Thorium: An Energy Solution
Uranium is used to fuel the world's nuclear power plants, but a vocal segment of the scientific community claims that it's too dangerous and rare a chemical to sustain that role for much longer. In the feature-length documentary Thorium: An Energy Solution, they make the case for a much more efficient and sustainable answer to our energy needs.
This argument is led by Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA aerospace engineer, who has long championed the adoption of thorium as a solution to the growing energy crisis. The film presents highlights from a series of rapidly edited lectures led by Sorensen and others. During the course of these speaking engagements, they bemoan the drawbacks of current nuclear-powered technologies, and enthusiastically promote the ways in which thorium could transform the future of our civilization.
The science is vast, and difficult for the layperson to grasp at times, but the overarching message is well articulated and clear. In a world of dwindling resources, and ongoing concerns over the safety of nuclear power, the film contends that thorium could be our last great hope.
Even though officials seem largely oblivious to its potential applications today, thorium's viability as an unlimited nuclear fuel was first discovered in 1942. Its advantages should be much clearer to us now, especially in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, which resulted from the damage inflicted by a devastating tsunami, or other incidents and close-calls that have occurred throughout recent history.
Thorium is more abundantly available than uranium. When used as a fuel to power nuclear energy, it requires no water for cooling, doesn't require pressure for its operation, is non-combustible and won't expel toxic waste should plant malfunction occur. Sorensen makes a persuasive and impassioned case for a safer and more sustainable nuclear energy infrastructure driven by the use of liquid-fluoride thorium reactors. Reliance on this method, he argues, will produce greater reserves of power at a much lower cost than wind and solar.
Thorium: An Energy Solution is a terrifically informative primer on this intriguing option, and one that will likely inspire additional investigation among its viewers.
Generation 4 reactors will be developed. China is in the lead in building working prototypes. We need more low carbon options. Energy demand is growing faster than renewable energy. We have the resources and technology and could have a number of Gen 4 prototypes this decade. And MSR reactors can also burn nuclear fuel waste to produce energy. Just burning nuclear fuel waste is worthwhile but we can produce energy as well. And we have enough depleted uranium waste to give us over 100 years of low carbon energy. And more with thorium. But we need to build Generation 4 prototype reactors to prove that it works. Demand for Gen 4 reactors is growing. Including within the US government. Despite opposition from greens and fossil fuel lobbyists. And the US is leading in this technology. But has no prototypes.
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This makes the scenery and wildlife impacts of sprawling wind turbines all the more depressing. It's blight for naught. The world already has over 355,000 of them and it's getting uglier by the month, with CO2 still rising. Anti-nuclear Greens who rationalize the loss of open space are ludicrous.
Nuclear half-life being inversely proportional to risk should be mandatory knowledge in schools.
5/24/2019 @ 12:06:49 AM In my opinion, topdocumentaryfilms.com does a excellent job of dealing with subjects of this type! Even if sometimes deliberately controversial, the posts are generally well-written and stimulating.
meisterfouhy543.co
As an old man, I'm betting on Thorconpower.com.
Theirs is a molten salt reactor (that's the really important part) which is fuelled by 20% uranium at 19.5% U235 enrichment, and 80% thorium. They do not even claim it's a breeder, but construction costs less labour and materials than a comparable coal burner.
This is an excellent documentary and I would support transitioning all nuclear plants to thorium / flouride salt technology. The .0001% is busy making sure we stay stupid by flouridating our water and food. It would be nice to see some competition for flouride salt to go in another consumption direction.
Of course, ideally we go the Tesla route - safely. Buy a hand held wi-fi meter (Acousitmeter, Trifield, etc.) and pay attention to the spike values. The steady state readings are one thing but the spikes are what trashes your DNA leading to cancer after enough "cellular insults." Check out movie "What On Earth Is It Going To Take?" The Gambles do a good job on tesla tech for mass use.
And... The oil companies, Saudi's and the US major stock holders/government. Are already killing the idea, invention and everyone and everything associated with it.
keep up the good work.. I am 75 , to old to see this happening.. the lazy's are running the country right now.. ignorance is rampant.. Thanks for the documentary..
Wow this is amazing technology....hopefully us kiwis catch onto how great nuclear energy can be. And the awesome things you can do with it. Cure Cancer rocket fuel etc!
It seems quite a few people leaving comments chose to show their ignorance instead of watching the documentary.
We should be focusing on Nicola Tesla's high atmospheric energy generator. Our world is a giant perpetual generator. There are massive amounts of energy being formed by the movement of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the jet stream, the very movement of the water and air around us. No fuel needed, no nuclear needed, just immense and untapped power. Tesla had a vision.
Madder Gupta,
I see you leaving comments regarding radiation on this 2011 and the newer 2016 Thorium documentary I finished called "Thorium - The NASA Story".
