Thorium Fuel Has Proliferation Risk 239
Capt.Albatross writes "Thorium has attracted interest as a potentially safer fuel for nuclear power generation. In part, this has been because of the absence of a route to nuclear weapons, but a group of British scientists have identified a path that leads to uranium-233 via protactinium-233 from irradiated thorium. The protactinium separation could possibly be done with standard lab equipment, which would allow it to be done covertly, and deliver the minimum of U233 required for a weapon in less than a year. The full article is in Nature, but paywalled."
Paywalled? (Score:5, Funny)
"The full article is in Nature, but paywalled."
Well, then there is no risk of proliferation.
Re:Paywalled? (Score:5, Funny)
It's fortunate the open access activists haven't succeeded yet. Let thank these publishers that protect national security by erecting a paywall between taxpayer funded research and the public.
Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
If global climate change is going to be as bad as some people are saying, then it makes sense to just use the damn thorium. We've been dealing with nuclear weapons for more than 70 years.
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That's not the point though. The question is: should we spend tens of billions developing thorium reactor tech and associated industries, or just carry on as we are?
To complicate matters it isn't a rational human being making the decision, it is corporation. Therefore the only relevant metric is profit. Given that they can't expect as much government subsidy if thorium can in fact proliferate that just makes thorium reactors look even more economically unattractive.
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Well, global warming is likely to impose costs in the hundreds of trillions of dollars range, and probably far, far more than that. And that's assuming it doesn't trigger WW3, which is a very real and terrifying, possibility - like we won't have enough problems without throwing a nuclear holocaust into the mix. So it probably makes sense to invest a tiny fraction of that to mitigate the damage.
Meanwhile the US alone is spending several hundred billion dollars a year to maintain and expand our military to d
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Global warming has already caused untold damages. Not from direct effects - there are none - but from its secondaries: politicians and profiteers.
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Meanwhile, the countries who were targeted by anti-proliferation measures have all either developed the bomb anyway or proven that they can do so if they choose.
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Having lost that battle, let's lower the bar of admission, and recruit ever smaller and more volatile states to join the nuclear club.
Seriously, did you snag that four digit UID on eBay?
I actually suspect that thorium proliferation is manageable enough given the potential benefits, but I won't be pressing forward at the level of analysis you seem to
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Nuclear winter is worse than global warming.
They kind of balance each other out.
So...much ado about not much (Score:5, Informative)
Still seems lower than the traditional route. And (FTA) instead of using a special facility to directly bombard/convert the thorium into fissible U233 in a short time, they just let the stuff sit for a month and decay into U233 naturally. And the article states that using the wait-to-decay method, theres also fewer/less radiotoxic byproduct, so it seems like a cheaper/safer method to start with.
They still turn it into U233, the bomb stuff. just a difference in timescale, facility and method. So there was always a weapon risk.
the whole "low prolfieration" thing just came from theoretically being able to spot the facilities doing the converting...though I think leaving the stuff sitting around and waiting for it to decay would also be theoretically somewhat simple to detect.
All in all, it seems like waiting for it to decay naturally is better, unless the ratio of fissible material is significantly worse, sufficient to outweigh the fewer toxic byproducts thing..
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A thorium reactor should generate a lot of radium, which can be detected, and easily kill anyone who isn't familiar with ventilation.
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Re:So...much ado about not much (Score:5, Informative)
Radium (88 Ra) is a solid and shouldn't be affected by ventilation. Do you mean Radon (86 Rn)?
Radium decays into radon. If you have a chunk of radium in a room, the radon gas will build up without ventilation.
Re:So...much ado about not much (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure how a lead box would be easy to detect. To get bomb level amounts would only take the space of a undergarments drawer.
Disclaimer: do not keep fissile materials in your undergarments drawer.
Re:So...much ado about not much (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer: do not keep fissile materials in your undergarments drawer.
Don't you think you should have mentioned that FIRST?
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Just what sort of superpowers are you hoping for? Actually, never mind. I don't think I want to know...
