Thorium Reactor- The Next Generation of Nuclear Power
The SSTAR thorium reactor is in my opinion the best option for nuclear power.
SSTAR stands for: small, sealed, transportable, autonomous, reactor, and is
being engineered by Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Argonne National
Laboratories. The main pro's for this form of reactor is its safety and
affordability, and applications in the real world, and possibly other worlds too!
My opinion; we should introduce thorium reactors as a new way of making
sustainable energy.
SSTAR is very safe, the nature of thorium is such that it is difficult or impossible
to sustain a nuclear chain reaction or fission without continuously priming it. A nuclear chain reaction
is the thing which causes both energy and bombs. So that means that it is impossible to have a nuclear
if the reactor shuts down. Another safety feature it has is that thorium's radio active waste lasts 10 to
10,000 times shorter than either plutonium or uranium, this greatly decreases changes of contamination
of the environment. Because of the difficulty of making a nuclear chain reaction or fission bomb, it
would be safe to give to dubious countries who say they want nuclear power for electricity.
Another great thing about thorium is it's so cheap and abundant. The amount of reserves of thorium on
earth would last us approximately 1000 years! In fact there is 400% more thorium than uranium, and if
thorium were to be mined on a large scale, it would be significantly cheaper than uranium, especially
because you don't need to enrich uranium at all, whereas only about 7% of uranium comes out of the
ground enriched. Also because you don't need as many safety features since a melt down in the event of
the reactor not working is next to zero.
In the future if we decide to adopt this I think it'd be very
beneficial. Some countries especially India are actually in the
process of developing thorium reactors. Other applications
include nuclear fuel, nuclear plants on the moon or mars,
individualized ones for each home/neighbourhood. Thorium
could bring down the cost of electricity by 10% which would be
great in developing countries.
Cost Comparison of 1 Gigawatt power-station
Thorium Reactor
Uranium Reactor
Construction
250 million
1 billion
Fuel for 1 year
1 million
30 million
Staffing
5 million
50 million
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