Maslo55
I bring your attention to this awesome technology that can provide humanity with clean, safe and abundant power for millenias to come.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (acronym LFTR; spoken as lifter) is a thermal breeder reactor which uses the thorium fuel cycle in a fluoride-based molten (liquid) salt fuel to achieve high operating temperatures at atmospheric pressure.
The LFTR is a type of thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR). Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSFRs).
Alvin M. Weinberg pioneered the use of the MSR at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Aircraft Reactor Experiment in 1954 and Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment from 1965 to 1969 both used liquid fluoride salts; the latter notably demonstrated the use of U-233 as a fuel source. [6] Unfortunately for MSR research, Weinberg was fired and the MSR program closed down in the early 1970s, after which research stagnated
Some advantages of LFTRs:
The abundance of the element thorium throughout the Earth’s crust promises widespread energy independence through Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) technology. With LFTR, a small handful of thorium can supply an individual's lifetime energy needs; a small grain silo full could power North America for a year; and known thorium reserves could power society for thousands of years. There is 4 times more thorium than uranium on Earth, and all of it is usable in a LFTR without enrichment.
LFTR is walk-away safe. LFTR operates at low pressure and is chemically stable. It shuts down passively and removes decay heat without human intervention or mechanical backup cooling systems, eliminating the possibility of accident scenarios such as that at Fukushima. Low pressures eliminate the need for massive pressure containment vessels and alleviate safety concerns of regulators and the public about high-pressure releases to the atmosphere.
LFTR can produce not only safe, sustainable, carbon-free electricity, but life-saving medical radioisotopes, desalinated water and ammonia for agriculture and synthesized fuels in the process.
LFTRs can include a freeze plug at the bottom that has to be actively cooled, usually by a small electric fan. If the cooling fails, say because of a power failure, the fan stops, the plug melts, and the fuel drains to a subcritical passively cooled storage facility. This not only stops the reactor, also the storage tank can more easily shed the decay heat from the short-lived radioactive decay of irradiated nuclear fuels. Even in the event of a major leak from the core such as a pipe breaking, the salt will spill onto the kitchen-sink-shaped room where the reactor is in, which will drain the fuel salt by gravity into the dedicated passively cooled dump tank.
LFTR is more efficient, extracting significantly more energy from abundant, inexpensive thorium than solid-fuelled reactors can from more scarce and costly uranium. Conventional reactors consume less than one percent of their uranium fuel, leaving the rest as waste. LFTR consumes 99% of its thorium fuel.
LFTR can consume plutonium and other long-lived fissile materials remaining in spent solid nuclear fuel stockpiles while bringing many gigawatts of LFTR power generation online with thorium as the sole input thereafter. Most LFTR byproducts are stable within a decade and the remaining waste has a half-life of 30 years, decaying to stability within hundreds rather than tens of thousands of years.
LFTR is a demonstrated technology, the physics and operational fundamentals of which were proven by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's pilot plant in the late 1960's. Despite its compelling advantages, LFTR development stalled when funding was concentrated instead on fast-spectrum breeding reactors.
LFTR is proliferation resistant. Thorium and its derivative fuel, uranium-233, are unsuitable for nuclear weapons; of the thousands of warheads in the world's arsenals, none are based on the thorium fuel cycle. LFTR is unique in its ability to meet both energy generation and non-proliferation mandates.
LFTRs dont need many big and expensive components of current reactors, such as pressure vessel, or cooling towers, and by using liquid salt as the coolant instead of pressurized water, a containment structure only slightly bigger than the reactor vessel can be used. LFTRs thus can be mass produced in a factory and then delivered and reclaimed from utility sites as small modular units. Factory LFTR module production offers reduced capital costs and rapid deployment in a wide variety of sizes to sites near the point of need.
The liquid fuel form is LFTR's key differentiator from conventional nuclear energy production. LFTR uses liquid FLiBe salts as both a fuel carrier and reactor coolant. The salts are chemically inert and will not react with flood waters, ground water or the atmosphere. Fuel can be added to the liquid salts and byproducts removed at any time, even while the reactor remains online.
LFTR can provide both base power and peak power, following the demand for electricity imparted on it by the grid. LFTR's responsiveness to energy demand makes it highly complementary to alternative energy sources.
LFTRs have liquid fuels, and therefore there is no need to shutdown and take apart the reactor just to refuel it. LFTRs can thus refuel without causing a power outage (online refueling)
I think this picture says it all:
Check out Kirk Sorensen's lectures on Youtube for more info.
