People power has shut the doors on fracking in the UK

padington

Would the square mile accept a frack site in the middle of it though ? The corporation of London person behind the speaker might have something to say about that.

patman99

Generali, the video was posted by 38Degrees, so may still be on their website.

Thorium reaction.
This was first mooted by the USA back in the late 50's/early '60's. Because it produced nothing toxic, the US Govt. dropped plans to build plants in favour of nuclear power (which produced a byproduct usable in weapons of mass destruction).
A US-based researcher uncovered the plans for thorium reaction and decided that as they were out of patent, he would post them on the internet for anyone to use.

Before the Govt. removed the plans, they were downloaded by researchers in several countries (including China and the UK)

The Chinese Premier has realised the importance of such a cheap and plentiful power source and has invested $700m (so far) in head-hunting China's top-performing scientists in the field of fusion power to make it happen. So far, he has recruited 700 people and is going to recruit more.

They estimate that the first thorium plant will be producing energy within 20 years.
Until then, we will have to make do with highly inefficient nuclear power (only 5% of the uranium is turned into energy), wind (unless you use the energy to run a hydrogen reactor to extract usable hydrogen gas from water, which can be stored and used to power a generator), solar (see wind), hydro, wave (has added benefit of reducing coastal errosion), or gas, oil or coal.

Martyn1981

patman99 wrote: »

Generali, the video was posted by 38Degrees, so may still be on their website.

Thorium reaction.
This was first mooted by the USA back in the late 50's/early '60's. Because it produced nothing toxic, the US Govt. dropped plans to build plants in favour of nuclear power (which produced a byproduct usable in weapons of mass destruction).
A US-based researcher uncovered the plans for thorium reaction and decided that as they were out of patent, he would post them on the internet for anyone to use.

Before the Govt. removed the plans, they were downloaded by researchers in several countries (including China and the UK)

The Chinese Premier has realised the importance of such a cheap and plentiful power source and has invested $700m (so far) in head-hunting China's top-performing scientists in the field of fusion power to make it happen. So far, he has recruited 700 people and is going to recruit more.

They estimate that the first thorium plant will be producing energy within 20 years.
Until then, we will have to make do with highly inefficient nuclear power (only 5% of the uranium is turned into energy), wind (unless you use the energy to run a hydrogen reactor to extract usable hydrogen gas from water, which can be stored and used to power a generator), solar (see wind), hydro, wave (has added benefit of reducing coastal errosion), or gas, oil or coal.

Hi. I accept that thorium reactors were in direct competition with the fast breeder reactors. But I'm sure it's also fission, not fusion.

Perhaps biased, but comments I've read on the Navitron site, posted by a member who works in the fusion research industry, is that thorium success may be as far away as fusion, with interest (and funding) now shifting to fusion.

It certainly appears to be safer, but is difficult to get it to work. Perhaps the Chinese will be more successful with their test programs, than the US, UK and Canada(?) have been.

Mart.

cepheus

Thorium has less waste but not zero. Thorium was less appropriate for developing nuclear weapons which might explain why this technology wasn't developed to the same extent as Uranium reactors.