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From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a
 Smear
Date: 28 Sep 2024 17:26:53 -0000
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Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> 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.

Thorium is a pain in the neck because it's got a very long half-life and
consequently is very stable.  BUT, a neutron hitting a thorium atom knocks
some stuff off and turns it into U-233 which is actually fissile.  So what
you have going on are two different reactions taking place at the same time
and both need to be managed independently to keep the thing from starving
and shutting down.

You can think of it as a breeder reactor and a power reactor mixed together
doing both things at the same time.  And it has to do both things at the right
rate.

There have been a number of reactors out there turning thorium into uranium
for outside use, and a few reactors (most notably a molten salt one at Oak
Ridge back in the sixties) generating power through the two-step process,
but it's not something that has ever been commerciallized unfortunately.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."