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Re:Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the ener... by KeithMajhor on Monday July 04, 2011 @07:47AM (#2726244)
Did you watch the video?

The reactors he presented appeared to be much simpler (so... they'd likely be cheaper).

Re:Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the ener... by neutronicus on Monday July 04, 2011 @10:24AM (#2726598)
As a nuclear engineer, I doubt it.
Re:Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the ener... by ingeborgsjon on Monday July 04, 2011 @12:34PM (#2726953)
Sorry to say this but you have probably been deceived by the nuclear industry. First of all thorium is much cheaper (about 160 times I think), secondly it's far more abundant and third LFTR has a much better design.

The industry dismissed liquid reactors because of the problem extracting weapon grade material. Uranium based reactors where not as safe nor as cheap. During the cold war this made sense but not today.

It has also been about people protection their jobs. The uranium based industry can't say that something else is better because then they might lose their jobs. And who do you think the politicians ask when they want advice?

Re:Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the ener... by neutronicus on Tuesday July 05, 2011 @03:17AM (#2728964)
Sorry to say this but you have probably been deceived by the nuclear industry.

Or perhaps you've been swept up by the breathless prose of popular science articles?

As far from peak uranium as we appear to be, there is simply no need to explore alternative fuel sources. Fuel is not scarce. The capital (political and financial) to build infrastructure - both power plants and reprocessing plants - is.

In that climate, the (never-been-built-or-licensed) LFTR is only a game-changer if its construction (and licensing and R&D) costs are an order of magnitude lower than those of current-gen reactors. This I highly doubt.