Why Thorium Nuclear Power Is Inevitable
Patrick Cox of Breakthrough Technology Alert wrote about the nuclear renaissance just a few months back, before the Japanese tsunami brought such negative attention to nuclear:
Today, we’re experiencing what has been termed the “Nuclear Renaissance.” There are two aspects to this. One is domestic. The other is international, but related to the first because U.S. politics affects the ability of American companies to export nuclear technologies and products…
There is no energy shortage. The world abounds with easily accessible nuclear fuels. What we have is a shortage of common sense. If not for the anti-nuclear movement, we would be several generations ahead in the technology. Energy would be abundant and far cheaper.
“The nuclear renaissance is dead,” writes Agora Financial managing editor Chris Mayer in his Capital & Crisis newsletter.
“Long live the nuclear renaissance!” insists your Whiskey editor.
“…Eventually…” he sheepishly adds, “and just not with uranium…”
Or as Patrick Cox Patrick Cox recently put it:
The biggest long-term impact from the tsunami, beyond the incredible personal losses experienced by so many Japanese, will probably be on the nuclear power debate. In the short term, we’ll see opposition to nuclear grow. In the long term, however, I think it is going to be very good for thorium nuclear power.
Sadly things are not going nuclear’s way just now. Like a man photographed walking out of a brothel, nuclear will require some fast-talking to save its reputation.
Chris Mayer counters Patrick’s optimism:
No one can say what the effects of the Japan disaster will have on the nuclear industry. It’s too early. But we can guess. My guess is that the nuclear industry has just been dealt another major setback akin to Three Mile Island. Japan alone makes up 11% of the world’s demand for uranium. I suspect it will use less in the future.
I suspect many of the plants in Europe, both planned and existing, are in jeopardy. I think some of the reactors on the drawing board will die on the drawing board. The whole process of developing nuclear energy will slow. The industry will feel the chill from Japan for years. That’s my guess.
The facts won’t matter. Look at what happened in the Gulf after BP’s oil spill. All drilling ceased. It didn’t matter what your safety record was. And even now, drilling permits are incredibly difficult to come by.
Of course Chris likely has the right of it for now. The near-term outlook for uranium stocks may indeed be very dim (but Chris has a wealth of other investing options set to make more gains).
But nuclear itself remains the most promising source of clean, abundant (read: “cheap”) energy. We’re going to have to use it if we want to be able to afford to keep the lights, the air conditioning, heating, laborsaving appliances and computers on.
The nuclear you knew and love — the one based on uranium — may be down and out…but there’s another nuclear on its way. And it looks to be unstoppable. If you’re wondering what how this new nuclear will be different, Patrick Cox has the answer:
The answer is the clearly superior fuel, thorium.
Thorium is far more abundant than usable uranium. Thorium reactors produce far less waste products that are much less hazardous…Thorium nuclear power generation is inevitable. The problems demonstrated with Japanese water reactors will, I believe, hasten the transition.
The biggest problem with nuclear energy isn’t safety, according to a recent Washington Post article; it’s the cost.
“Concerns about safety lead to extensive regulatory approval processes and add uncertainty to plant developers’ calculations — both of which boost the price of financing new nuclear plants.”
Far be it from us to bash costly and ultimately useless regulation. Let’s instead look at the bright side…
“It’s not clear how much these construction costs would fall if safety fears subsided and the financing became cheaper — and after the Fukushima catastrophe, we’re unlikely to find out.”
It seems the article writer has little appreciation for the demand for cheap energy or for thorium’s ability to eliminate the dangers inherent in uranium use.
A lot of people will change their tune about nuclear when they see just how expensive other energy sources can get…and when they realize how needless their fear of nuclear really is, especially when it comes to thorium power.
Regards,
Gary Gibson
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
March 23, 2011
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Gary Gibson
Gary Gibson is the managing editor for Whiskey and Gunpowder. He joins the Whiskey staff as a long-time fan and reader of both Whiskey and Gunpowder and the Daily Reckoning. A graduate of Fordham University, Gary now spends his days reading about and writing on limited government, sound money, personal responsibility and resource investing.
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Sir:
The success of nuclear energy may best be measured by asking a simple question: How many reactors has the private sector built? My understanding is that the answer is zero. Private enterprise has never built a nuclear plant. Absent government loan guarantees, government funded insurance and extensive government supported R&D there will never be a thorium reactor built in the U.S. either.
How does a free market fan justify support for a technology that the private sector has refused to invest in and build? if these things make economic sense they will be built without government investment or government supported research and insured by private insurance companies. If the private sector won’t build these things they have no future.
