SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future (MacSci)

Please read this book. You may not agree with everything Martin writes (I don't). You may even want to scream at him (I did a couple of times). But this book is a very good opener for a discussion on an important subject that few are familar with. Equally important, if the proponents of the liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) are essentially right this technology offers an important contribution (not a panacea) to solving the energy crisis and aleviating global warming.This is not exactly a balanced book. Richard Martin is advocating for the thorium-based technology and makes no bones about it. At the same time, he does not ignore the problems of this technology (although to my taste he minimizes some of them, about which more below), and he makes a reasonable effort to be fair to competing views.The historical chapters are illuminating. If you have wondered how we ended up burning increasing amounts of fossil fuel sixty-odd years after we were hyperbolically promised "electricity too cheap to meter", Martin will show you. The technical chapters are good considering that this is a book for the general public and more detail is available in the blogosphere. The last chapters, which discuss present business activity and future prospects, are up-to-date and present a convincing case for allocating resources to the (re)development of this technology. Success is by no means guaranteed, but at this point I would rather see a couple of billions going into LFTRs than into fusion or (heavens) into "clean" coal.Now here are things I'm not so crazy about (but you should read the book anyway!). First off, I think Martin does not fully acknowledge the fact that thorium technology, while much "greener" than the uranium/plutonium technology, still generates a lot of fission nuclear waste. It is true that most of these radioactive isotopes are relatively short-lived and will be essentially gone in a few centuries. However, there is still the danger, in an untested design, of an uncontrolled release into the environment. Especially in a high-temperature reactor, some volatile species (xenon, iodine, volatile fluorides of tin and antimony etc.) may be released accidentally if there is a gaseous leak (the author does mention repeatedly how the gaseous Xe-135 isotope will be separated and removed). This brings me to another de-emphasized issue: potential corrosion of metals in contact with hot liquid salts, if any oxygen finds its way in. There may be good technical solutions to this but I didn't see them mentioned in this book and I sure hope the issue is not being pushed under the rug. For these and related reasons I would call LFTR "greenish" at best, not "green" as the cover would have it.I think Martin appreciates - but I hope the various fire-breathing investors he interviewed do too - that after Fukushima there is little chance for this technology to take off without the buy-in of the environmental community and the wider public. That's why all relevant issues have to be addressed squarely and without PR legerdemain, and in any development plan the safety of the public and the workers has to be - and to be shown to be - truly "Job 1". This is why I object to two ideas that Martin seems to find appealing: (1) small stand-alone reactors, and (2) giving one man (following the model of General Groves in the Manhattan project) absolute authority over the project. The first idea will make inspection more difficult and will increase the chances that skilled personell for performing emergency operations will not be available at all times. (Banks of many modular reactors sharing a site should be OK however.) The second idea was workable in time of war, but is inconsistent with democracy and will cause deep suspicions toward the project. People who care should also watch against the established nuclear industry trying to "greenwash" themselves by sprinkling a little thorium into their conventional fuel rods.There is much more to say about this book. It is well and persuasively written but not so well edited, and it's not hard to find factual mistakes: potassium has 3 natural isotopes, not one (p.36); most but not all materials expand when heated (p.73); the boiling point of the fluoride salts used by Weinberg must have been way above 680 degrees F (p.129); and the 1960s were obviously Weinberg's, not Weinberger's heyday (p.132). A nuclear engineer would probably have his/her own list.So, this is not the "perfect" thorium book. But read it anyway. It is well worth a few TV-less evenings.

