Thorium reactors

[Anonymous No.2000316]

Il be honest i learn about these from clicking an ad link, so i want to ask do you guy's think Thorium reactors are the future?

[Anonymous No.2000337]

not for a hundred years, the energy of the future right now is undiscovered oil fields around the world, we haven't scraped the surface on the amount of oil available to us

[Anonymous No.2000341]

i think this image portrays what i am talking about

[Anonymous No.2000353]

>>2000337
Where have you been for the last 30 years?

[Anonymous No.2000368]

>>2000353
where were you when most of the gulf was awash with the seemingly huge amount of oil from that tiny BP pipe?

[Anonymous No.2000415]

Thorium molten salt reactors are awesome. They are incapable of melting down (ironic given how they operate) and can break fuel down into forms that become harmless over generations rather than eons.

Furthermore there's enough thorium available to us to keep us supplied for over a billion years.

[Anonymous No.2000425]

Bump for thorium reactors! does nobody here have an opinion on this? i quite like the idea that these things could be built much smaller that traditional reactors, its said the energy would be so cheap that paying for it would be impractical

[Anonymous No.2000451]

>>2000415
so is this one of those cases where this tech is being supressed? i can see nothing bad about these, if we do this sooner rather than later then it will free up dwindling oil reserves for non energy purposes such as pharmaceuticals and plastics

[Anonymous No.2000468]

>>2000451
i think i was not so much supressed as ignored, when the technology came about there was a greater interest in using more traditional reactors as the by products could be used for the production of nuclear arms

[Anonymous No.2000489]

>>2000451

The reactors we have now are a result of the nuclear arms race. There was simply no interest in a reactor that can't produce weapons-grade plutonium, so we wound up with these designs.

The public is fearful of anything nuclear, and with good reason because these reactors are not inherently safe and nukes are terrible weapons. This fear unfortunately extends to thorium power generation, so development is strongly opposed by both existing power generation lobbies and the public. That's a political situation you cannot win no matter how awesome your solution is.

[Anonymous No.2000548]

>>2000489

What can we do to end public fear of the word "nuclear"? We know there's a solution to energy needs in nuclear power, especially if deuterium reactors pan out, especially compared to other "green" power.

[Anonymous No.2000555]

>>2000548
Create an entirely new school-system.

[Anonymous No.2000569]

Start teaching calculus to 4 year olds.

[Anonymous No.2000586]

Advertise thorium and deuterium reactors in block buster sci-fi movies, have people see them as the wave of a better brighter future.

[Anonymous No.2000588]

>>2000548
>What can we do to end public fear of the word "nuclear"?

The bulk of the problem are the baby boomers, and fear is primal. You'd have to either kill them or wait for them to die off.

[Anonymous No.2000600]

>>2000548
Hell, what can we do to end public fear of the word "chemical"?

[Anonymous No.2000611]

>>2000600

We already get around that by giving them snappy brand names and calling them by their function (eg: medicine, cleaner).

[Anonymous No.2000622]

shrink them down until they can be used on local scales and introduce them to some deprived communities, eventually word will get around about how cheap that shit is

[Anonymous No.2000645]

Thorium reactors are great, but technology isn't all worked out yet and traditional reactors are cheaper for the moment. Also, people are scared of change and nuclear power in general.

[Anonymous No.2000648]

>>2000622

That's going to take a very long time, though. We need something in a timescale of ~10 years, not 20-30+. It's not a bad idea, but it's going to be slow.