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Thorium nuclear power – not so great, really

Today, advocates of thorium typically point to a variety of advantages over uranium. These include fail-safe reactor operation, because most thorium reactor designs are incapable of an explosion or meltdown, as was seen at Chernobyl or Fukushima. Another is resistance to weapons proliferation, because thorium reactors create byproducts that make the fuel unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons.Other advantages include greater abundance of natural reserves of thorium, less radioactive waste and higher utilisation of fuel in thorium reactors. Thorium is often cast as “good nuclear”, while uranium gets to carry the can as “bad nuclear”.

Not so different

While compelling at first glance, the details reveal a somewhat more murky picture. The molten salt architecture which gives certain thorium reactors high intrinsic safety equally applies to proposed fourth-generation designs using uranium. It is also true that nuclear physics technicalities make thorium much less attractive for weapons production, but it is by no means impossible; the USA and USSR each tested a thorium-based atomic bomb in 1955.

Other perceived advantages similarly diminish under scrutiny. There is plenty of uranium ore in the world and hence the fourfold abundance advantage of thorium is a moot point. Producing less long-lived radioactive waste is certainly beneficial, but the vexed question remains of how to deal with it.

Stating that thorium is more efficiently consumed is the most mischievous of the claimed benefits. Fast-breeder uranium reactors have much the same fuel efficiency as thorium reactors. However, they weren’t economic as the price of uranium turned out to rather low.

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May 19, 2018 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, Reference, thorium | Leave a comment

Disadvantages of thorium reactors

High start-up costs: Huge investments are needed for thorium nuclear power reactor, as it requires significant amount of testing, analysis and licensing work. Also, there is uncertainty over returns on the investments in these reactors. For utilities, this factor can weigh on the decisions to go ahead with plans to deploy the reactors. The reactors also involve high fuel fabrication and reprocessing costs.

High melting point of thorium oxide: As melting point of thorium oxide is much higher compared to that of uranium oxide, high temperatures are needed to make high density ThO2 and ThO2–based mixed oxide fuels. The fuel in nuclear fission reactors is usually based on the metal oxide.

Emission of gamma rays: Presence of Uranium-232 in irradiated thorium or thorium based fuels in large amounts is one of the major disadvantages of thorium nuclear power reactors. It can result in significant emissions of gamma rays. http://www.compelo.com/energy/news/newsmajor-pros-and-cons-of-thorium-nuclear-power-reactor-6058445/

May 19, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, thorium | Leave a comment

Swizerland’s Health Office recalls jewellery contaminated with radioactive thorium and uranium

Radioactive jewellery recalled in Switzerland  swissinfo, 7 May 18 A Swiss company has sold esoteric “negative-ion” jewellery containing high levels of uranium and thorium. The Federal Office of Public Health has written to people who have bought the jewellery, telling them to send it to the health office.

Health office spokesman Daniel Dauwalder on Monday confirmed media reports that an unnamed company had imported rock powder from China with levels of the two radioactive substances that were harmful for skin cells and the outer skin layer.

The health office said if the bracelets, necklaces and earrings were worn for several hours a day over a year, the skin’s dose threshold of 50 millisieverts could be exceeded. In the long term, the risk of skin cancer would increase, it added.

….The radioactive rock powder was discovered by German customs guards, who informed the Federal Office of Public Health.

Dauwalder said the office had already received many items of jewellery, which would be disposed of accordingly. The jewellery must not end up in the normal rubbish, the office said.https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/uranium-earrings_radioactive-jewellery-recalled-in-switzerland/44101980

 

May 9, 2018 Posted by | health, Switzerland, thorium | Leave a comment

Union of Concerned Scientists Statement on Thorium-fueled Reactors

  https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/thorium-reactors-statement.pdf Some people advocate the use of thorium to fuel nuclear power plants. Thorium could be used in a variety of different types of reactors, including conventional light-water reactors, which are the type used in the United States. However, thorium cannot be used by itself to sustain a nuclear chain reaction: it must be used together with a fissile material such as enriched uranium, uranium-233, or plutonium.