Decay can only *reduce* the atomic number (Score:3)
Natural thorium has 232 nucleons (and the trace isotopes all have even fewer), to get U233 you need to add a nucleon, probably via neutron bombardment. And since thorium is pretty stable (14 billion year half-life) you'll have to wait a *long* time for natural decay to provide much in the way of bombardment. The "wait for decay" period discussed is *after* the thorium has been irradiated to become unstable Th233, which then decays to protactinium 233 and then to U233
Sanctions (Score:5, Funny)
If the UK gets the U-233 bomb, next thing you know they will be threatening their rich, oil producing neighbor Norway. Norway will restart heavy water production for their nuclear program. France will increase their stockpiles (and make more nuclear weapons). The Germans will opt for chemical weapons. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg will offer Russia and the US military bases.
And god forbid if the Irish get ahold of a nuke covertly from the British! They'll turn Iceland into a burnt wasteland.
Time to freeze British financial transactions until they give up their nuclear research. Time to end the menace before it all gets out of control.
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Haha, you had me up until when you said the Irish would get a hold of a nuke from the British. Don't you know that the British are the people we're most likely to want to nuke?
Nice try!
Disclaimer: I have no intention of ever nuking Britain, or Iceland for that matter.
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Your parent was funny, you are not. ... since the 50s or so ... previous century, obviously.
The british have nukes
Germany and chemical weapons (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem they ran into, at Verdun, was that after chemical bombardment of the enemy you cannot tell the difference between (a) dead enemy and (b) enemy pretending to be dead until you get within accurate artillery and machine gun range.
So no, the Germans wouldn't go for chemical weapons. They would go for ballistic rockets and cruise missiles with conventional warheads, just like they did in WW2. And, back on topic, just like other Middle East countries are doing. The Iranians are far more likely to want a precision ballistic missile that can target the Knesset with a tonne or so of conventional explosive than a nuclear warhead. It is far more of a realistic bargaining tool.
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Germany signed the treaties to ban A, B and C weapons ...
Boo-ring (Score:2)
If the UK gets the U-233 bomb, next thing you know they will be threatening their rich, oil producing neighbor Norway. Norway will restart heavy water ...
Blah blah blah ... here's a version you can listen to [youtube.com] instead. You can even sing along!
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Wot no link to UK being an oil-producing nation as well?
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that's Scotland. They'll be going away soon. [guardian.co.uk], leaving England with only pain, misery, and despair.
Now it'll get research (Score:2)
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Maybe we can use the new enrichment path to create material for portable power of the satellites and rovers we want to send into space and to Mars, you know, instead of buying Plutonium-238 from the Russians, like we did with Curiosity. I mean, we increase our demand and don't fill the supply but also don't expect any nuclear "proliferation"? Just because they're rocket scientists at NASA, doesn't mean they shouldn't have a basic grasp of economics 101 too...
This has been known: (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all pretty standard and well known. It still takes hot cells and an operating reactor to do.
And, there is nothing in it that can't be done right now regardless if there are thorium fueled reactors or not. The irradiation of the thorium can be done in existing research reactors. Thorium metal is available (it's used to increase emission in electrical filaments and in the mantles of camping lanterns).
This seems mostly to be FUD.
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Hear hear, except for the dig against solar. The Earth is bathed in enough solar energy to provide for the entire world's annual consumption in about an hour. Which means even with 10% efficient cells we'd only have to cover ~1/900 of the Earths surface with solar panels to collect enough energy to power our civilization.
Thorium reactors are likely to be cheaper and more convenient though.
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Most excellent, I hope your research pans out. I'm rooting for the Polywell fusor myself, it seems to be the only tech under development with a good shot at managing p-B11 fusion and avoiding the otherwise considerable flow of neutron-bombarded waste.
You won't get any arguments from me on the ills of cities, though in fairness they tend to also reduce per-capita energy consumption significantly so they're not all bad. If we can develop a clean, dense power source then we all come out ahead, and Thorium se
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Why should living in a city refuce per capita energy consumption?
