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Brian Westenhaus

Brian Westenhaus

Brian is the editor of the popular energy technology site New Energy and Fuel. The site’s mission is to inform, stimulate, amuse and abuse the…

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Thorium To Be Tested in a Working Nuclear Reactor

A Norwegian company led by Alf Bjørseth will start burning thorium fuel in a conventional test reactor owned by Norway’s government with help from U.S.-based nuclear giant Westinghouse.

Bjørseth is now running his private company Scatec AS, and establishing new companies within Scatec based on the latest technologies in the areas of renewable energy and advanced materials, including a thorium fuel effort through a holding company called Thor Corporation.

Thor Corporation owns Thor Energy and also has shares in businesses related to thorium fuel, thorium mining and separation of rare earth elements.  Fen Minerals holds the mining rights to the Fen deposits in South Norway, which are rich in thorium and rare earth elements. The third company is Norwegian Separation Technology, a company in the process of developing a novel separation method for rare earth elements.

Thorium Ore
Natural Thorium Ore.

The company has completed a 2-year thorium fuel cycle feasibility study which concludes that thorium-based nuclear fuel has several advantages over uranium-based fuel, including better waste characteristics, improved proliferation resistance, and abundant raw material supply.

Related Article: Confidence in Nuclear Power is on the Rise Again

Thor Energy has established a consortium that will fund and run a 5-year thorium irradiation project to be conducted at the Norwegian government owned Halden Nuclear Reactor.  Halden, typically described as a “test reactor,” also provides steam to a nearby paper mill. The move should bring thorium closer to replacing uranium as a possible safer and more effective nuclear power source.

Thor’s chief technology officer Julian Kelly explained Thor Energy will deploy a mix of solid thorium mixed with plutonium – a blend known as “thorium MOX”.

The plan isn’t the one most thorium enthusiasts have been hoping for.  Many professionals believe thorium’s advantages are most pronounced in alternative reactor designs such as molten salt reactors and pebble bed reactors, rather than today’s conventional solid-fuel water-cooled reactors.

Some thorium fans have realized it may be best to insert thorium into the energy scene by first putting it to use in reactors that already have regulatory approval.

Halden Heavy Water Reactor Flow Diagram.
Halden Heavy Water Reactor Flow Diagram.

Best or not, Thor is testing the thorium fuel in a conventional reactor at Halden cooled by “heavy water”.  This is not the same as regular light water reactors built commercially around the world.  The cooling is by deuterium or water with an isotope of hydrogen.

Related Article: What Happens IF Cold Fusion Does Become Reality?

With plutonium seed in the fuel mix, the reactors would not only generate power, but they would also eliminate dangerous waste left over from other nuclear operations and thus help address the problem of what to do with that waste.

The consortium reaches pretty far.  Thor will fabricate some of its own thorium MOX in partnership with Norway’s Institute for Energy Technology. Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory – owned by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change – will also provide some, as will the European Commission’s Institute for Transuranium Elements.

Westinghouse is helping to fund the project, as are other of Thor’s industrial partners including Steenkampskraal Thorium Ltd., a South African company that is developing a thorium-fueled pebble bed reactor.  Other partners include the Finnish utility Fortum and the French chemicals company Rhodia.

That news ought to cheer all the thorium enthusiasts.

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Yet Westinghouse doesn’t like to discuss its thorium activities publicly.  It is likely the firm believes working alternatives could undermine the company’s conventional nuclear business. Rumors have it Westinghouse has at least a few thorium-connected and alternative nuclear projects in the works.  One is out now and it isn’t a direct competitor as such.

Westinghouse is also known to be the commercial adviser on the U.S. Department of Energy’s collaboration with China on developing a molten-salt cooled reactor.  Westinghouse has also helped organize many of the alternative nuclear sessions at the American Nuclear Society convention just held in San Diego California.

This is great news worthy of Norway and her citizens.  The element thorium was named by the region’s ancestral God Thor, they have rich deposits, and a great deal of competency and intellectual prowess.  The test will very likely work out and that could offer reactor operators an alternative to uranium and ever more plutonium.

It will be fascinating to see the results.  The wait will be long though; it takes quite a while to burn through nuclear fuel.

By. Brian Westenhaus

Source: Thorium To Be Used In a Working Reactor


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  • SA Kiteman on November 26 2012 said:
    Using Thorium in a conventional solid fuel reactor is akin to trying to use deisel fuel in a conventional gasoline engine. You might be able to make it work... poorly, but seems smarter to use it in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).
  • jamie on November 27 2012 said:
    It still uses plutonium and creates a mess of mixed waste. Then there is the problem of using corrosive materials like salt for coolant. Decommisioning that should be a nightmare.
  • ronaldo santos on December 03 2012 said:
    It seems to be great. If thorium can be used successfully in new reactors it will enable to more easily recycle residues from rare earth chemical processing.
    I believe taht most of problems aasociated to rare earth exploitation in many countries will diminish . There was and still there is cause there is a lot of concern about Th and U associated to some rare eart bearing minerals.If a safe and noble final use like that( electrical energy) for Th could arise then , sustainability should attained more easily.
  • yaz on December 13 2012 said:
    I believe that the cooling is done by regular water. The moderation is done by deuterium.
  • energy_guy on December 22 2012 said:
    jamie, this is a tiny reactor, tiny samples of material being used, nothing like the worry of a full size reactor. Halden doesn't use salts at all, just a regular graphite and water system. You can look up Halden for more details.

    The LFTR would use fluoride salts but those are pretty darn stable, they only fission U233 when in the molten form passing through the graphite moderator.

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