Green Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear energy has been (not entirely undeservedly) demonized almost since its inception. And how could it not? Reactors can experience catastrophic meltdowns. Nuclear waste has to be stored for thousands of years before it becomes safe. And, let's not forget, some of the byproducts of current nuclear reactors can be used to make nuclear bombs. Not the most desirable characteristics.

Why is this so? Because current nuclear technology, all over the world, is built around uranium. That's 100% of the world's reactors, regardless of whether they are Russian, French, Chinese, American, Canadian, or from elsewhere. And the reason for this is that this technology was pushed during the Cold War, to the detriment of other alternatives - plutonium for nuclear bombs was simply too strategic an asset at a time when the two superpowers were busy stockpiling their nuclear arsenals.

Enter the alternative: thorium. A group of enthusiastic scientists have been resuming research begun in the 50s and 60s. A very interesting article can be read on this month's Wired magazine. Here are some facts about this technology:

• It is safer than uranium (the radioactivity it gives off naturally is low enough that you could carry a lump in your pocket without any side effects).
• It is also cheaper, since it is much more abundant in nature than uranium.
• There are important deposits in many countries (the USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia, India, and Turkey, to name a few), so no single government can control it as a strategic resource.
  
• The amount of waste left behind is a tiny fraction of what a conventional reactor would generate.
• Said waste decays in a couple of hundred years, as opposed to a few thousand.
• It is virtually impossible for the byproducts of the reaction to be used in the manufacture nuclear bombs - by terrorists or anyone else.

Kirk Sorensen is the author of a blog about this new (or rediscovered) technology. It can be found here.

Research is being carried out into developing relatively small thorium reactors capable of generating between 10 and 100 megawatts of electricity (enough to power between 7,000 and 70,000 households in the US). This project, called SSTAR (for small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor) could well mean the technological leap that will make reactors cheap and safe enough to place them all over the world. More on the SSTAR project can be read here.


Could this be the breakthrough we have been waiting for? Only time will tell. This technology was sidelined in the 50s and 60s in favour of the one we use now because of the interest the nuclear powers had in obtaining plutonium for their arsenals. The world has changed - perhaps thorium reactors will help usher in a new era for nuclear energy. Again, only time will tell.