen breeder reactors can use nuclear waste as fuel.

[joeld]

I usually agree with your videos. I think you missed 4 other reasons for thorium.
1. Thorium reactors can not melt down.
2. Thorium is 1000 times more common than uranium.
3. Thorium uses 98% of the fuel that goes in to the reactor.
4. Thorium reactors can use up spent uranium rods.
Please interview Kirk Sorensen

[danielbenington]

A small correction, the Yucca Mountain storage complex in Nevada never came online due to litigation and opposition from both political parties and Nevada residents. That's why the waste has been stored on site at the reactors because the legally designated location is stuck in a political limbo and there is no other authorized locations for the waste to be stored.