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The question is whether neutron treatment of thorium-232 is genuinely more practical than similar treatment of uranim-238. As you correctly point out, the potential exists regardless of whether a single commercial thorium reactor is ever built.
Research reactors have excellent neutron fluxes, but are not optimized for the sample volumes to make this a very efficient at converting U238. Commercial reactors have large volumes but terrible neutron fluxes. The produce a good amount of plutonium in a reasonabl
However (Score:3, Interesting)
Breeding U-233 from thorium always creates enough highly radioactive U-232 that makes it unusable for weapon uses, and due to the very close atomic weight is incredibly diffuclt to remove. Random fissions during either assembly of a gun-type weapon or even an implosion mean that you're far more likely to end up with a "fizzle" (very low yield) due to starting the chain reaction too soon, than to get the actual yield that the weapon was designed for. And since the material is so dangerous to handle, the workers who have to put the thing together and maintain it are quite likely to die quickly, as will the electronics necessary to fire the weapon.
Re:However (Score:5, Informative)
Read TFA.
Most U-233 that comes out of a reactor is formed by protactinium-233 decay.
While U-232 and U-233 are nearly impossible to separate (which is why Thorium has been considered to be proliferation-resistant), protactinium-233 is very easy to separate chemically, and leads to nearly pure U-233.
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First of all, this is nothing new, it was covered here [blogspot.com] last year:
Specifically "However looking at the aspects of protactinium separation, I'm wondering if this could be a hole in the process which would allow for much lower U-232. U-232 is the daughter product of Pa-232 just as U-233 is the daugher [sic] of Pa-233. Pa-233 has a half-life of 26.9 days but Pa-232 is only 1.3 days."
They also say "protactinium is not easy to remove from molten salts." and "In a 2 Fluid design we can lower losses to Pa down to a
Still need to separate Pa 232 from Pa233 (Score:2)
Read TFA.
Most U-233 that comes out of a reactor is formed by protactinium-233 decay.
While U-232 and U-233 are nearly impossible to separate (which is why Thorium has been considered to be proliferation-resistant), protactinium-233 is very easy to separate chemically, and leads to nearly pure U-233.
As mentioned in a comment to TFA, U-232 comes from Pa232. U-233 comes from PA 233. So, in order to get only U-233 out you would seem to need to separate Pa233 from Pa232. Aside from (maybe) less gamma exposure, that should be no easier than separating U232 from U233.
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Which is why the non-paywalled article specifically says they extract protactinium and leave the U232 and U233, which is fairly easy to do, and then let the protactinium decay to fissile U233. The problem I see is reactors like LFTR as well as small IFRs at best generate a 1.07:1 neutron ratio, which is just barely enough to produce excess protactinium that will not be later needed to provide fissionable material to sustain the reaction. Also both LFTR and IFR require nuclear bomb grade seed fissile materia
Vacuum tubes (Score:2)
Years ago we were looking for an ultra-reliable thyristor with very fast response and thought we had found it in a US manufacturer's catalog - but the result of contacting them was an unexpected phone call from someone who sounded very suspicious, and we never did manage to source them. Later I found out they were for bomb triggers in MAD nukes and were very rad-hard. (With a
ZOMG! (Score:2)
There's risk??? That's a four letter word! Kill it with fire!
(Meanwhile uranium reactors are around *because* they could make bomb material.)
Believe It Or Not, Discussed on Slashdot Before (Score:3)
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Risk vs certainty (Score:4, Insightful)
There may be a risk of nuclear weapons proliferation if we replace fossil fuels with nuclear. But if we don't, there is a damned certainty that the climate will continue changing faster than it ever has in the history of the human species. We are at the beginning of a global extinction event that has a very good chance of causing our own extinction. Nuclear weapons are barely a minor concern comparatively.
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And next thing you know, North Korea and Pakistan will have nukes! Oh, wait.
FWIW, I don't agree with your premise, but all those who do agree with your premise ought to agree with your conclusion. You'll notice they don't, though. There's more to gain for them by suppressing nuclear power and taxing carbon emissions, so that's how it'll be (for as long as people support their authority, anyhow).
