Thorium-based nuclear power explained

Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle[1] —including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production. One advantage of thorium fuel is its low weaponization potential. It is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233 that is bred in the reactor. Plutonium-239 is produced at much lower levels and can be consumed in thorium reactors.

After studying the feasibility of using thorium, nuclear scientists Ralph W. Moir and Edward Teller suggested that thorium nuclear research should be restarted after a three-decade shutdown and that a small prototype plant should be built.[2] [3] [4] Between 1999 and 2022, the number of operational thorium reactors in the world has risen from zero[5] to a handful of research reactors,[6] to commercial plans for producing full-scale thorium-based reactors for use as power plants on a national scale.[7] [8] [9] [6]

Advocates believe thorium is key to developing a new generation of cleaner, safer nuclear power.[9] In 2011, a group of scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology assessed thorium-based power as "a 1000+ year solution or a quality low-carbon bridge to truly sustainable energy sources solving a huge portion of mankind's negative environmental impact."[10] However, development of thorium power has significant start-up costs. Development of breeder reactors in general (including thorium reactors, which are breeders by nature) will increase proliferation concerns.

History

After World War II, uranium-based nuclear reactors were built to produce electricity. These were similar to the reactor designs that produced material for nuclear weapons. During that period, the government of the United States also built an experimental prototype molten salt reactor (MSR) using U-233 fuel, the fissile material created by bombarding thorium with neutrons. The MSRE reactor, built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, operated critical for roughly 15,000 hours from 1965 to 1969. In 1968, Nobel laureate and discoverer of plutonium, Glenn Seaborg, publicly announced to the Atomic Energy Commission, of which he was chairman, that the thorium-based reactor had been successfully developed and tested.[11]

In 1973, however, the US government settled on uranium technology and largely discontinued thorium-related nuclear research. The reasons were that uranium-fuelled reactors were more efficient, the research was proven and thorium's breeding ratio was thought insufficient to produce enough fuel to support development of a commercial nuclear industry. As Moir and Teller later wrote, "The competition came down to a liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) on the uranium-plutonium cycle and a thermal reactor on the thorium-233U cycle, the molten salt breeder reactor. The LMFBR had a larger breeding rate ... and won the competition." In their opinion, the decision to stop development of thorium reactors, at least as a backup option, "was an excusable mistake".[2]

Science writer Richard Martin states that nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg, who was director at Oak Ridge and primarily responsible for the new reactor, lost his job as director because he championed development of the safer thorium reactors.[12] [13] Weinberg himself recalls this period:

Martin explains that Weinberg's unwillingness to sacrifice potentially safe nuclear power for the benefit of military uses forced him to retire:

Despite the documented history of thorium nuclear power, many of today's nuclear experts were nonetheless unaware of it. According to Chemical & Engineering News, "most people—including scientists—have hardly heard of the heavy-metal element and know little about it", noting a comment by a conference attendee that "it's possible to have a Ph.D. in nuclear reactor technology and not know about thorium energy."[14] Nuclear physicist Victor J. Stenger, for one, first learned of it in 2012:Others, including former NASA scientist and thorium expert Kirk Sorensen, agree that "thorium was the alternative path that was not taken".[15] [16] According to Sorensen, during a documentary interview, he states that if the US had not discontinued its research in 1974 it could have "probably achieved energy independence by around 2000".[17] On 18 May 2022 US Senate bill S.4242 – "A bill to provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors", the 'Thorium Energy Security Act' was introduced for the first time. Sorensen had urged this measure since 2006.[18]

Benefits

Summarizing some of the potential benefits, Martin offers his general opinion: "Thorium could provide a clean and effectively limitless source of power while allaying all public concern—weapons proliferation, radioactive pollution, toxic waste, and fuel that is both costly and complicated to process." Moir and Teller estimated in 2004 that the cost for their recommended prototype would be "well under $1 billion with operation costs likely on the order of $100 million per year", and as a result a "large-scale nuclear power plan" usable by many countries could be set up within a decade.

