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Energy and Environment
Published in T.M. Aggarwal, Environmental Control in Thermal Power Plants, 2021
Another alternative to fast breeders is thermal breeder reactors that use uranium-233 bred from thorium as fission fuel in the thorium fuel cycle. Thorium is about 3.5 times more common than uranium in the Earth’s crust, and has different geographic characteristics. This would extend the total practical fissionable resource base by 450%. India’s three-stage nuclear power programme features the use of a thorium fuel cycle in the third stage, as it has abundant thorium reserves but little uranium.
Nuclear and Hydro Power
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Energy Security for The 21st Century, 2021
Recently, several countries have experimented with using thorium as a substitute nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. The growing interest in a thorium fuel cycle is due to its abundance in some areas (3–4 times more abundant than uranium), its safety benefits, and absence of non-fertile isotopes.
The Other Energy Markets
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Global Energy Market Trends, 2021
Recently, several countries have experimented with using thorium as a substitute nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. The growing interest in a thorium fuel cycle is due to its abundance in some areas (3–4 times more abundant than uranium), its safety benefits, and absence of non-fertile isotopes.
Safe, clean, proliferation resistant and cost-effective Thorium-based Molten Salt Reactors for sustainable development
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Energy, 2022
The thorium fuel cycle is an attractive way to produce long term nuclear energy with low radiotoxicity waste for several reasons. First, compared to traditional nuclear reactors which ‘burn’ the fissile uranium isotope U-235 the TMSR uses fissile U-233 which is derived from Th-232 in the reactor itself. Whereas U-235 constitutes only 0.71% of mined natural uranium and requires enrichment, practically all the thorium can be converted to U-233, and no enrichment is needed (Juhasz, Rarick, and Rangarajan 2009). The process of deriving the U-233 from Th-232 can take place in two principal ways. The basic approach is to use mined and enriched U-235 or to use discharged LWR spent fuel, particularly Pu-239. This gives the startup conditions and burnup rates calculated by (Moir and Teller 2005), mentioned above. This seems to indicate that both the once-through TMSR and the closed-loop TMSR are significantly better than the LWRs in most respects.
Transitioning to a Sustainable Thorium Fuel Cycle in Pressurized Water Reactors Using Bimetallic Thorium-Zirconium Alloy Cladding
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2021
A nuclear fuel cycle based on 232Th-233U (hereinafter labeled as thorium cycle) has been considered almost since the advent of nuclear energy but has found scant application. This has been the case in spite of a number of advantages to a thorium fuel cycle1: It generates only trace amounts of transuranic (TRU) waste in contrast to the current uranium fuel cycle; thorium is more abundant than uranium and does not seem to require deep mining; the number of neutrons released per neutron absorbed by 233U in the thermal spectrum is greater than two and presents the possibility of breeding in a water reactor. Notwithstanding these advantages, reactors using thorium are hardly the norm. The two primary reasons for this are that thorium starts with zero fissile content and it is difficult, in practice, to achieve net breeding in a thorium cycle with a light water reactor.
Turkey’s electricity generation problem and nuclear energy policy
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2019
All technical outputs obtained from the studies focusing on thorium fuel-cycle for the past 50 years have obviously indicated that the thorium fuel cycle is able to be used in most of the existing reactor types. Moreover, the use of thorium-based nuclear fuels in the accelerated-driven hybrid systems have a big potential. In line with these developments for thorium, a novel tendency to use thorium will be so popular and also much more valuable nuclear material than uranium in the coming days. Undoubtedly, this depends on the intensity of the studies about thorium particularly from the countries which have rich thorium reserves. India even took a concrete step and gave their technological and scientific attention to thorium for this purpose. It has been talked that India invested nearly 100 billion dollars for the studies and trials which addressed the effectively using thorium in nuclear technology, and tried to be a pioneering country in this scope across the world. Also, Turkey should take a concrete step about thorium issue like India because Turkey is a large part of thorium reserves like India. For this purpose, this two country can make a partnership about thorium studies and take the steps together because each positive output for thorium using will positively affect their economy and will decrease the dependency on energy by providing to tending domestic reserves.