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all those who do agree with your premise ought to agree with your conclusion. You'll notice they don't, though
Story of my life...
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Yeah, I don't get the big deal. Just station a garrison in every nuclear plant if you're paranoid, and a UN watch team if you must. The cost of doing that is likely trivial compared to the cost from stuff like lung cancer from coal soot, let alone nuclear proliferation.
Just build efficient breeder reactors and do whatever makes the most sense economically, and do it under high security.
People argue that it isn't possible to secure nuclear reactors, and that is just nonsense. We secure actual nuclear weap
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Doh!
s/let alone nuclear proliferation/let alone rising sea levels/
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and do it under high security.
This can go one of several ways: First option, we operate our generating facilities under the supervision of the US government, with police and/or military troops responsible for the requisite security. Not likely in the USA or other 'free market' economy. Even if the plant operations were handled by private business and the public were to provide the police force, the operator would not tolerate the required restrictions on their operations (not being able to hire the boss' idiot security risk nephew, for
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And yet, we would stop building safe nuke reactors because of some group of idiots that scream about everything.
I swear, between the far right extremists of the world (Al Qaeda, America's Rep
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Being torn into bite-sized chunks from mere pressure simply isn't scary, you see, whereas being instantly cooked away is.
If I've got to die, I'd rather it be by snu-snu.
For those of you wanting to make a bomb (Score:2)
I say, lets give it to AQ and other terrorists. We simply require that they pick it up themselves. They will not get too far, and it is detectable.
Phew! (Score:2)
Not news, not since 1946 (Score:2)
This isn't really news. The original version of the Smyth Report mentioned research into using Thorium. The second edition deleted that paragraph. It was the only notable change from edition to edition. We're pretty sure the KGB noticed the change and went, like, "Hmmmmm...".
Um, in a simple word no (Score:5, Informative)
U233 created in a thorium reactor will be poisoned with U232 at about 0.4 percent (very dependent on design, but this is an good example of the kind of mix you will see). Even if you segment the protactinium, you are still going to have some U232 in the mix. This can not be chemically separated, and separating the isotopes of something that is hot borders on the insane. U232 has a decay chain that emits a 2.9 MeV gamma ray, and its pretty hot as far as how fast it will decay (Half life of 69 years if I remember right). It decays to Th-228 and in like 2 years into Ti-208 + nasty gamma. Very nasty stuff that will really ruin your day, and any electronics in your nuclear weapon in a hurry. You would be stupid to pick this as a nuclear fuel for a weapon, when you could just make plutonium like anyone with any sense would do. You just put some natural uranium in neutron flux of a light water reactor, wait a month or so, and separate the plutonium. Simple well known technology that works, not some crazy possibility that some PhD dreamed up because he wants to prove a point. Sure you could do it, if your an idiot who wants to make your life really hard and you have a death wish.
Also if you are running a thorium breeder reactor you are running so close to break even on neutrons so if you remove Uranium from the cycle your ability to maintain reactor criticality will disappear. Also you have the same problem if you try and use the neutron flux to make plutonium it wouldn't work. Thorium reactors are shitty for making bombs, that is why we don't have them even though they are awesome technology that would solve so many energy problems. Thorium has little risk of being used to make bombs, and if someone is idiotic enough to do it they will die of gamma poisoning way before they have enough fuel for bombs.
We'll still get to Thorium, like it or not (Score:2)
Because:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Reserve_estimates [wikipedia.org]
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That would be most of the population. The religious nutters are a small percentage.
Re:stone age (Score:4, Funny)
And Canada/Mexico doesn't want any of them.
Re:Carpet Bomb Great Britain? (Score:4, Funny)
If you beer isn't nausea-inducing you're not drinking enough... or it's just flavoured water.
Guessing you're American it's probably the latter.
And how very dare you call us mostly harmless!!? Where's my pen...
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You do not need religious just fanatics will do.