Why the hell have we stopped researching this in the 70s? We could have plentiful cheap and safe energy, as well as far less CO2 emissions and fossil fuel addiction now. This needs to be funded now.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (acronym LFTR; spoken as lifter) is a thermal breeder reactor which uses the thorium fuel cycle in a fluoride-based molten (liquid) salt fuel to achieve high operating temperatures at atmospheric pressure.
The LFTR is a type of thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR). Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSFRs).
Alvin M. Weinberg pioneered the use of the MSR at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Aircraft Reactor Experiment in 1954 and Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment from 1965 to 1969 both used liquid fluoride salts; the latter notably demonstrated the use of U-233 as a fuel source. [6] Unfortunately for MSR research, Weinberg was fired and the MSR program closed down in the early 1970s, after which research stagnated
Some advantages of LFTRs:
The abundance of the element thorium throughout the Earth’s crust promises widespread energy independence through Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) technology. With LFTR, a small handful of thorium can supply an individual's lifetime energy needs; a small grain silo full could power North America for a year; and known thorium reserves could power society for thousands of years. There is 4 times more thorium than uranium on Earth, and all of it is usable in a LFTR without enrichment.
LFTR is walk-away safe. LFTR operates at low pressure and is chemically stable. It shuts down passively and removes decay heat without human intervention or mechanical backup cooling systems, eliminating the possibility of accident scenarios such as that at Fukushima. Low pressures eliminate the need for massive pressure containment vessels and alleviate safety concerns of regulators and the public about high-pressure releases to the atmosphere.
LFTR can produce not only safe, sustainable, carbon-free electricity, but life-saving medical radioisotopes, desalinated water and ammonia for agriculture and synthesized fuels in the process.
LFTRs can include a freeze plug at the bottom that has to be actively cooled, usually by a small electric fan. If the cooling fails, say because of a power failure, the fan stops, the plug melts, and the fuel drains to a subcritical passively cooled storage facility. This not only stops the reactor, also the storage tank can more easily shed the decay heat from the short-lived radioactive decay of irradiated nuclear fuels. Even in the event of a major leak from the core such as a pipe breaking, the salt will spill onto the kitchen-sink-shaped room where the reactor is in, which will drain the fuel salt by gravity into the dedicated passively cooled dump tank.
LFTR is more efficient, extracting significantly more energy from abundant, inexpensive thorium than solid-fuelled reactors can from more scarce and costly uranium. Conventional reactors consume less than one percent of their uranium fuel, leaving the rest as waste. LFTR consumes 99% of its thorium fuel.
LFTR can consume plutonium and other long-lived fissile materials remaining in spent solid nuclear fuel stockpiles while bringing many gigawatts of LFTR power generation online with thorium as the sole input thereafter. Most LFTR byproducts are stable within a decade and the remaining waste has a half-life of 30 years, decaying to stability within hundreds rather than tens of thousands of years.
LFTR is a demonstrated technology, the physics and operational fundamentals of which were proven by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's pilot plant in the late 1960's. Despite its compelling advantages, LFTR development stalled when funding was concentrated instead on fast-spectrum breeding reactors.
LFTR is proliferation resistant. Thorium and its derivative fuel, uranium-233, are unsuitable for nuclear weapons; of the thousands of warheads in the world's arsenals, none are based on the thorium fuel cycle. LFTR is unique in its ability to meet both energy generation and non-proliferation mandates.
LFTRs dont need many big and expensive components of current reactors, such as pressure vessel, or cooling towers, and by using liquid salt as the coolant instead of pressurized water, a containment structure only slightly bigger than the reactor vessel can be used. LFTRs thus can be mass produced in a factory and then delivered and reclaimed from utility sites as small modular units. Factory LFTR module production offers reduced capital costs and rapid deployment in a wide variety of sizes to sites near the point of need.
The liquid fuel form is LFTR's key differentiator from conventional nuclear energy production. LFTR uses liquid FLiBe salts as both a fuel carrier and reactor coolant. The salts are chemically inert and will not react with flood waters, ground water or the atmosphere. Fuel can be added to the liquid salts and byproducts removed at any time, even while the reactor remains online.
LFTR can provide both base power and peak power, following the demand for electricity imparted on it by the grid. LFTR's responsiveness to energy demand makes it highly complementary to alternative energy sources.
LFTRs have liquid fuels, and therefore there is no need to shutdown and take apart the reactor just to refuel it. LFTRs can thus refuel without causing a power outage (online refueling)
I think this picture says it all:
Check out Kirk Sorensen's lectures on Youtube for more info.
Why the hell have we stopped researching this in the 70s? We could have plentiful cheap and safe energy, as well as far less CO2 emissions and fossil fuel addiction now. This needs to be funded now.
