Why Thorium is About to Change the World

Comments · 5.3K

• UN

  @UndecidedTechnology · 1 year ago · pinned

  Is this technology in the bag, or is it more roadmap than reactor? Go to <a href="https://surfshark.com/undecided">https://surfshark.com/undecided</a> or use code UNDECIDED at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!<br><br>If you liked this, check out How Waves Could Quietly Overtake Solar &amp; Wind <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1pxV7Nro34&amp;list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ">https://youtu.be/l1pxV7Nro34?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ</a>

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• _G

  @_G_R_ · 1 year ago

  According to the established rule of thumb, we can safely say: since Matt made a video about it, the technology will not develop at all

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• JO

  @john_in_phoenix · 1 year ago

  A note about the &quot;only 200 years of uranium&quot; concept. When &quot;burned&quot; in a nuclear reactor, less than 2% of the fuel is actually consumed, and another 2% or so is converted to byproducts that poison the reaction. The other 94 to 96% of the &quot;spent&quot; fuel can be separated and reused. France does this, most of the world (including the USA) do not, and store the 94% usable fuel as waste for thousands of years. I reality we have more than 1,000 years of uranium if we decide to use it.

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• RI

  @Riesenfriese · 1 year ago

  &quot;Energy so cheap you cant meter it&quot; sounds like a utopia to us and like hell to the people in charge.<br>They reached power by metering energy.

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• ED

  @edwardwerick2420 · 1 year ago

  Some years ago I watched a presentation on LFTR ( Liquid Florine Thorium Reactor) &nbsp;I was left with the impression that Thorium reactors were being experimented with along side uranium reactors during early development of nuclear power generation. The Thorium reactors were abandoned mainly because they were unable to breed weapons grade plutonium with a Thorium reaction. All the positive characteristics of the LFTR power plant were ignored because of this feature. Most of the funding for nuclear research came from the government in the early days and, apparently, the Warhawks had their way. IMHO this set back nuclear development for peaceful uses for decades. We are at long last finding the benefits of Thorium based power generation useful. About time!

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• IO

  @IOUaUsername · 1 year ago

  Indonesia are probably buying in not because they want the power, but because they want the project to work out. The British tin mining industry left huge piles of thorium rich sand behind in Indonesia and Malaysia, and a functional thorium reactor makes this a valuable commodity that&apos;s easily sold since it has already been dug up, plus also deals with a toxic waste issue since this sand isn&apos;t great to live near.

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• XA

  @XAn0nymousX0 · 1 year ago

  Man we had Thorium like 20 years ago in world of warcraft. They got a whole Brotherhood going over it and everything.

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• LO

  @LogicalNiko · 1 year ago

  Copenhagen Atomics took the most brilliant approach, I started seeing their stuff pop up around 2018. &nbsp;They basically decided to leave the thorium reactor part last in their approach. &nbsp;They knew there would be lots of roadblocks and regulations and no one was willing to accept allowing a company &nbsp;doing oak ridge style tests. &nbsp;So they took the research from Oak Ridge and said &quot;What are all the difficulties they called out as non-thorium problems. &nbsp;<br><br>Thus they tackled the metallurgy problem, that molten salts are highly corrosive to most steels. &nbsp;Thus they worked on researching alloys. <br>They focused on the water problem, even the slightest hint of moisture is a big problem with sodium salts. &nbsp;Thus they developed sealed components that required zero servicing in the reactor lifetime.<br>They developed pumps designed to operate continuously in the high temperatures of molten salts.<br>They designed custom monitoring systems.<br>They did temperature, viscosity, and flow research modeling piping sizes, heat jacketed systems, cooling systems, reaction chamber design, etc.<br>They then even tackled refueling and extraction of thorium and uranium out of molten sodium.<br>And finally they handled production and assembly.<br><br>The only thing they now need is a country (other than Denmark due to their strict anti-nuclear laws) to give them the licensing to run tests.

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• KA

  @kartik_sinha · 5 months ago

  Conviniently not mentioning russia and india, both of whom are furthest long in this technology. Great. Westernism at it&apos;s peak

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• IA

  @IanZainea1990 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz4aTO6M4Ho&amp;t=10">0:10</a> &quot;closer than ever&quot; ... So... Still on the horizon. Lol.

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• XX

  @XxRedCooperxX · 1 year ago

  I took a vacation from my day job to join the molten salt reactor workshop at oak ridge in 2019 (or 2018?) and met the Copenhagen atomics guys! I remember one of the big topics of the conference was corrosion. Theoretically, many components can be made with stainless steel instead of inconel (like the MSR experiment long ago) except that stainless is susceptible to corrosion if there is absolutely ANY water present in the salt mixture. I was just there as a recent chemistry graduate and was totally out of my depth but was thrilled to be present for the workshop, along with a few dozen other thorium power nerds who were in a similar boat. Since that conference, whenever someone lets me gush about nuclear power, the two names I always brought up were NuScale and Copenhagen Atomics. I always said NuScale was the best bet for SMRs generally, and Copenhagen was the best bet for thorium MSRs. So far that&apos;s panned out over the last 6 or 7 years

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• TH

  @TheGearhorn · 1 year ago

  I did not know that I needed nuclear reactors to come in Lego flavor, but apparently I did. Look at how well those stack together.

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