The half-life of Thorium itself is huge- 1.405×10 to the 10th. power. It is the half-life of the waste products of Thorium fission that is short. According to Wikipedia, Thorium is about as abundant as Lead. There's lots of that stuff around.
It's not magical, it's just a technology that has not been pursued. Most of our nuclear technology has developed around the weaponization capabilities of Uranium. Thorium as used in the LFTR is useless for this purpose. Once a commitment has been made to follow the path of Uranium reactors, it has been difficult for many reasons to change gears. But it is imperative that we do so now. Greg -----Original Message----- From: mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of John Reames Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 2:58 PM To: Mercedes Discussion List Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Nuclear power Where will all of this magical radioactive fuel come from? The half life of radioactives starts the moment it is formed; for any significant quantities to exist it would have to have a really long half life, be produced by the breakdown of something else, or there was a LOT of it around... I'd like to see some quantitative numbers stuck on this. -- John W Reames jwrea...@comcast.net Home: +14106646986 Mobile: +14437915905 On Aug 31, 2010, at 16:44, "Greg Fiorentino" <gf...@dslnorthwest.net> wrote: > I am NOT a nuclear physicist, but had some advanced physics, chemistry and > philosophy of science courses in college. I have had a lifelong interest in > keeping current in scientific advances. I have a pretty solid layman's > understanding of how this stuff works. I think this is a winning technology > from many different views. It would be an economical, safe and secure (not > to mention "green") way to produce power. It does not have the drawback of > producing large amounts of high half-life radioactive by-products. It is > not as vulnerable to conversion to a terrorist weapon. It has the > capability of fail-safe design in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). > I have read that there is more energy in the Thorium ash from coal than in > the coal itself. > > Advancing this technology to the commercial stage would be a worthwhile > expenditure of government stimulus money. > > What the heck are we waiting for? > > Greg > > -----Original Message----- > From: mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] > On Behalf Of Mitch Haley > Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:44 PM > To: Mercedes Discussion List > Subject: [MBZ] OT: Nuclear power > > I know there's at least one nuclear physicist on this list, so what do you > think > of this? > Mitch > > > > There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate Carlo > Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of > thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be > the _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
