What is the price of thorium?
Thorium oxide, 99%
| Packings | Price (USD) |
|---|---|
| 1 gm | 174.91 |
| 5 gm | 724.04 |
| 25 gm | POR |
Can you legally buy thorium?
It’s not illegal to own a small amount of thorium metal and it can be obtained in certain processed forms – it used to be in gas lantern mantles for example – but you will require a license if the amounts are large enough or if you plan to make anything out of it.
How do I get pure thorium?
The metal is made by calcium reduction of the oxide or fluoride, and pure thorium can be obtained by decomposing ThI4 on a hot filament (the Van Arkel process). Thorium is used as an alternative reactor fuel to uranium, thorium being converted readily into uranium in the reactor.
What thorium is used for?
Thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium. It is fertile rather than fissile, and can only be used as a fuel in conjunction with a fissile material such as recycled plutonium. Thorium fuels can breed fissile uranium-233 to be used in various kinds of nuclear reactors.
Why Thorium is a bad idea?
Irradiated Thorium is more dangerously radioactive in the short term. The Th-U cycle invariably produces some U-232, which decays to Tl-208, which has a 2.6 MeV gamma ray decay mode. Bi-212 also causes problems. These gamma rays are very hard to shield, requiring more expensive spent fuel handling and/or reprocessing.
Why is thorium not used?
Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor; unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 – ‘so these are really U-233 reactors,’ says Karamoskos.
Which country has most thorium?
Australia has the highest thorium resources with 489,000 tons followed by the US with 400,000 tons, Turkey with 344,000 tons and India with 319,000 tons. The remaining resources are found in countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Norway, Egypt, Russia, among others.
Does thorium produce waste?
Thorium is three times more abundant in nature than uranium. Compared to uranium reactors, thorium reactors produce far less waste and the waste that is generated is much less radioactive and much shorter-lived.
Can thorium be weaponized?
Although some wonder if thorium can be used in nuclear weapons and are concerned about the possibility of a thorium bomb, thorium actually can’t be weaponized because it doesn’t produce enough recoverable plutonium, which is required for building nuclear weapons.
How harmful is thorium?
Thorium is radioactive and can be stored in bones. Because of these facts it has the ability to cause bone cancer many years after the exposure has taken place. Breathing in massive amounts of thorium may be lethal. People will often die of metal poisoning when massive exposure take place.
How common is thorium?
6 parts per million
Can a thorium reactor meltdown?
Most importantly, meltdowns aren’t possible with thorium reactors because the reaction is not self-sustaining. That last safety advantage is also the main drawback of thorium. You need a little uranium and a neutron source to get the reaction kickstarted.
Can we build a thorium reactor?
Aqueous Homogeneous Reactors (AHRs) have been proposed as a fluid fueled design that could accept naturally occurring uranium and thorium suspended in a heavy water solution. AHRs have been built and according to the IAEA reactor database, 7 are currently in operation as research reactors.
Can thorium replace uranium?
Thorium can also be used to breed uranium for use in a breeder reactor. Put very simply, thorium can be used together with conventional uranium-based nuclear power generation, meaning a thriving thorium industry would not necessarily make uranium obsolete.
How long does it take to build a thorium reactor?
The average time taken to build 441 reactors operational today was 7.5 years.
Is thorium named after Thor?
Thorium is named after Thor, the Scandinavian god of war.
How much thorium is needed to power the world?
In 2003, it was estimated that the world produced 16.5 trllion kilowatt-hours of electricity. If this had all been produced by liquid-fluoride thorium reactors, this would have required 1500 metric tonnes of thorium. Future energy projections foresee electrical production reaching 21.4 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2015.
Is thorium the future?
Thorium reactors are a different way to generate electricity that could benefit the world. More efficient than their fossil fuel counterparts, safer than a conventional nuclear plant, and generating no carbon emissions as a byproduct, LFTRs are a viable solution for the future of our world’s energy needs.
Is there thorium on the Moon?
Concentrating Thorium Thorium is found across a large expanse of the moon’s Near Side with concentrations of 10-20 parts per million (ppm) [1].
Is thorium safer than uranium?
Thorium is safer and more efficient to mine than uranium, thus making it more environmentally friendly. It is estimated that one ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 35 tons of uranium in a liquid fluoride thorium reactor.