That’s not a fair argument.
It is not possible for the private sector to build a thorium reactor in the USA, I am quite certain that it is already regulated and prohibited even for R &D.
In the USA you’d have to go through the entire process for a real industrial uranium plant just to build an R & D reactor on a much smaller scale.
When the economy and society are already centrally planned, pointing to the lack of a free market solution is not in any way an indication of a failure of the market or product, it is a symptom of the central planners and their control.
david-
then is the answer still more central planning to promote thorium reactors?
The primary point stands: private enterprise has never built a nuclear reactor of any kind in the U.S. or anywhere else. When the cost of disposal of the waste products is factored into the cost of construction the economics just do not work. No one understands this better than the electric utilities.
[...] Why Thorium Nuclear Power Is Inevitable [...]
if one believes in an unending supply of inexpensive coal, oil and natural gas, hey, forget nukes. Same if one believes that wind units and solar will ever provide a plenitude of electricity. Ah, yes, life as we know it will continue, forever and ever, Amen.
But if one looks ahead to an ever-declining amount of inexpensive sources of energy, the comparative costs of nukes will make them competitive.
And one thing about nukes: No CO2 or particulates into the atmosphere. Those who believe in Globular Worming and less-polluted air are de facto pro-nuke, whether or not they believe it.
I have a web site where I research penny stocks and stocks under ten dollars. I have many years of experience with these type of stocks. I still like the idea of buying stocks involved in nuclear energy even after the nuclear problems in japan after the earth quake. this is still the most viable alternative to coal oil or anything else it is also the cheapest form of energy that you can use to produce electricity. you can now buy stocks in the nuclear energy business at a discount.
Nuke plants have never turned a profit in the 50+ years of existance. From inception to completion there is a vast hoard of politicians and government lackies waiting to create various organizations to oversee every phase of a plants operation, the price is just tacked onto the utilities expense.
This is to ensure “public safety” but in reality it is just a job creation exercise for the civil service. When you compare the safety record of US aircraft carriers and submarines to public run disasters like Chernobyl or the Japanese screw up you find an excellent example of government incompetance and obfuscation.
Actually this technology is nothing new and has and is being used today look it up!The reactors in the ships are of this technology and there is a plant that has been using this for a number of years on the east coast.The thing is the gubmnt fights it because it solves one problem that is it gets rid of the spent fuel rods to fire up this kind of plant.They don’t need plutonium so the making of bombs will be the only thing that they will use it for.This type of system is safe and a small plant can run a city for ten years.And it can be buried under ground with only a small radiator above ground and nothing in it can be used to make a bomb.So know need for all the security.Tons of ships and subs are already using these small plants with know side effects!
Dan az,
There is no fully running thorium reactor in the world. Naval ships use enriched uranium reactors. No thorium. This technology is old, but the research for it that was going on in the 60′s was shut down to proceed with reactors relying on u235. Since then there has not been any highly funded research on using strictly thorium in a reactor.
The future of thorium most likely lies in the use of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) which was what was being worked on at ORNL in the 60′s before funding was cut.
Thorium Miracle Fuel
China promises in U-tube video, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UT2yYs5YJs ) a Thorium fissioning plant – safer, cleaner, plutonium free, and with waste safe after only three hundred years storage – by 2017. Will they “Retail” these to U.S.A.? They say No! And insist they will be used to build the Pan Eurasian Alliances into a very different “Empire” (engineered, with population control, breeding control) on their own continent? Imagine great agricultural regions supported by water desalinated and pumped by Thorium power – found in the sand of the Gobi desert, and all over India! More plentiful and much easier to handle than Uranium, enriched uranium, or plutonium bearing wastes, such as pollute the U.S.A. today. All over the world Science advances are being made that will make Solar, Wave, Wind, Hydro, Tidal, Geothermal, and Thorium fission electricity sources more accommodating to mankind’s demands. Few of these methodologies will support the American Dream – a fleeting fiction, realized only in America and only due to the ‘Cheap Oil Era’ there.
American Dream unsustainability personified! McMansions, Foreclosure imminent, and beyond the American arm-pit’s ability to earn! As crazy as the Hummer, nearly as nuts as long holidays in foreign countries: in an America on the cusp of economic collapse. Obama/Romney election campaign places America at a cross roads – both roads leading to economic collapse. Debts to China alone, far too high, Debts to Japan – still standing! Military costs far too high and yet Israel willing to commit Americans to war in Iran? Insane, until you realize they are the world’s fifth largest armaments suppliers? Thorium: even acknowledgment by the American Nuclear Establishment refused.