Disadvantages

Proponents

Nobel laureate in physics and former director of CERN Carlo Rubbia has long been a fan of thorium. According to Rubbia, "In order to be vigorously continued, nuclear power must be profoundly modified".[33]

Hans Blix, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said "Thorium fuel gives rise to waste that is smaller in volume, less toxic and much less long lived than the wastes that result from uranium fuel".[34]

Power projects

Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), MSR design, has been or is now being done in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, France, the Czech Republic, Japan, Russia, Canada, Israel, Denmark and the Netherlands.[16] Conferences with experts from as many as 32 countries are held, including one by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2013, which focuses on thorium as an alternative nuclear technology without requiring production of nuclear waste.[35] Among other recognized experts, Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, calls for expanded support of new nuclear power technology, and states, "the thorium option offers the world not only a new sustainable supply of fuel for nuclear power but also one that makes better use of the fuel's energy content."[36]

Canada

CANDU reactors are capable of using thorium,[37] [38] and Thorium Power Canada has, in 2013, planned and proposed developing thorium power projects for Chile and Indonesia.[39] The proposed 10 MW demonstration reactor in Chile could be used to power a 20 million litre/day desalination plant. In 2018, the New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation announced the participation of Moltex Energy in the nuclear research cluster that will work on research and development on small modular reactor technology.[40] [41] [42]

China

At the 2011 annual conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was announced that "China has initiated a research and development project in thorium MSR technology."[43] The World Nuclear Association notes that the China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 announced its R&D program, "claiming to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology."[20] According to Martin, "China has made clear its intention to go it alone," adding that China already has a monopoly over most of the world's rare earth minerals.[16] [44]

In early 2012, it was reported that China, using components produced by the West and Russia, planned to build two prototypes, one of them a molten salt-cooled pebble-bed reactor by 2015, and a research molten salt reactor by 2017,[45] had budgeted the project at $400 million and requiring 400 workers.[16] China also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.[46]

Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China's former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and by late 2013 China had officially partnered with Oak Ridge to aid China in its own development.[47] [48]

In March 2014, with their reliance on coal-fired power having become a major cause of their current "smog crisis", they reduced their original goal of creating a working reactor from 25 years down to 10. "In the past, the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog", said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project. "This is definitely a race", he added.[49]

By 2019 two of the reactors were under construction in the Gobi desert, with completion expected around 2025. China expects to put thorium reactors into commercial use by 2030.[6] The 60MWt reactor is scheduled to be completed in 2029. Part of the thermal energy, 10MW will be used to create electrical power; the remainder will be used to evolve hydrogen by splitting water molecules at high temperature.[50]

TMSR-LF1

One of the 2 MW thorium prototypes, was nearing completion in 2021.[51] [52] As of 24 June 2021, China has reported that the Gobi molten salt reactor will be completed on schedule with tests beginning as early as September 2021. The new reactor is a part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's drive to make China carbon-neutral by 2060.[53] China hopes to complete the world's first commercial thorium reactor by 2030 and has planned to further build more thorium power plants across the low populated deserts and plains of western China, as well as up to 30 nations involved in China's Belt and Road Initiative.[54] [55]

In August 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment informed the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) that its commissioning plan for the LF1 had been approved.[56]

On 16 June 2023 China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration issued a license to the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to operate TMSR-LF1, a 2MWt reactor.[57] [58] [59]

Denmark

Copenhagen Atomics is a Danish molten salt technology company developing mass manufacturable molten salt reactors. The Copenhagen Atomics Waste Burner is a single-fluid, heavy water moderated, fluoride-based, thermal spectrum and autonomously controlled molten-salt reactor. This is designed to fit inside of a leak-tight, 40foot, stainless steel shipping container. The heavy water moderator is thermally insulated from the salt and continuously drained and cooled to below . A molten lithium-7 deuteroxide (7LiOD) moderator version is also being researched. The reactor utilizes the thorium fuel cycle using separated plutonium from spent nuclear fuel as the initial fissile load for the first generation of reactors, eventually transitioning to a thorium breeder.[60] Copenhagen Atomics is actively developing and testing valves, pumps, heat exchangers, measurement systems, salt chemistry and purification systems, and control systems and software for molten salt applications [61] .

In July of 2024, Copenhagen Atomics announced that their reactor is ready to be tested in a real life scenario with a critical experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland in 2026 [62] .

Germany, 1980s

The German THTR-300 was a prototype commercial power station using thorium as fertile and highly enriched U-235 as fissile fuel. Though named thorium high temperature reactor, mostly U-235 was fissioned. The THTR-300 was a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor with a pebble-bed reactor core consisting of approximately 670,000 spherical fuel compacts each 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in diameter with particles of uranium-235 and thorium-232 fuel embedded in a graphite matrix. It fed power to Germany's grid for 432 days in the late 1980s, before it was shut down for cost, mechanical and other reasons.

