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From: Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a
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Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2024 11:06:05 -0400
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On 9/28/2024 11:53 PM, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> On 28/09/2024 17:06, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <vd7m9n$uguu$1@dont-email.me>,
>> Peter Fairbrother  <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 28/09/2024 01:50, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>>> On 9/27/2024 3:55 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>>>> I'd love to see more work done on thorium reactors.
>>>>>
>>>> That _sounds_ like an obvious answer to I have to ask what the catch 
>>>> is.
>>>
>>> No great catch, except that thorium reactors have been massively
>>> over-hyped.
>> ...
>>> Less radioactive waste? Long-term waste is pretty much the same. Claims
>>> for less short-term waste are ... disputable.
>> It's actually the opposite. 
> 
> Ah yes, my mistake here, got that the wrong way round. Too late at 
> night, can't sleep. My apologies.
> 
> I think we'd both agree that the short-term fission product waste is 
> pretty much the same.
> 
>> In general, short term waste (the really hot stuff) is fission 
>> products; the long term
>> waste (weakly radioactive)** is mostly transuranics.
> 
> For the uranium cycle, yes: but for the thorium cycle the worst of the 
> long-term waste are the actinides Pa-231 and Th-229. There are others.
> 
> Not technically transuranics, but equally nasty heavier-than-lead non- 
> fission-product long-term wastes.
> 
> Sure thorium produces less transuranics - though not none - but the 
> heavier transuranics/actinides produced by uranium tend to have short 
> half-lives and get consumed while still in the reactor. The lighter 
> actinides produced from thorium tend to have longer half-lives and once 
> the fuel is removed from the reactor and left for a few years there are 
> more of them left.
> 
> While the results of simulations vary depending on details of the 
> reactor conditions, for similar conditions long-term (10^3-10^4 years) 
> radiotoxicities generally do not vary much between uranium and thorium 
> fuels. Sometimes uranium wins, sometimes thorium,
> 
> If the actinides are reintroduced into the reactor they can in general 
> be destroyed. This is true for both uranium and thorium.
> 
> 
> 
> I have nothing against thorium vs uranium - except idiots who plan 
> trailer-sized molten salt reactors which can't cope with a post-SCRAM 
> meltdown and which are a huge proliferation risk and claim because it's 
> thorium it's somehow safer, and the like, and the like, and people who 
> go on and on about the supposed benefits of thorium.

[...]

You must be thrilled by Project Pele

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3915633/dod-breaks-ground-on-project-pele-a-mobile-nuclear-reactor-for-energy-resiliency/

pt