 Nuclear reactors fueled with thorium and uranium do not provide any clear overall advantages over reactors fueled with uranium alone. All types of nuclear fuels, whether uranium- or thorium-based, generate large amounts of heat during reactor operation, and failing to effectively remove that heat will lead to serious safety problems, as was seen at Fukushima. The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded after a review that “the choice between uranium-based fuel and thorium-based fuel is seen basically as one of preference, with no fundamental difference in addressing the nuclear power issues [of waste management, proliferation risk, safety, security, economics, and sustainability].”1 However, the report also notes that “Since no infrastructure currently exists in the U.S. for thorium-based fuels, and the processing of thorium-based fuels is at a lower level of technical maturity when compared to processing of uranium-based fuels, costs and RD&D [research, development and deployment] requirements for using thorium are anticipated to be higher.”
Some people believe that liquid fluoride thorium reactors, which would use a high-temperature liquid fuel made of molten salt, would be significantly safer than current-generation reactors. However, such reactors have major flaws. There are serious safety issues associated with the retention of fission products in the fuel, and it is not clear these problems can be effectively resolved. Such reactors also present proliferation and nuclear terrorism risks because they involve the continuous separation, or “reprocessing,” of the fuel to remove fission products and to efficiently produce U-233, which is a nuclear weapon-usable material. Moreover, disposal of the used fuel has turned out to be a major challenge. Stabilization and disposal of the remains of the very small “Molten Salt Reactor Experiment” that operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s has turned into the most technically challenging cleanup problem that Oak Ridge has faced, and the site has still not been cleaned up.

April 20, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, thorium | Leave a comment

Poor financial results for thorium power industry

Thorium Power (NASDAQ:LTBR) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 15th. The energy company reported ($0.18) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Thorium Power had a negative net margin of 4,060.00% and a negative return on equity of 118.29%. The company had revenue of $0.01 million during the quarter. https://stocknewstimes.com/2018/04/07/lightbridge-ltbr-earning-somewhat-favorable-media-coverage-study-shows.html

April 14, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, thorium | Leave a comment

Despite the media hype, Thorium Power still a poor investment

Favorable Media Coverage Somewhat Unlikely to Impact Thorium Power (NASDAQ:LTBR) Stock Price, Weekly Herald, by Samantha Guadardo on Apr 10th, 2018 

News articles about Thorium Power (NASDAQ:LTBR) have been trending positive this week, according to Accern Sentiment. The research group identifies negative and positive press coverage by reviewing more than twenty million news and blog sources. Accern ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of -1 to 1, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. Thorium Power earned a media sentiment score of 0.25 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news coverage about the energy company an impact score of 45.422705335828 out of 100, meaning that recent press coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the stock’s share price in the next several days.

LTBR stock opened at $1.15 on Tuesday. Thorium Power has a 12-month low of $0.94 and a 12-month high of $4.80.

Thorium Power (NASDAQ:LTBR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 15th. The energy company reported ($0.18) EPS for the quarter. The company had revenue of $0.01 million for the quarter. Thorium Power had a negative return on equity of 118.29% and a negative net margin of 4,060.00%.    https://weekherald.com/2018/04/10/lightbridge-ltbr-receiving-favorable-news-coverage-analysis-shows.html

April 11, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, thorium | Leave a comment

Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? 

  Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018 An important, detailed critique of thorium by Dr. Rainer Moormann, translated from the original German by Jan Haverkamp. Dr. Moormann concludes:

“The use of technology based on thorium would not be able to solve any of the known problems of current nuclear techniques, but it would require an enormous development effort and wide introduction of breeder and reprocessing technology. For those reasons, thorium technology is a dead end.”

Author: Dr. Rainer Moormann, Aachen (r.moormann@gmx.de) Thorium is currently described by several nuclear proponents as a better alternative to uranium fuel.

Thorium itself is, however, not a fissile material. It can only be transformed into fissile uranium-233 using breeder and reprocessing technology. It is 3 to 4 times more abundant than uranium.

Concerning safety and waste disposal there are no convincing arguments in comparison to uranium fuel. A severe disadvantage is that uranium-233 bred from thorium can be used by terror organisations for the construction of simple but high-impact nuclear explosives. Thus development of a thorium fuel cycle without effective denaturation of bredfissile materials is irresponsible.

Introduction

Thorium Introduction 

Thorium (Th) is a heavy metal of atomic number 90

(uranium has 92). It belongs to the group of actinides, is

around 3 to 4 times more abundant than uranium and is

radioactive (half-life of Th-232 as starter of the thorium

decay-chain is 14 billion years with alpha-decay). There

are currently hardly any technical applications. Distinctive

is the highly penetrating gamma radiation from its decaychain

(thallium-208 (Tl-208): 2.6 MeV; compared to

gamma radiation from Cs-137: 0.66 MeV). Over the past

decade, a group of globally active nuclear proponents is

recommending thorium as fuel for a safe and affordable

nuclear power technology without larger waste and

proliferation problems. These claims should be submitted

to a scientific fact check. For that reason, we examine

here the claims of thorium proponents.