India

India has the largest supplies of thorium in the world, with comparatively poor quantities of uranium. India has projected meeting as much as 30% of its electrical demands through thorium by 2050.[63]

In February 2014, ghd Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), in Mumbai, India, presented their latest design for a "next-generation nuclear reactor" that burns thorium as its fuel ore, calling it the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). They estimated the reactor could function without an operator for 120 days.[64] Validation of its core reactor physics was underway by late 2017.

According to Dr R K Sinha, chairman of their Atomic Energy Commission, "This will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, mostly imported, and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change." Because of its inherent safety, they expect that similar designs could be set up "within" populated cities, like Mumbai or Delhi.[64]

The Indian government is also developing up to 62 reactors, mostly thorium-based, which it expects to be operational by 2025. India is the "only country in the world with a detailed, funded, government-approved plan" to focus on thorium-based nuclear power. The country currently gets under 2% of its electricity from nuclear power, with the rest coming from coal (60%), hydroelectricity (16%), other renewable sources (12%) and natural gas (9%).[65] It expects to produce around 25% of its electricity from nuclear power.[16] In 2009 the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that India has a "long-term objective goal of becoming energy-independent based on its vast thorium resources to meet India's economic ambitions."[66] [67]

In late June 2012, India announced that their "first commercial fast reactor" was near completion, making India the most advanced country in thorium research. "We have huge reserves of thorium. The challenge is to develop technology for converting this to fissile material," stated their former Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission.[68] That vision of using thorium in place of uranium was set out in the 1950s by physicist Homi Bhabha.[69] [70] [71] [72]

In 2013, India's 300MWe AHWR (pressurized heavy water reactor) was slated to be built at an undisclosed location.[73] The design envisages a start up with reactor grade plutonium that breeds U-233 from Th-232. Thereafter, thorium is to be the only fuel.[74] As of 2017, the design was in the final stages of validation.[75]

Delays have since postponed the commissioning [criticality?] of the PFBR to September 2016,[76] but India's commitment to long-term nuclear energy production is underscored by the approval in 2015 of ten new sites for reactors of unspecified types,[77] though procurement of primary fissile material—preferably plutonium—may be problematic due to India's low uranium reserves and capacity for production.[78]

KAMINI (Kalpakkam Mini reactor), is the world's only thorium-based experimental reactor. It produces 40MW of thermal energy at full power.[79] KAMINI is cooled and moderated by light water, and fuelled with uranium-233 metal produced by the thorium fuel cycle harnessed by the neighbouring FBTR reactor.

Indonesia

P3Tek, an agency of the Indonesia Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resource, has reviewed a thorium molten salt reactor by Thorcon called the TMSR-500. The study reported that building a ThorCon TMSR-500 would meet Indonesia's regulations for nuclear energy safety and performance.[80]

Israel

In May 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York began to collaborate on the development of thorium reactors, aimed at being self-sustaining, "meaning one that will produce and consume about the same amounts of fuel," which is not possible with uranium in a light water reactor.[81]

Japan

In June 2012, Japan utility Chubu Electric Power wrote that they regard thorium as "one of future possible energy resources".[82]

Norway

In late 2012, Norway's privately owned Thor Energy, in collaboration with the government and Westinghouse, announced a four-year trial using thorium in an existing nuclear reactor.[83] In 2013, Aker Solutions purchased patents from Nobel Prize winning physicist Carlo Rubbia for the design of a proton accelerator-based thorium nuclear power plant.[84]

South Africa

In South Africa, Steenkampskraal Thorium's planned 100MW HTMR-100 NPP reactor is based on a variant of the Pebble bed modular reactor.[85] [86]

United Kingdom

In Britain, one organisation promoting or examining research on thorium-based nuclear plants is The Alvin Weinberg Foundation. House of Lords member Bryony Worthington is promoting thorium, calling it "the forgotten fuel" that could alter Britain's energy plans.[87] However, in 2010, the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) concluded that for the short to medium term, "...the thorium fuel cycle does not currently have a role to play," in that it is "technically immature, and would require a significant financial investment and risk without clear benefits," and concluded that the benefits have been "overstated."[20] [30] Friends of the Earth UK considers research into it as "useful" as a fallback option.[88]

United States

In its January 2012 report to the United States Secretary of Energy, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Future notes that a "molten-salt reactor using thorium [has] also been proposed".[89] That same month it was reported that the US Department of Energy is "quietly collaborating with China" on thorium-based nuclear power designs using an MSR.[90]