The author, Richard Martin, writes for Wired magazine. He began writing about Thorium in 2009. The book appears to have been published in late spring of 2012. The central theme to the book could be stated as an anti-thesis of the better mousetrap bromide. He attempts to answer the frequent question-- If it so good, why aren't we doing it already? The answer is that the better mousetrap doesn't always get the crowd beating their way to your doorstep after all.Super Fuel is all about energy, our choices, and how they get made. Thorium has a better "burnup" than Uranium, which means it's a more efficient fuel. So, how did this not get recognized? But it did, and the explanation for why this energy wasn't adopted is not so easy to explain.It's not about ideology- but politics plays a big role. He goes after the left and the right in this book. For example, he says renewables just aren't good enough. That may make the left mad. Then he slams the military industrial complex, which could make the right mad. But there's plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the political divide.Just what exactly is Thorium anyway? It is only one of many radioactive elements just like Uranium. It just so happens that some of the finest minds of the world who combined for Manhattan Project seemed to like its potential as an energy source. But, it can't be used for a bomb. With the addition of a neutron, it can be transmuted into an artificial isotope of Uranium. For that reason, it is said to be fertile- it can be bred. In this way, it works really well as a "breeder", but not the same kind of "fast-breeder" that has failed in those other designs. It's a different kind of breeder- a thermal breeder. It works best with a molten-salt liquid-core, instead of the conventional water-cooled, solid-fueled core most often seen today.How the best minds of the world couldn't convince the government to take this route is a troubling phenomenon. It seems to come down to the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers of the time. The military needed a quick and dirty way to make submarines that could stay out at sea for very long periods. Hence, the nuclear powered submarine was born and the kind of reactor that filled the need was the water-cooled, solid-fueled type reactor. In short, this kind of reactor "got there firstest with the mostest."The rivalry between science and the military were personified in two people-- Alvin Weinberg, the innovative scientist, and Admiral Rickover, the father of the atomic sub. The author tells much of the story through these two men. Weinberg loses out because he is seen as a malcontent, who associated with the likes of Ralph Nader. On the other hand, Rickover gave the government, and the military, what it wanted. The rest, as they say, is history.But now we have the situation as it stands today. The nuclear sub paved the way for conventional water-cooled, solid-fueled reactors. The molten-salt reactor concept was almost lost forever, as it was forgotten about. The eminent generation of nuclear scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project eventually passed away. There was nobody left to continue their work, but notes and books of what they did some forty years before was still available.Now there's Kirk Sorensen and others who have stepped up to the plate and are trying to redress what has gone wrong. The story is brought up to date to the present time with the present cast of innovator and dreamers.How to go forward? Martin lays out a way. It is not impossible, but history has shown that the better mousetrap is not always the one that is the most popular at the moment. The warning given by the Thorium advocates is that the we must do it, or allow leadership in energy to pass on to others who will develop Thorium energy instead. The dreamers still believe in America. America was once a place where great things could happen. It remains to be seen if it is still that kind of country.

I've been opposed to nuclear power for many years (since the 1970s). My opposition was due to:• the risk of catastrophic incidents at production sites,• the scope for nuclear fuels to be enriched by maverick states or terrorists wanting to create nuclear weapons, and• the need to store ever increasing quantities of highly toxic nuclear waste for centuries to come.Recently someone asked if I'd heard of thorium and, as I hadn't, I decided to check it and started by reading this well-written and very readable book by Richard Martin.Thorium is a radioactive element which is apparently far more abundant than uranium, lends itself to sustainable nuclear power generation, is very difficult to enrich for destructive purposes, is intrinsically safe (in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors), and can actually use stockpiled nuclear waste as a nuclear fuel, producing far smaller quantities of less toxic waste in the process. It is also a waste product in the mining of rare earth metals.It's become clear to me that my long-standing reservations about nuclear power were out of date and misplaced. My ideological preconceptions regarding the threats and risks of old nuclear technology had closed my mind to considering the opportunities and benefits of new nuclear technology. I would urge all long-term opponents of nuclear power to revisit the subject by reading this book and, if time permits, Nuclear 2.0 by Mark Lynas and Thorium Energy Cheaper than Coal by Robert Hargraves.I'm now convinced that new nuclear technology has a crucial role to play in dealing with climate change. In fact, I can't see how any strategy to address climate change will stand any chance of success without it. "Old nuclear" has rightly been talked down for a long time, but "new nuclear" is something very different and needs talking up. It isn't the current nuclear model updated, it's a different model altogether - different reactors with different fuels. A safer, cleaner, sustainable model capable of generating home-produced power at a fraction of the cost by burning fossil fuels - as I understand it, so cheaply that the huge capital costs can be recovered by the investors whilst still significantly reducing energy costs for the consumer. I also understand that, with thorium, the nuclear generating process can produce hydrogen - a far more practical fuel for motor vehicles than electricity. Cheaper power, energy security, reduced carbon emissions, sustainability, safer reactors, less toxic waste, no risk of enrichment - plus a fuel source for motor transport. It ticks all the boxes.