Dispelling Claim 1: The use of thorium expands the

availability of nuclear fuel by a factor 400  

Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018

Thorium itself is not a fissile material. It can, however, be

transformed in breeder reactors into fissile uranium-233

(U-233), just like non-fissile U-238 (99.3% of natural

uranium) can be transformed in a breeder reactor to fissile

plutonium. (A breeder reactor is a reactor in which more

fissile material can be harvested from spent nuclear fuel

than present in the original fresh fuel elements. It may be

sometimes confusing that in the nuclear vocabulary every

conventional reactor breeds, but less than it uses (and

therefore it is not called a breeder reactor).)

For that reason, the use of thorium presupposes the use

of breeder and reprocessing technology. Because these

technologies have almost globally fallen into disrepute, it

cannot be excluded that the more neutral term thorium is

currently also used to disguise an intended reintroduction

of these problematic techniques.

The claimed factor 400: A factor of 100 is due to the

breeder technology. It is also achievable in the uraniumplutonium

cycle. Only a factor of 3 to 4 is specific to

thorium, just because it is more abundant than uranium

by this factor…….

March 5, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, ENERGY, Reference, thorium | Leave a comment

It’s a myth that thorium nuclear reactors were ever commercially viable

Dispelling Claim 2: Thorium did not get a chance in the  nuclear energy development because it is not  usable for military purposes   Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018

In the early stages of nuclear technology in the USA (from 1944 to the early 1950s), reprocessing technology was not yet well developed. Better developed were graphite moderated reactors that used natural uranium and bred plutonium.

For the use of thorium (which, other than uranium, does not contain fissile components), enriched uranium or possibly plutonium would have been indispensable.

Initially, neither pathway for thorium development was chosen because it would have automatically reduced the still limited capacity for military fissile materials production. (Thorium has a higher capture cross section for thermal (that means slow) neutrons than U-238. For that reason, it needs as fertile material in reactors a higher fissile density than U-238.)

Only when the US enrichment capacity at about 1950 delivered sufficient enriched uranium, the military and later civil entry into thorium technology started: in 1955 a bomb with U-233 from thorium was exploded, and a strategic U-233 reserve of around 2 metric tons was created. The large head-start of the plutonium bomb could not be overtaken any more, and plutonium remained globally the leading military fission material (although, according to unconfirmed sources, Indian nuclear weapons contain U-233).

The US military research concluded in 1966 that U-233 is a very potent nuclear weapon material, but that it offers hardly any advantages over the already established plutonium. Because light water reactors with low-enriched uranium (LEU) were already too far developed, thorium use remained marginal also in civil nuclear engineering: for instance, the German “thorium reactor” THTR-300 in Hamm operated only for a short time, and in reality it was a uranium reactor (fuel: 10% weapon-grade 93% enriched U-235 and 90% thorium) because the amount of energy produced by thorium did not exceed 25%.

 

March 5, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Reference, spinbuster, thorium | Leave a comment

The weapons proliferation risks of thorium nuclear reactors

Dispelling Claim 3: Thorium use has hardly any proliferation risk   Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018

The proliferation problem of Th / U-233 needs a  differentiated analysis ‒ general answers are easily misleading. First of all, one has to assess the weapon capability of U-233. Criteria for good suitability are a low critical mass and a low rate of spontaneous fission. The critical mass of U-233 is only 40% of that of U-235, the critical mass of plutonium-239 is around 15% smaller than for U-233. A relatively easy to construct nuclear explosive needs around 20 to 25 kg U-233.

The spontaneous fission rate is important, because the neutrons from spontaneous fission act as a starter of the chain reaction; for an efficient nuclear explosion, the fissile material needs to have a super-criticality of at least 2.5 (criticality is the amount of new fissions produced by the neutrons of each fission.)

When, because of spontaneous fissions, a noticeable chain reaction already starts during the initial conventional explosion trigger mechanism in the criticality phase between 1 and 2.5, undesired weak nuclear explosions would end the super-criticality before a significant part of the fissile material has reacted. This largely depends on how fast the criticality phase of 1 to 2.5 is passed. Weapon plutonium (largely Pu-239) and moreover reactor plutonium have – different from the mentioned uranium fission materials U-235 and U-233 – a high spontaneous fission rate, which excludes their use in easy to build bombs.

