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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4346728 No.4346728 [Reply] [Original]

I've heard a lot about energy from thorium but what I don't quite understand yet is the actual fuel cycle.

Can anybody explain it to me in the simplest words possible?

I know that in conventional reactors U-235 gets split in Ba and Kr by shooting neutrons at it, but how do you achieve the same with thorium when it's not fissile?

And what role does the salt play?

>> No.4346736

>>4346728
Salt plays the role of stopping the progress, as it's chemical products fuck up the whole reactor in about two days

>> No.4346751
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4346751

>> No.4346755

>>4346751
FYI - you'd do well to educate yourself instead of reading optimistic and not quite truthful JPGs

>> No.4346761

>>4346755
What is inaccurate about it?

>> No.4346797

>>4346751
So how exactly does thorium provide "new fuel"?

Excuse my stupidity but I'm seriously confused here.

>> No.4346889

bump

>> No.4346922

c'mon, anybody?

>> No.4346956

>>4346797
watch this vidya please

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

>> No.4346963

>>4346761

It's highly fantasy and a million miles from being economically viable right now at least.

>> No.4346994

>>4346956
Holy shit it's not one of those ridiculous remix videos. This guy needs to be a little bit more... critical.. *ba dum tss* but srsly, I don't feel he's being objective and honest enough.

>> No.4347127

>>4346994
Have just finished watching all of it and it was ok. Some valid points about expensive renewables, very brief mention about the highly corrosive downside and a lot of excuses that fast breeders were more promising than thorium in the early days. He would be doing himself a favour if he spoke more highly of nuclear power in general but he seemed to rail on it a bit. More uranium reactors would save us a lot of money for a while, freeing up resources to develop LFTR on the side but even he talked about light water reactors as if they were all from the 1960s and prone to meltdown. Poor show.

>> No.4347429
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4347429

>>4346728
Thorium reactors are breeders. A fissile material splits via a chain reaction and produces energy and extra neutrons. Thorium is the fertile material, either intermixed with the fissile material or in a surrounding blanket. The fertile material absorbs the extra neutrons, transmuting into another element (Protactinium-239). After a half life of 30 days, it decays to U-233 which is the bred fissile material, closing the fuel cycle.

>> No.4347459

>>4347127
*Protactinium-233