Some experts and politicians want thorium to be "the pillar of the U.S. nuclear future".[91] Then-Senators Harry Reid and Orrin Hatch supported using $250 million in federal research funds to revive ORNL research. In 2009, Congressman Joe Sestak unsuccessfully attempted to secure funding for research and development of a destroyer-sized reactor [reactor of a size to power a destroyer] using thorium-based liquid fuel.[92]

Alvin Radkowsky, chief designer of the world's second full-scale atomic electric power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, founded a joint US and Russian project in 1997 to create a thorium-based reactor, considered a "creative breakthrough".[93] In 1992, while a resident professor in Tel Aviv, Israel, he founded the US company, Thorium Power Ltd., near Washington, D.C., to build thorium reactors.

The primary fuel of the proposed HT3R research project near Odessa, Texas, United States, will be ceramic-coated thorium beads. The reactor construction has not yet begun.[94] Estimates to complete a reactor were originally set at ten years in 2006 (with a proposed operational date of 2015).[95]

On the research potential of thorium-based nuclear power, Richard L. Garwin, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Georges Charpak advise further study of the Energy amplifier in their book Megawatts and Megatons (2001), pp. 153–63.

Clean Core Thorium Energy, a Chicago-based corporation created and patented a proprietary mixture of uranium and thorium for HALEU (High Assay Low Enriched Uranium). The fuel mixture is called ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life), in honor of Anil Kakodkar. HALEU has uranium that has been enriched to a level greater than 5% but less than 20% as per World Nuclear Association and needs cutting-edge nuclear reactor designs that are currently under development. But as per Mehul Shah, the founder and CEO of Clean Core Thorium Energy, operational CANDU reactors and its derivatives, such as IPHWR can accommodate ANEEL. According to Sean McDeavitt, professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Nuclear Engineering and Director of the Nuclear Engineering and Science Center, ANEEL is a first-of-its-kind nuclear fuel that blends thorium and HALEU in a proprietary, unique composition. To advance the creation and implementation of ANEEL, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Clean Core inked a Memorandum of Understanding in April 2023. CNL agreed to support Clean Core's R&D and licensing efforts as part of the MoU.[96]

Thorium sources

See main article: Occurrence of thorium.

+ World thorium reserves (2007)[97]
CountryTons%
India 980,000 30.00%
Australia 489,000 14.95%
US 400,000 12.23%
Turkey 344,000 10.52%
Brazil 302,000 9.23%
Venezuela 300,000 9.17%
Norway 132,000 4.03%
Egypt 100,000 3.05%
Russia 75,000 2.29%
Greenland (Denmark) 54,000 1.65%
Canada 44,000 1.35%
South Africa 18,000 0.55%
Other countries 33,000 1.00%
World Total 3,271,000 100.0%

Thorium is mostly found with the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium phosphate, but 6–7% on average. World monazite resources are estimated to be about 12 million tons, two-thirds of which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south and east coasts of India. There are substantial deposits in several other countries (see table "World thorium reserves").[20] Monazite is a good source of REEs (rare earth elements), but monazites are currently not economical to produce because the radioactive thorium that is produced as a byproduct would have to be stored indefinitely. However, if thorium-based power plants were adopted on a large-scale, virtually all the world's thorium requirements could be supplied simply by refining monazites for their more valuable REEs.[98]

Another estimate of reasonably assured reserves (RAR) and estimated additional reserves (EAR) of thorium comes from OECD/NEA, Nuclear Energy, "Trends in Nuclear Fuel Cycle", Paris, France (2001).[99] (see table "IAEA Estimates in tons")[99]

IAEA Estimates in tons (2005)
CountryRAR ThEAR Th
India 519,000 21%
Australia 489,000 19%
US 400,000 13%
Turkey 344,000 11%
Venezuela 302,000 10%
Brazil 302,000 10%
Norway 132,000 4%
Egypt 100,000 3%
Russia 75,000 2%
Greenland 54,000 2%
Canada 44,000 2%
South Africa 18,000 1%
Other countries 33,000 2%
World Total 2,810,000 100%

The preceding figures are reserves and as such refer to the amount of thorium in high-concentration deposits inventoried so far and estimated to be extractable at current market prices; millions of times more total exist in Earth's 3 tonne crust, around 120 trillion tons of thorium, and lesser but vast quantities of thorium exist at intermediate concentrations.[100] [101] Proved reserves are a good indicator of the total future supply of a mineral resource.