More specifically, plutonium cannot be caused to explode in a so-called gun-type fission weapon, but both uranium isotopes can. Plutonium needs the far more complex implosion bomb design, which we will not go into further here. A gun-type fission weapon was used in Hiroshima – a cannon barrel set-up, in which a fission projectile is shot into a fission block of a suitable form so that they together form a highly super-critical arrangement.   Here, the criticality phase from 1 to 2.5 is in the order of magnitude of milliseconds – a relatively long time, in which a plutonium explosive would destroy itself with weak nuclear explosions caused by spontaneous fission.

One cannot find such uranium gun-type fission weapons in modern weapon arsenals any longer (South Africa’s apartheid regime built 7 gun-type fission weapons using uranium-235): their efficiency (at most a few percent) is rather low, they are bulky (the Hiroshima bomb: 3.6 metric tons, 3.2 meters long), inflexible, and not really suitable for carriers like intercontinental rockets.

On the other hand, gun-type designs are highly reliable and relatively easy to build. Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reckons that larger terror groups would be capable of constructing a nuclear explosive on the basis of the gun-type fission design provided they got hold of a sufficient amount of suitable fissile material.1

Bombs with a force of at most 2 to 2.5 times that of the Hiroshima bomb (13 kt TNT) are conceivable. For that reason, the USA and Russia have tried intensively for decades to repatriate their world-wide delivered highly enriched uranium (HEU).

A draw-back of U-233 in weapon technology is that – when it is produced only for energy generation purposes – it is contaminated with maximally 250 parts per million (ppm) U-232 (half-life 70 years).2 That does not impair the nuclear explosion capability, but the uranium-232 turns in the thorium decay chain, which means ‒ as mentioned above ‒ emission of the highly penetrating radiation of Tl-208. A strongly radiating bomb is undesirable in a military environment – from the point of view of handling, and because the radiation intervenes with the bomb’s electronics.

In the USA, there exists a limit of 50 ppm U-232 above which U-233 is no longer considered suitable for weapons.

Nevertheless, U-232 does not really diminish all proliferation problems around U-233. First of all, simple gun-type designs do not need any electronics; furthermore, radiation safety arguments during bomb construction will hardly play a role for terrorist organisations that use suicide bombers.

Besides that, Tl-208 only appears in the end of the decay chain of U-232: freshly produced or purified U-233/U-232 will radiate little for weeks and is easier to handle.2 It is also possible to suppress the build-up of uranium-232 to a large extent, when during the breeding process of U-233 fast neutrons with energies larger than 0.5 MeV are filtered out (for instance by arranging the thorium in the reactor behind a moderating layer) and thorium is used from ore that contains as little uranium as possible.

A very elegant way to harvest highly pure U-233 is offered by the proposed molten salt reactors with integrated reprocessing (MSR): During the breeding of U-233 from thorium, the intermediate protactinium-233 (Pa-233) is produced, which has a half-life of around one month. When this intermediate is isolated – as is intended in some molten salt reactors – and let decay outside the reactor, pure U-233 is obtained that is optimally suited for nuclear weapons.

An advantage of U-233 in comparison with Pu-239 in military use is that under neutron irradiation during the production in the reactor, it tends to turn a lot less into nuclides that negatively influence the explosion capability. U-233 can (like U-235) be made unsuitable for use in weapons by adding U-238: When depleted uranium is already mixed with thorium during the feed-in into the reactor, the resulting mix of nuclides is virtually unusable for weapons.

However, for MSRs with integrated reprocessing this is not a sufficient remedy. One would have to prevent separation of protactinium-233.9

The conclusion has to be that the use of thorium contains severe proliferation risks. These are less in the risk that highly developed states would find it easier to lay their hands on high-tech weapons, than that the bar for the construction of simple but highly effective nuclear explosives for terror organisations or unstable states will be a lot lower.

 

March 5, 2018 Posted by | Reference, spinbuster, thorium, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Thorium nuclear reactors: no safer than conventional uranium reactors

Dispelling Claim 4: Thorium reactors are safer than  conventional uranium reactors  Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018

The fission of U-233 results in roughly the same amounts

of the safety-relevant nuclides iodine-131, caesium-137

and strontium-90 as that of U-235. Also, the decay heat is

virtually the same. The differences in produced actinides (see

next claim) are of secondary importance for the risk during

operation or in an accident. In this perspective, thorium use

does not deliver any recognisable safety advantages.