Growing up in the 1950's was to be surrounded by stories about a future in which every home had its own nuclear reactor: small, quiet, clean, inexhaustible: a far cry from the intermittency of noisy wind or water turbines and glittery solar panels feeding banks of lead-acid batteries, and not involving huge engineering of forests or shoreline.The thorium power system has the potential to fulfil the visions of my childhood: the fuel is abundant and the LFTR reactor technology with which it is associated uses the fuel very efficiently. Any rational person has to ask why it's not the front runner in our decarbonising energy supply. I expected this book to provide a balanced overview of the technology, to explain why only visionary countries like India and China are engaging in research towards using thorium, and to provide strong suggestions of what needs to be done.What I got for my ten pounds was basically the story of the people who have over the years been involved in thorium-232 as an energy source. this is of course very much the idiom of modern science writing, an attempt to make science and technology seem more human. But compared with, for example, David Mackay's "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air" it's lightweight. Well written, yes, but short of the substance to construct an industry changing case.Make no mistake, promoting thorium technology as an important decarboniser in the USA and Europe is a hard struggle against two vested interests. The opponents of any nuclear power are in one corner, though these days the number is shrinking as even the big environmental organisations see the enormity of the gaps in future energy provision solely from renewables, and the adverse environmental consequences of this path. More important is the existing uranium based nuclear power industry, strongly bolstered by the connections with weapons. It is this second story which needs muck-raking exposure, the influence and manipulation entailed in keeping uranium going. And thorium badly needs strong political and industrial champions.

If you care about global warming and sustainability read this book.This is the captivating story of radioactivity and nuclear power (from nuclear bombs to electric power generation) since WWII's Manhattan Project to the present day. It describes how and why the modern world ended up with the potentially dangerous (accidents like Chernobyl or terrorism) uranium based nuclear power generation, and advocates the development of the MUCH safer thorium fission process by western governments. Thorium fission provides the 100 year bridge between a fossil fuel economy and a nuclear fusion one (a Star Trek utopia...?) - forget wind turbines, solar power, wave power, biofuels etc. these don't have the umphf for present day energy consumption let alone the future.The first two sections give an introduction to radioactivity science/engineering and the political/historical story. The last section although interesting is biased towards a USA political movement, but thorium fission is relevant to the whole world.

Just about to finish this book,First thing, it's a good read and very well written covering quite a technical field he explains some quite complex systems in a way the lay person can understand.Also his history lesson is telling but he doesn't labour the points in a negative way, it really was a different world back in the 50's and 60's. The Military Industrial complex was really taking hold and this drove nuclear power.The politics shown are all too real and you get to understand how huge interests can kill a new technology, wether the USA can be changed to take a lead in this new technology remains to be seen.Read the book, there is an alternative,but who will benefit? I have no idea.

I first heard of nuclear reactors based on thorium some years ago and having worked for a company called Atomic Power Construction in the late 1960's on helical boilers I was was immediately interested and wanting to learn more was prompted to buy this book by a reference in a work of fiction I was reading. I have now read it and will probably do more reading on the subject in the future. From what I have understood from the book I am surprised that we have not yet started to build the first power stations of this type bearing in mind the advantage of the relatively short half life of the waste products.I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the subject and a possible better way ahead in generating energy.