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No, I think you actually need religious with the whole afterlife thing.
Re:So, who is partying (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, because there never was a movement such as Russian style Communism where a tremendous number of people who didn't believe in a personal afterlife were willing to die because of the projected benefits to future generations. There's never been a war fought to a Pyrrhic victory, where both sides didn't have religion to cause it, so there never was a Mongol horde or an Ottoman empire. No persons who don't believe in an afterlife have ever been fanatics, and if we just stuff all the believers into one big oven there won't be any fanaticism any more. Right. And you have title to this bridge in Brooklyn where a Nigerian prince has a hidden fortune....
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Right, because there never was a movement such as Russian style Communism where a tremendous number of people who didn't believe in a personal afterlife were willing to die because of the projected benefits to future generations.
Were all those people in the Gulag willing to die, or made to die? How about the Ukrainian Genocide?
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It'd still need to be nation-state fanatics however. Ashley et al. did point out the need for neutron bombardment for this pathway - so you'll need some sort of existing reactor/neutron source. Now there are a lot of those things around, but not many in the exclusive control of non-nation-state fanatics. However, thorium is a heck of a lot easier to get a hold of versus traditional weapon source material, and this proposed conversion removes a lot of complicated barriers to entry from the lab side.
From t
Re:So, who is partying (Score:5, Informative)
there was always a weapons risk, cause the thorium still goes to U233. The idea they couldnt make bombs from it wasnt really that they couldnt make bombs, but that they couldnt HIDE that they were doing it cause of the facilities needed to convert the thorium into fuel (in theory....in reality, how hard is it to bury construction). The ratio of source to fuel is still pretty high though (233:1 !!), so you still need lots of room to store it while it decays naturally. Seems like you'd still want to bury it/hide it (leaving construction tell tales) as just leaving it in a random warehouse to decay would be easily detectable by any radiological sniffers.
So really not much changes with this new information. Except for the fat that letting it decay naturally has fewer toxic byproducts, which seems like a win regardless.
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It is the main source of radiation from coal being burned but coal is not necessarily the best source of it. It is found in granite and in deposits with rare earth elements as well.
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From what I see they are often not religious - they may pretend to be religious and use religious fanatics as tools and pawns. But they are in no hurry to die and see Allah- they are having a good time on Earth.
Using nukes would mean the end of the nice life for them, so they'd only do that if they are going to lose that lifestyle anyway. Having nukes makes the USA less likely to back them into such a corner.
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Excuse for what? You need go back less than 100 years to see them with a democratically elected president (that we overthrew and installed a king... over oil) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [wikipedia.org]
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Well define offensively? Would they use it as a first strike weapon against one of their neighbors? Probably not.
But what if the Palestinians somehow good enough weapons and training to take out their army? I'm not so sure the Israeli government wouldn't consider nuking them in that case.
Re:This has been known (Score:5, Informative)
that should have been
The US detonated a U-233 bomb in Operation Teapot "MET" in 1955. The U-233 was bred from thorium.
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It wasn't a pure U-233 weapon though, but a U-233/Pu-239 one.
Re:What does this have to do with Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
News for nerds, stuff that matters. Not news for zealots, stuff that might matter.
Mind you, they occasionally fail at the former, but this isn't one of those cases. It's news for nerds, and it matters.
Re:What does this have to do with Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
News for nerds, stuff that matters. Not news for zealots, stuff that might matter.
Mind you, they occasionally fail at the former, but this isn't one of those cases. It's news for nerds, and it matters.
Yeah, that whole science thing. Not for nerds - amirite?
News for nerds! (Score:4)
So...
You aren't a nerd unless your focus is computers?
You can't be ... ... a materials design nerd? ... a neuroscience nerd? ... a genetic design nerd? ... an atomic reaction nerd? ... a political relations nerd? ... a food preparation (or consumption) nerd?
Google tells me:
1) A foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious: "one of those nerds who never asked a girl to dance".
2) An intelligent, single-minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession.