Reactor types

According to the World Nuclear Association, seven types of reactors can use thorium fuel. Six have entered into service at some point:[20]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. A nuclear reactor consumes certain specific fissile isotopes to produce energy. Currently, the most common types of nuclear reactor fuel are:
  2. Moir, Ralph W. and Teller, Edward. "Thorium-fuelled Reactor Using Molten Salt Technology", Journal of Nuclear Technology, September 2005 Vol 151 (PDF file available). This article was Teller's last, published after his death in 2003.
  3. Hargraves, Robert and Moir, Ralph. "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors: An old idea in nuclear power gets reexamined", American Scientist, Vol. 98, p. 304 (2010).
  4. Barton, Charles. "Edward Teller, Global Warming, and Molten Salt Reactors", Nuclear Green Revolution, 1 March 2008
  5. Web site: Uses For Uranium-233: What Should Be Kept for Future Needs?. 27 September 1999. 30 March 2020. 23 July 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210723061306/http://moltensalt.org/references/static/downloads/pdf/ORNL-6952.pdf. live.
  6. Web site: How China hopes to play a leading role in developing next-generation nuclear reactors. Shen. Alice. sg.news.yahoo.com. 10 January 2019 . 22 May 2021. 14 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210614070853/https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-hopes-play-leading-role-220307940.html. dead.
  7. Thorcon design document: (2010) Powering up our world with cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power, now.
  8. World Nuclear News (26 Jan 2022) Empresarios Agrupados contracted for first ThorCon reactor
  9. Use Molten salts— Flibe both as fuel and as coolant transfer fluid: (2020) Molten-Salt Reactor Choices - Kirk Sorensen of Flibe Energy . Keep operational temperatures below 700 °C, use prismatic graphite as moderator, pump the molten salts from one reactor vessel in cooldown stage to the active, operating reactor vessel. Mitigate tritium using the CO2 cycle in the supercritical CO2 power conversion system; capture the tritium with the oxygen in the supercritical CO2 as mitigated water. This approach keeps the materials in chemical equilibrium during the process, while reducing the volume of waste materials such as CO2, with shorter radioactive half-lives than the uranium series' half-life.
  10. 10.1021/es2021318 . 21732635 . 45 . 15 . Should We Consider Using Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors for Power Generation? . 2011 . Environmental Science . 6237–38 . Cooper . Nicolas. 2011EnST...45.6237C . free .
  11. Humphrey . Uguru Edwin . Khandaker . Mayeen Uddin . Viability of thorium-based nuclear fuel cycle for the next generation nuclear reactor: Issues and prospects . Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews . December 2018 . 97 . 259–275 . 10.1016/j.rser.2018.08.019 . 2018RSERv..97..259H .
  12. http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/ Weinberg Foundation
  13. Pentland, William. "Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly" Forbes, 11 September 2011
  14. Jacoby . Mitch . 16 November 2009 . Reintroducing Thorium . . 87 . 46 . 44–46 . 13 May 2020 . 24 April 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200424040053/http://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/science/87/8746sci2.html . live .
  15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8#at=219 "Energy From Thorium"
  16. Martin, Richard. Superfuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future. Palgrave–Macmillan (2012)
  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9Ll5EX1jc "The Thorium Dream"
  18. Sorensen, Kirk (18 May 2022) "Thorium Energy Security Act" released
  19. Goswami, D. Yogi, ed. The CRC Handbook of Mechanical Engineering, Second Edition, CRC Press (2012) pp. 7–45
  20. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html#References Thorium
  21. Evans-Pritchard, Ambrose. "Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium", The Telegraph, UK 29 August 2010
  22. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/05/world/alvin-radkowsky-86-developer-of-a-safer-nuclear-reactor-fuel.html "Alvin Radkowsky, 86, Developer Of a Safer Nuclear Reactor Fuel"
  23. Book: Langford, R. Everett . Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction: Radiological, Chemical, and Biological . 2004 . . Hoboken, NJ . 978-0-471-46560-7 . 85 . .
  24. Ford, James and Schuller, C. Richard. Controlling threats to nuclear security a holistic model , pp. 111–12 (United States Government Printing Office 1997).
  25. Web site: American Science LFTR. https://web.archive.org/web/20131208020100/http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/AmSci_LFTR.pdf. dead. 8 December 2013.
