On the next Your Call, we'll talk about the economics of the nuclear power industry. President Obama sees nuclear power as an integral part of a "green" energy plan. And the US government continues to subsidize nuclear power from 13 percent to 98 percent of the value of the power produced, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. We know that anyone can suffer the consequences from nuclear disasters, but who reaps the riches from this industry? Join us at 10 or send an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org. Whose interest does nuclear power really benefit? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.
Guests:
Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Ellen Vancko, Nuclear Energy & Climate Change Project Manager with the Union of Concerned Scientists
Mike Papantonio, host of Ring of Fire Radio
Click to Listen: Who's profiting from nuclear power?
Why do we not hear anything about thorium as a nuclear fuel source? As outlined in this January 2010 article in wired magazine, it is self-regulating, so reading, breaks down within 100 years rather than thousands of years and can't be used in weaponry. The work was primarily research in the 1950s by Alan Weinberg. Quoting from the Wired article:
ReplyDeleteAlvin Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. The design is based on the lab’s finding that thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts. This fission soup is poured into tubes in the core of the reactor, where the nuclear chain reaction — the billiard balls colliding — happens. The system makes the reactor self-regulating: When the soup gets too hot it expands and flows out of the tubes — slowing fission and eliminating the possibility of another Chernobyl. Any actinide can work in this method, but thorium is particularly well suited because it is so efficient at the high temperatures at which fission occurs in the soup.
The rest of the article can be found here, http://bit.ly/e7n9jX . Why not research safe nuclear instead of the dangerous uranium-based fuel we are using now?
Ramble Rabbit
sorry for the typos I'm using voice recognition, and it doesn't always write what I say. Please replace "so reading" with "self breeding" and "Alan" with "Alvin". I need to do a better job of editing :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Rabbit.
ReplyDeletesorry for the typos I'm using voice recognition, and it doesn't always write what I say. Please replace "so reading" with "self breeding" and "Alan" with "Alvin". I need to do a better job of editing :-)
ReplyDelete