I find it interesting that a nerd of (a popular) discipline don't want to share this blog with nerds of other (perhaps less popular, or less represented) disciplines. Perhaps it has to do with pride in wearing the label.
Re:News for nerds! (Score:4)
People who want everyone else to go elsewhere should go elsewhere. Slashdot has metrics and studies that tell them how many of their nerd followers are computer types - they know there's demand for this sort of article - and they know how few people would visit the site if everyone followed your advice. You're basically demanding something that, if you got it, would shut the site down so in the end you wouldn't get anything. That's not veiled criticism - you're the kind of idiot who wants to fly to the moon on gossamer wings and pitches a little baby tantrum at the people trying to tell him he would suffocate. Leave, please!
Re:What does this have to do with Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
Also I was under the impression getting 233 from a thorium reactor was rather old news, and the gamma emissions would ruin your day if you actually tried to build a bomb with it.
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Does this increase the risks of Thorium reactors? (Score:2)
From the sound of it this proliferation chain could be readily accessed by irradiating chunks of thorium with *any* reactor - for example by using thorium instead of lead to shield the core, or perhaps doping the control rods with it. And since thorium is a very common metal available everywhere in the world, often as waste from other mining operations. I don't really see how using it as fuel would increase the proliferation risk substantially. Well, perhaps by allowing third parties to steal partially sp
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"Thorium is the only thing standing between us and heat death."
What about Fusion ?
Thats in the Far future
There is a working fusion reactor only about 8 minutes away.
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That would be light minutes which is a unit of length not time.
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Well, everything's moving so obviously it has to be wireless transmission, but the good news is that the current transmitter already bathes the Earth in enough power to supply our entire annual energy consumption in about an hour. The only real problem is that our current receivers are expensive and inefficient.
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You go ahead and rig up efficient receivers and call us when you get it done
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How long does it hold its fusion reaction? 10 milli seconds?
How much energy does it yield in relation to input? Likely less than you had to put into it.
How much neutron radiation does it produce? Can you even stand nearby when the fusion reaction is running?
Re:We don't have any choice (Score:4, Insightful)
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All someone has to say in a hearing about loosening the proliferation grip is "terrorist". Then its game over.
Sad world we live in.
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If the country already has nuclear weapons in its possession why do we need to bother with such concerns?
I think the worst case scenario people worry about is that a rogue state or group with loads of nuclear weapons might decide to use the threat of deploying the WMD to blackmail other countries. A weird but scary scenario could be North Korea causing huge environmental damage in the region at the expense of countless civilian deaths in their own territory if they are not given money or whatever their dictator asks for.
The other scary scenario would be some ultra-religious leader being pushed into a situatio
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Thermal plasmas with Z=2 die of Bremsstrahlung (Score:3)
Under likely laboratory conditions, that is.
I like the idea of aneutronic fusion, I really like it a lot, but a theoretician has apparently shown it to be impossible to realize. Why? He did some calculations and figured out that the energy loss in a reasonably-sized thermal plasma from Bremsstrahlung radiation, which is a function of the atomic weight of the atoms in the plasma, causes too much energy loss to be sustained by fusing nuclei. The plasma radiates its heat away too fast, and you can't stop th
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Tell that to the Australians.
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Anything can become weaponized if you work hard enough. It is the cost of purity that drives the difficulty.
Bunnies can't.
Well, that's no ordinary bunny; That's the most foul, cruel and bad tempered rodent you ever set eyes on! Look, that bunny's got a vicious streak a mile wide- It's a killer! He's got huge sharp-- er, He can leap abou-- ... Look at the Bones! [youtube.com]
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I don't think the risk is a state.
Even the pretty darn irrational like Iran and DPRK leadership are rational enough to understand MAD. Anyone in charge of an installed government is in a pretty good spot, and won't want to screw it up. Saddam Husein being a note worthy exception; he could have saved himself easily even after 911 by just throwing open the doors and letting Weapons inspectors do whatever they like, it would have let the air out of the US position.
Most likely its the case Ahmadinejad likes b
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