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Gold/Mining/Energy : Uranium Stocks

URNM 64.41

-2.0%

Oct 31 5:00 PM EST

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From: Repete	12/9/2011 10:59:05 AM
	of 30067

Very good read on the use of Thorium. Seems strange the world hasn't aggressively pursued the use of Thorium in reactors. End of the article states: Developing a thorium-based fuel cycle Thorium fuel cycles offer attractive features, including lower levels of waste generation, less transuranic elements in that waste, and providing a diversification option for nuclear fuel supply. Also, the use of thorium in most reactor types leads to significant extra safety margins. Despite these merits, the commercialization of thorium fuels faces some significant hurdles in terms of building an economic case to undertake the necessary development work. A great deal of testing, analysis and licensing and qualification work is required before any thorium fuel can enter into service. This is expensive and will not eventuate without a clear business case and government support - abundant uranium is available. Other impediments to the development of thorium fuel cycle are the higher cost of fuel fabrication* and the cost of reprocessing to provide the fissile plutonium driver material. * The high cost of fuel fabrication is due partly to the high level of radioactivity that builds up in U-233 chemically separated from the irradiated thorium fuel. Separated U-233 is always contaminated with traces of U-232 which decays (with a 69-year half-life) to daughter nuclides such as thallium-208 that are high-energy gamma emitters. Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle by making U-233 hard to handle and easy to detect, it results in increased costs. There are similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present. Nevertheless, the thorium fuel cycle offers enormous energy security benefits in the long-term – due to its potential for being a self-sustaining fuel without the need for fast neutron reactors. It is therefore an important and potentially viable technology that seems able to contribute to building credible, long-term nuclear energy scenarios. world-nuclear.org

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