Thorium reactors. Do they exist? Are they still just theoretical? Why aren’t we investing more in it?
In: Chemistry
Why arent we investing more
Well. Nuclear power is widely disliked after Fukoshima and Chernobyl,
Environmentalists hate it.
And the residue has to be stored for Timescales that would mean that a barrel of nuclear waste has to be stored for as long as when the pyramids where made to today. imagen how many civilizations and societies have collapsed and risen in that time.
using a liquid fuel solves most of those issues, the fuel is the heat transfer medium so you dont need to pressurize the reactor, meaning no steam explosions.
98% of nuclear waste is because we dont process the nuclear waste, in solid nuclear waste, trans uranic elements aka fission products are produced inside the fuel and poison it. imagen it as if you had the exaust of your car connected to the fuel tank, and you had to trow away all the gasoline in your tank after driving 50 miles.
If the fuel is reprocessed to remove those elements, you can reuse it, the thing is that with solid fuel its an expensive and dangerous process with radioactive elements.
With liquid fuel you can just use centrifuges to separate them by weight or do chemical separation on site.
but the problem is that the thorium and uranium salts used in liquid fuel reactors are VERY corrosive, so the reactor requires constant maintenance, basically the fuel eats away at the reactor. and that is not good.
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