Of greater safety relevance is the fact that uranium-233

fission produces 60% less so-called delayed neutrons than

U-235 fission. Delayed neutrons are not directly created

during the fission of uranium, but from some short-lived

decay products. Only due to the existence of delayed

neutrons, a nuclear reactor can be controlled, and the

bigger their share (for instance 0.6% with U-235), the

larger is the criticality range in which controllability is given

(this is called delayed criticality). Above this controllable

area (prompt criticality) a nuclear power excursion can

happen, like during the Chernobyl accident. The fact that

the delayed super-critical range is with U-233 considerably

smaller than with U-235, is from a safety point of view an

important technical disadvantage of thorium use.

During the design of thermal molten salt reactors (breeders),

the conclusion was that the use of thorium brings problems

with criticality safety that do not appear with classical

uranium use in this type of reactors. For that reason, it was

necessary to turn the attention to fast reactors for the use

of thorium in molten salt reactors. Although this conclusion

cannot be generalised, it shows that the use of thorium can

lead to increased safety problems.

As mentioned, a serious safety problem is the necessity to

restart breeder and reprocessing technology with thorium.

Thorium is often advertised in relation to the development

of so-called advanced reactors (Generation IV). The

safety advantages attributed to thorium in this context are

mostly, however, not germane to thorium (the fuel) but

rather due to the reactor concept. Whether or not these

advanced reactor concepts bring overall increased safety

falls outside the scope of this article, but that is certainly

not a question with a clear “yes” as the answer.

March 5, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, safety, spinbuster, thorium | Leave a comment

Thorium reactors – NOT a solution to nuclear waste problem

Dispelling Claim 5: Thorium decreases the waste problem  

Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor,   by Dr. Rainer Moormann  1 March 2018

Thorium use delivers virtually the same fission products

as classical uranium use. That is also true for those

isotopes that are important in issues around long-term

disposal.  Those mobile long-lived fission products

(I-129, Tc-99, etc.) determine the risk of a deep geological

disposal when water intrusion is the main triggering event

for accidents. Thorium therefore does not deliver an

improvement for final disposal.

Proponents of thorium argue that thorium use does not

produce minor actinides (MA)5, nor plutonium. They argue

that these nuclides are highly toxic (which is correct) and

they compare only the pure toxicity by intake into the body

for thorium and uranium use, without taking into account

that these actinides are hardly mobile in final disposal

even in accidents.

March 5, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, spinbuster, thorium, wastes | Leave a comment

The Thorium lobby – religious fervour in attacking critics of the nuclear industry

Thorium Church: a trojan horse in the “green” movements. Here the Removal Tool.   “How do I know if my preferred “green” organization, or group, or leader… is infected by the ‘thorium church’ trojan horse?”. How to protect yourself from malicious propaganda of Thorium Church or from related compromised group or organizations. nonukes Italy, By Massimo Greco (June 2015)

What are trojan horses?

Trojan horses, otherwise known as trojans, are programs or applications that are inadvertently opened by the user, who expects the file to be something else..  by the same way “thorium supporters” are infecting forums, mailing list, debacts and environmental organizations.

It’s a strategy that is working in progress from some year. In few years they infected large part of the web. 

Like any malware, thorium’s priests are insinuated through any open space or open port .. and they are able to act at different levels. Mutating depending on the circumstances, improvising them selves as technicians or economists with the sole purpose of creating deviationism which in practice consists of annoying redirect to their cause that is regularly touted as a “green” solution or, even, “pacifist” or as a miraculous solution for the “salvation of the climate”.

Their function is aggressive, especially when you try to contradict them. Continue reading →

March 2, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, thorium | 1 Comment

Scan your environmental group for “thorium troll” infection

 nonukes Italy, By Massimo Greco (June 2015) “How do I know if my preferred “green” organization, or group, or leader… is infected by the ‘thorium church’ trojan horse?”

“……..Scanning and Removal, First check if the leader or “group leader” you are referring knows the problem of thorium, whether it has never taken a position on it. If the answer is “I do not know the problem” or “what you’re talking about,” you have the first certainty that your organization or target group is NOT protected.