  26. Web site: May 2005. Thorium fuel cycle — Potential benefits and challenges. live. International Atomic Energy Agency. 18 December 2021. 4 October 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191004091917/https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf.
  27. Web site: Juhasz . Albert J. . Rarick . Richard A. . Rangarajan . Rajmohan . High Efficiency Nuclear Power Plants Using Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor Technology . NASA . October 2009 . 27 October 2014 . 28 April 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210428205700/https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090038711.pdf . live .
  28. Web site: International Atomic Energy Agency . Thorium fuel cycle – Potential benefits and challenges . 27 October 2014 . 4 August 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160804054758/http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf . live .
  29. Nelson, Andrew T.. Sep–Oct 2012. Thorium: Not a near-term commercial nuclear fuel. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 68. 5. 33–44. 10.1177/0096340212459125. 2012BuAtS..68e..33N. 144725888. 7 January 2013. 4 November 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151104171006/http://bos.sagepub.com/content/68/5/33.full. live.
  30. Certain issues of economic prospects of thorium-based nuclear energy systems . Leonid . Andreev . Bellona Foundation . 2013 . 10 March 2017 . 12 March 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170312050229/http://network.bellona.org/content/uploads/sites/4/Certain-issues-of-economic-prospects-of-thorium-based-nuclear-energy-systems.pdf . live .
  31. Web site: "Superfuel" Thorium a Proliferation Risk?. 5 December 2012. 24 February 2014. 27 October 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141027082326/http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/nuclear/is-the-superfuel-thorium-riskier-than-we-thought-14821644. live.
  32. Web site: Uribe . Eva C. . Thorium power has a protactinium problem . 6 August 2018 . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists . 7 August 2018 . 6 August 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180806160237/https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/thorium-power-has-a-protactinium-problem/ . live .
  33. Web site: Thorium trumps all fuels as energy source. ZDNet. 29 May 2021. 2 March 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210302093012/https://www.zdnet.com/article/nobel-physicist-thorium-trumps-all-fuels-as-energy-source/. live.
  34. Web site: Hans Blix: Nuclear must use thorium fuel to reduce weapons risk. ZDnet. 29 May 2021. 26 January 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210126032007/https://www.zdnet.com/article/hans-blix-nuclear-must-use-thorium-fuel-to-reduce-weapons-risk/. live.
  35. http://www.indiablooms.com/EnvironmentDetailsPage/2013/environmentDetails171013a.php "CERN to host conference on thorium technologies for energy"
  36. http://www.4-traders.com/LIGHTBRIDGE-CORP-5641100/news/Lightbridge-Corp--Hans-Blix-Urges-Support-for-Thorium-Power-Development-17344436/ "Lightbridge Corp : Hans Blix Urges Support for Thorium Power Development"
  37. Web site: Nuclear's future: Fission or fizzle?. https://web.archive.org/web/20110827141131/http://solarcellsguide.com/nuclears-future-fission-or-fizzle-as-ottawa-readies-to-sell-its-candu-operations-industry-insiders-wonder-why-nuclear-energy-cant-get-any-respect.htm. dead. 27 August 2011.
  38. 10.1016/j.enconman.2005.10.013 . Investigation of CANDU reactors as a thorium burner . 2006 . Sahin . S. Yildiz . K . Sahin . H . Acir . A . Energy Conversion and Management . 47 . 13–14 . 1661. 2006ECM....47.1661S .
  39. http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/07/thorium-power-canada-is-in-advanced.html "Thorium Power Canada is in advanced talks with Chile and Indonesia for 10 MW and 25 MW solid thorium fueled reactors"
  40. Web site: Moltex to partner in nuclear research and innovation cluster. Canada. Government of New Brunswick. 13 July 2018. www2.gnb.ca. 9 October 2018. 9 October 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181009211435/https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2018.07.0930.html. live.
  41. Web site: Second company investing in nuclear technology in N.B.. Global News. 9 October 2018. 9 October 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181009211932/https://globalnews.ca/news/4330793/nuclear-technology-nb-investment/. live.
  42. Web site: UK Moltex seeks to deploy its Stable Salt Reactor in Canada - Nuclear Engineering International. www.neimagazine.com. 18 July 2018 . 22 May 2021. 7 March 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210307181444/https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsuk-moltex-seeks-to-deploy-its-stable-salt-reactor-in-canada-6254922. live.
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