In both sets of comments I think you missed a key point regarding MSR. Salt chemically traps the radioactive materials. It doesn't matter if the salt is liquid (at hundreds of degrees) or solid (at room temperature). The capture of radioactive materials is a chemical bond, not a physical barrier which can melt.
Also, the salt is not under extreme pressure like today's reactors which are "Pressurized Water Reactors". Pressurized water, in every nuclear disaster, has dispersed radiation as steam.
Yes, there is radioactive material inside the reactor. And it would be dangerous if you came into contact with it. But dangerous materials are part of just about any industrial process. Including those that enable renewable technologies.
Even geothermal energy has produced 200x the volume of radioactive waste per-watt at today's inefficient nuclear power. That's because geothermal energy comes from the decay of radioactive materials.
Nuclear power, even today's inefficient nuclear power, produces WASTE and does NOT PRODUCE POLLUTION.
WASTE is contained.
POLLUTION is UNCONTAINED.
Whatever your preferred energy source is, take a look at the entire lifecycle. To fabricate solar panels, to build wind turbines, to balance those out with natural gas, all of those involve pollution. FISSION does not. It creates radioactive materials which are stored as waste, and can eventually be recycled using Molten Salt chemistry to extract more energy and valuable (yet radioactive) fission products.
Pressurized Water Reactors are a technology suitable for powering submarines. Alvin Weinberg, who co-invented PWR, considered Molten Salt Reactors [MSR] the more appropriate reactor design for civilian power production.
Someday, somewhere, there WILL be a disaster of some sort, be it a Molten Salt reactor, and there's going to be radioactivity everywhere.
The main concern with a nuclear power plant is NOT the "safety" regarding the natural disasters like Tsunami, but the RADIOACTIVITY part of it.
You cannot take the "radioactivity" out of a nuclear reaction.
Also, not to mention that most oil is mainly used to run vehicles. I'm not sure how Thorium reactors can power transport and hence replace petroleum/gasoline.
So, somewhere in the middle of the video he says that U-233 decays into some really nasty Gamma-ray emitting stuff like Pb and Tl.
Who takes care of that?
We're humans, we'll find a way to get our consumption levels high enough to do environmental damage.
A new Thorium documentary has been released. I was working on it for the 4 years since this 2011 was finished in hopes of making it accessible to a wider audience... what you're looking at here was created on a budget of roughly $1,000 and with only 4 events worth of footage. Since then I've attended many more conferences, captured many more interviews, and toured the Oak Ridge Molten Salt Reactor Experiment facility itself. It was crowdfunded, and dozens of volunteers helped me shoot an amazing quantity of footage.
The NEW documentary can be found here- https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/thorium-nasa/
Please check it out, and I'll try address any questions you can throw at me. If you posted one here and want it answered please just copy/paste it over there.
-Gord
The Chinese are building two Thorium reactors right now with help from our Department of Energy and Canada is looking to begin production of its Thorium reactor this year.
Excellent doc that is thought provoking. There needs to be genuine dialogue centered around our metropolises and their energy consumption.
i dont want to use fear techniques but our childrens will suffer, if we wont change our ignorant point of view on the polluting situation...
in my opinion only the covetousness of the "rich people" delaying this process...
Til they figure out a way to put a meter on it and sell it to ya....
OK, where is that Thorium reactor?
And, if some young innovator does happen to come up with monumental improvements in solar cells or batteries, it will, of course, involve some exotic, expensive, or toxic material. Right?
There is no such thing as a magic bullet.
But that is not the same as saying that some technologies are not superior to others.
The uranium light water reactor was 1950's tech, and a lousy design even for that.
The TMSR is the reactor tech we SHOULD have had from day one.
That's what Weinberger was trying to tell the morons in charge at the time.
If we had been using MSRs all this time, they would have replaced every other power system on cost basis alone. And today we would not even have a global warming issue.
But instead we do have it. It is not a myth. It is not a lefty hoax.
It is a clear and growing threat.
It is a far greater threat than vague unproven fears about cancer.
These “international accords” have no teeth.
They will never be able to hold to two degrees using the technology we are using today.
And eight billion people cannot live like the plains Indians.
Wind and solar are a side show.
One estimate I saw quoted 4 MILLION wind turbines to handle HALF of the world’s energy needs by 2030. That may be a jobs program, but it sure as hell isn’t a credible energy program.
Four million … let’s see if we can murder ALL the birds.
We are not living in the star trek universe.
There are not going to be vast improvements in battery technology in the next ten years.
There are not going to be vast improvements in solar technology in the next ten years.
(No warp drives either.)
And as for “fuel from water”, what the hell does that mean?
You can’t burn water. It’s already oxidized.
And cracking the hydrogen out takes what? Electricity.
The MSR is the only tech that has the energy density sufficient to replace fossil fuels in the time we have before things get BAD-BAD-BAD.
We should be cranking them off an assembly line just as fast as we can.
(And no, it won’t take four million of them.)