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America Is Letting China Steal Our Valuable Nuclear Innovations

George Washington's picture




 

Microsoft and Apple grew rich by using Xerox's innovation.

Xerox's research arm (called Xerox Parc) invented the "graphical user interface" used by all modern computers. Bill Gates famously admitted to Steve Jobs that both Microsoft and Apple had ripped of Xerox's GUI.

Xerox could have made a fortune on its innovation. But it didn't realize what it had ... and failed to capitalize on its breakthroughs (Xerox tried to sue to protect its invention ... but years too late, and the lawsuit was thrown out because Xerox had missed the deadline for suing).

The same dynamic is playing out in the nuclear industry.

Specifically, the U.S. created a safer, more efficient form of nuclear energy running on thorium. But - like Xerox Parc - America isn't doing anything with its innovation, and China is running off with prize.

The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes:

If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape ....

 

China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say.

 

Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.

 

“The reactor has an amazing safety feature,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.

Here is a short, must-watch TED talk by Sorensen:

The Telegraph continues:

Professor Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University said thorium must be bombarded with neutrons to drive the fission process. “There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment you switch off the photon beam. There are not enough neutrons for it continue of its own accord,” he said.

 

Dr Cywinski, who anchors a UK-wide thorium team, said the residual heat left behind in a crisis would be “orders of magnitude less” than in a uranium reactor.

 

The earth’s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country’s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilization for thousands of years.

 

***

 

US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.

 

The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner.

 

Dr Cywinski is developing an accelerator driven sub-critical reactor for thorium, a cutting-edge project worldwide .... The idea is to make pint-size 600MW reactors.

Popular Science reports:

It would be based on thorium, a radioactive element that is much more abundant, and much more safe, than traditional sources of nuclear power.

 

Some advocates believe small nuclear reactors powered by thorium could wean the world off coal and natural gas, and do it more safely than traditional nuclear. Thorium is not only abundant, but more efficient than uranium or coal — one ton of the silver metal can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3.5 million tons of coal, as the Mail on Sunday calculates it.

 

***

 

Thorium reactors would not melt down, in part because they require an external input to produce fission. Thorium atoms would release energy when bombarded by high-energy neutrons, such as the type supplied in a particle accelerator.

Wired points out:

“President Obama talked about a Sputnik-type call to action in his [State of the Union] address,” wrote Charles Hart, a a retired semiconductor researcher and frequent commenter on the Energy From Thorium discussion forum. “I think this qualifies.”

 

While nearly all current nuclear reactors run on uranium, the radioactive element thorium is recognized as a safer, cleaner and more abundant alternative fuel. Thorium is particularly well-suited for use in molten-salt reactors, or MSRs. Nuclear reactions take place inside a fluid core rather than solid fuel rods, and there’s no risk of meltdown.

 

In addition to their safety, MSRs can consume various nuclear-fuel types, including existing stocks of nuclear waste. Their byproducts are unsuitable for making weapons of any type. They can also operate as breeders, producing more fuel than they consume.

 

In the 1960s and 70s, the United States carried out extensive research on thorium and MSRs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. That work was abandoned — partly, believe many, because uranium reactors generated bomb-grade plutonium as a byproduct. Today, with nuclear weapons less in demand and cheap oil’s twilight approaching, several countries — including India, France and Norway — are pursuing thorium-based nuclear-fuel cycles. (The grassroots movement to promote an American thorium power supply was covered in this December 2009 Wired magazine feature.)

 

China’s new program is the largest national thorium-MSR initiative to date. The People’s Republic had already announced plans to build dozens of new nuclear reactors over the next 20 years, increasing its nuclear power supply 20-fold and weaning itself off coal, of which it’s now one of the world’s largest consumers. Designing a thorium-based molten-salt reactor could place China at the forefront of the race to build environmentally safe, cost-effective and politically palatable reactors.

 

***

 

A Chinese thorium-based nuclear power supply is seen by many nuclear advocates and analysts as a threat to U.S. economic competitiveness. During a presentation at Oak Ridge on Jan. 31, Jim Kennedy, CEO of St. Louis–based Wings Enterprises (which is trying to win approval to start a mine for rare earths and thorium at Pea Ridge, Missouri) portrayed the Chinese thorium development as potentially crippling.

 

If we miss the boat on this, how can we possibly compete in the world economy?” Kennedy asked. “What else do we have left to export?”

