GTN ( Global Thorium News )
1.
What Is Thorium?
- 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.
- Molten salt reactors are well suited to thorium fuel, as normal fuel fabrication is avoided.
The use of thorium as a new primary energy source has been a tantalizing prospect for many years. Cost-effectively extracting its latent energy value remains a challenge, and will require considerable R&D investment. This is occurring preeminently in China, with modest US support.
2.
Molten Salt Reactors
- Molten salt reactors operated in the 1960s.
- They are seen as a promising technology today principally as a thorium fuel cycle prospect or for using spent LWR fuel.
- A variety of designs is being developed, some as fast neutron types.
- Global research is currently led by China.
- Some have solid fuel similar to HTR fuel, others have fuel dissolved in the molten salt coolant.
3.
Thorium Power & Mining In India
- India has a largely indigenous nuclear power programme.
- The Indian government is committed to growing its nuclear power capacity as part of its massive infrastructure development programme.
- The government has set an ambitious target to grow nuclear capacity to at least 100 GWe by 2047.
- Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons programme, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant and materials, which hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.
- Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international conventions limits foreign technology provision.
- Due to earlier trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium.