Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium

[ashtweth]

Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium - Telegraph

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Published: 6:55PM BST 29 Aug 2010

Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium

If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.

Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It’s the Big One," said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering.

"They were really going after the weapons," said Professor Egil Lillestol, a world authority on the thorium fuel-cycle at CERN. "It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It wouldn’t be worth trying." It emits too many high gamma rays.

It’s all about the money.

[Aromaz]

Three years ago I went on the Thorium path; much of it even posted her ein EF.

YES! YES ! Thorium could generate more electricity than we need and leave
no hazard, use no fuel - pure clean wonderfull Thorium electricity.

The most basic technology to generate electricity: A simple single wire wounded coil with a core of Thorium and small portion of the output recycled back into the core through a DC pulse generator.

Only to be beaten by the much more expensive Radium.

But America listed it as dangerous in order to keep it out of other peoples hands; else who knows what might have happened in technoloy devellped for electricity - even elsewhere in the world.

Just a few years ago Thorium was still used in kerosene and gas lamps/cookers; nobody got radiation from that. Now, because America listed it as 'dangerous' it became a impossible material to have anywhere in the world; even in India and Indonesia where you litterally have beaches full with high concentrations of Thorium (typical Black Sand beaches).

[nvisser]

Is it magnetic. Could you pull a magnet on the beach and collect it to make coil cores like we do with magnetite on the gold mine heaps.

[patmac]

Three years ago I went on the Thorium path; much of it even posted her ein EF.

YES! YES ! Thorium could generate more electricity than we need and leave
no hazard, use no fuel - pure clean wonderfull Thorium electricity.

The most basic technology to generate electricity: A simple single wire wounded coil with a core of Thorium and small portion of the output recycled back into the core through a DC pulse generator.

Only to be beaten by the much more expensive Radium.

But America listed it as dangerous in order to keep it out of other peoples hands; else who knows what might have happened in technoloy devellped for electricity - even elsewhere in the world.

Just a few years ago Thorium was still used in kerosene and gas lamps/cookers; nobody got radiation from that. Now, because America listed it as 'dangerous' it became a impossible material to have anywhere in the world; even in India and Indonesia where you litterally have beaches full with high concentrations of Thorium (typical Black Sand beaches).

@Aromaz

How much Thorium concentration needs the core to work like electricity generator?'. Is possible to use thorated welding rods on about 2%?...

[cikljamas]

would bedini ssg with thorium core became overunity ?

[Aromaz]

The Thorium-232 is most natural stae, this is often used in alloys for items like welding probes. Radiation is very low. You will need Thorium-228 which gives an Alpha radiation and has a life expectancy of about 5 years before you probably need to recharge (as in change isotope).

How much you need in your core? The potential yield of Thorium-228 is 20kW/Kg per month from 18 months to 10 years; only Alpha and Betta - no Gamma outputs.

I suggested on that stage to move away from the core/coil or nuclear concept and start using Thorium 228 in gas environment; i.e. Thorium excites gas, gas charge capacitive coil (for the time being - to use in our current conventional and destructive electrical applications).

I suspect that Thorium might have been the mysterious "Swedish rock" of Townsend Henry Moray (1912).

Thorium was promoted by CERN to replace Uranium; 1 Kg Thorium yields same energy as 200Kg Uranium; yet almost none bad residue. Most important of all; Thorium CANNOT make weapons grade material. To date only India and Russia is experimenting or using Thorium in their reactors.
Australia and Iran is following soon - I hope.

[Aromaz]

would bedini ssg with thorium core became overunity ?

It is a very good question! I think there are merits in trying such experiment since Bedini is nice pulsing operation! Worthwhile to persue this line. One might try even with common Thorium-232.

[Aromaz]

Is it magnetic. Could you pull a magnet on the beach and collect it to make coil cores like we do with magnetite on the gold mine heaps.

Yes: In itself non-magnetic. Thorium is paramagnetic; so if you use a magnet Thorium becomes magnetic. Yes, you can pick it up form a beach witha magnet - I did so from various black sand beaches in Indonesia.

Only problem is that all deposits of Thorium is also in presence of much larger volumes of iron. I think (been long time) Thorium-232 is in fact a low commercial by-product from Iscor. If you are still somewhere in/near Namibia or West Coast; have a talk to one of the many rock hounds there. They will certainly be able to tell you where to go try for Thorium.

[cornfused]

Doesn't coal contain thorium? and other radioactive materials?? I just wonder what grade of thorium would be present in coal ash? And at what levels. Maybe one could retrieve it easily from clinkers or the fly ash from a power plant. Any thoughts?

[Aromaz]

Doesn't coal contain thorium? and other radioactive materials?? I just wonder what grade of thorium would be present in coal ash? And at what levels. Maybe one could retrieve it easily from clinkers or the fly ash from a power plant. Any thoughts?

Maybe this should not be known to general public! Yes, there are more Thorium (and Uranium) around coal fire plants and forest fires than you find in or near a nuclear plant.
Unfortunately you will need to process a million kilo's of coal to collect something like 1 to 2 kg of Thorium. The cost of extraction would exceed US$1 million per kilo. Most of that will be 'depleted' Thorium-232.