 

According to thorium advocates, the United States could find itself 20 years from now importing technology originally developed nearly four decades ago at one of America’s premier national R&D facilities. The alarmist version of China’s next-gen nuclear strategy come down to this: If you like foreign-oil dependency, you’re going to love foreign-nuclear dependency.

 

***

 

While the international “Generation IV” nuclear R&D initiative includes a working group on thorium MSRs, China has made clear its intention to go it alone. The Chinese Academy of Sciences announcement explicitly states that the PRC plans to develop and control intellectual property around thorium for its own benefit.

“This will enable China to firmly grasp the lifeline of energy in its own hands,” stated the Wen Hui Bao report.

The U.S. is acting just like Xerox Parc, letting others steal its innovations ... and losing entire markets in the process.

If America fails to capitalize on its breakthrough, and let's China obtain all of the relevant thorium energy patents, we could lose the entire market.

Too bad the U.S. government - instead of developing the thorium concept which it innovated decades ago - is protecting an obsolete uranium model which was chosen only because produced plutonium for nuclear warheads and powered nuclear submarines.

Indeed, our government is doubling-down on archaic and unsafe technology: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved construction of new nuclear plants which do not incorporate the safety measures needed to prevent a Fukushima meltdown here ... and the same companies which built and operated Fukushima will build and run the U.S. plants as well.

Brilliant.

 

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Thu, 03/15/2012 - 04:28 | 2256982 Hobbleknee
Hobbleknee's picture

Of course America is not interested in thorium; the waste can't be made into nuclear weapons, and you can't put it in the water to make people docile.

______________________________________________________________

Compare gold and silver prices

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 09:34 | 2257389 JustObserving
JustObserving's picture

We really needed those bombs - all 70,000 of them, then.  Apparently, we need only 8000 now.

"Between 1945 and 1990, more than 70,000 total warheads were developed, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett shell) to the 25 megaton B41 bomb.[7]

Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $8.63 trillion in present day terms[5] on nuclear weapons development."

Besides all that spending on uranium reactors left precious little for Thorium reactors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 11:00 | 2257769 spanish inquisition
spanish inquisition's picture

Thats alot of bombs. Maybe we could sell them to countries that are our friends, like South Africa or something....

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 04:00 | 2256961 LowProfile
LowProfile's picture

Thank you for covering this.

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 08:28 | 2257159 battle axe
battle axe's picture

Are you fucking kidding me, we had this back in the 60's and 70's and we dropped the ball. Amazing, I wonder if Exxon's figure prints are all over  the suppression of this. MTF's...

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 08:44 | 2257204 Axenolith
Axenolith's picture

Exxons fingerprints?!?!  Why would they give a shit???  If they wanted to make money hand over fist they would have run with it and used it to Fischer-Tropsh (sp?) process fuels and chemical feedstock til the cows came home.

 

To understand energy policy you merely have to recognize that in a "global"economy and government you can't have a couple hundred million "individuals" in one counrtry (and maybe a couple others) who can go anywhere on a whim, own guns, think for themselves, etc...

 

If policy (or lack thereof) makes NO sense, but in the long run encourages less freedom, stupider and more dependant people, restricted movement, and more control you are on the right track as to it's purpose...

Fri, 03/16/2012 - 01:58 | 2260947 New World Chaos
New World Chaos's picture

Post of the month!

I see the same thing in New Zealand with solar, wind and micro-hydro.  To put solar panels on your roof you need to pay $700 to get a building consent from your ossified local council... assuming some anonymous old lady doesn't complain, in which case you are SOL.  For wind you have to get impact statements on birds, noise, etc.  For micro hydro, you need to pay and shuffle your way through NZ's Kafkaesque environmental bureaucracy to get two resource consents:  One to take the water out of the stream, and another to put the same water back in!  And the ones who push these regulations most vigorously are... the Greens!  But paying $0.25/kWh for centralized coal power is just fine.

It's probably not a coincidence that the biggest proponents of thorium are generally seen as rivals to the NWO, and none of the most NWO-infested countries are pushing thorium in any meaningful way.

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 10:40 | 2257698 metastar
metastar's picture

My understanding is that Thorium reactors cannot be used for producing weapons grade nuclear material.

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 15:15 | 2258940 Zero Govt
Zero Govt's picture

let the Chinese Govt steal it ...they're perfecting the Art of mal-Investment like every other Western Govt (that goes nuclear)

Go bankruot why don't you

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