If the answer is: “It is not a problem that concerns us”, “there is no matter in our topic or with antinuclear matter or uranium …”, or even worse … “nuclear thorium could be a clean way but the NWO prevents “… then you have the most certain that your group or environmental organization is terribly infected and that the leader is highly compromised.

If you are doing this survey “in public”, in a forum related to your organization reference, and after posting these sacrosanct questions and you are reproached or assaulted without causing or leading an intervention by the “admin” able to defend you, that’s another proof that your organization, or environmental group, results hugely infected.

You can also do a very easy search to see if the “admin” or the “most active” subjects are related to pro-thorium forums or registered as supporters of fan in groups offering thorium as a “savior” or “green”, especially when you attend to spam and suspicious behavior in the forums or social networks. You can do the same search about chemtrails or “HAARP” deviationism. As better Explained before, Thorium Church used very much the conspiracy decoy in order to mislead, confused and make it weak, vulnerable and unpractical environmental movements.

How to protect yourself from malicious propaganda of Thorium Church or from related compromised group or organizations.

If, as explained above, your reference group or environmental organization is infected: leave the group. This way you will avoid being accomplices. Thou hast tried, you have already taken the necessary steps. You’re not responsible. You have tried to change things.

If you are a “leader” or admin of a forum, or group… or green or environmental organization, you have to eject such people before they get completely the control of any topic. You have the duty to eject these individuals, without any hesitation of “democracy” and “freedom of confusion”… Because they, in the spaces controlled by the Thorium Church, do not allow you ever to contradict them and erase systematically, as their typical practice, anything that might cast doubt on their truth or propaganda. And, in any case, as admin or “leader” you have a duty to treat these subjects like any nuclearist that want to provoke discussion on the space that you are owning, or controlling.

If you are owning a youtube channel or any social page on social networks and you want to get protection from the thorium worm.. specially concerning antinuclear or environmental documents:

Simply “turn off” the option about “free comments” and choice comments under authorization or moderate. If you are admin of social pages delete their worms (spamming) and eject the vehicle of infection (for the reasons better explained before).

“How can I become active against cultural damages of pro-nuclear business propaganda of the Thorium Church?”

Ofcourse there are many different ways. Remember that pro-nuclear lobbies are pushing for the “new generation of nuclear power”, that means not only tradicional way of uranium. In fact they are talking about “nuclear of future”. So, “green”, environmentalist organizations, antinuclear people need to look about future strategies of the lobbies and not only to the past or the temporary, local, contingencies.

In recent years many antinuclear resources and internationally famous have taken a position on thorium. Just think about documents released by Bellona, Beyond Nuclear or to the Excellent article from Bob Alvarez on why thorium is not the wonder fuel it’s being promoted as and a brief history of the US’s persistent failure in making thorium safe or efficient ending with the expected trail of dangerous, weaponizable, waste… or the position of Helen Caldicott, violently attacked by the priests of the Thorium Church with a lot of insults like at the time of the “Scarlet Letter”…

[Dr. Arjun Makhijani on the downsides of the proposed thorium reactors (by Dr. Helen Caldicott)]

So it’s important to diffuse all the events, documents and positions, everywhere is possible, in order to counteract the mala information and debunking thorium commercials spot on the net.

To start an international and active support of the antinuclear movement in Indonesia, Malaysia, specially concerning the mobilization around Lynas, Koodankulam and any Rare Earth opposition in the West Asia. Promoting an active “UPGRADE” of all the antinuclear organizations.

Not only. You can help also supporting all the RNA spaces. Like this. For a new “NoThorium” activism. RNA was the first organization that started activism against thorium in Italy and in Paris. And at this moment has and diffuses the most rich archive of documents against thorium.

Better active today than radioactive tomorrow http://www.nonukes.it/rna/news326.html

March 2, 2018 Posted by | Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, thorium | Leave a comment

Some of the problems with thorium nuclear reactors

Disadvantages of thorium reactors:  High start-up costs: Huge investments are needed for thorium nuclear power reactor, as it requires significant amount of testing, analysis and licensing work. Also, there is uncertainty over returns on the investments in these reactors. For utilities, this factor can weigh on the decisions to go ahead with plans to deploy the reactors. The reactors also involve high fuel fabrication and reprocessing costs.

High melting point of thorium oxide: As melting point of thorium oxide is much higher compared to that of uranium oxide, high temperatures are needed to make high density ThO2 and ThO2–based mixed oxide fuels. The fuel in nuclear fission reactors is usually based on the metal oxide.

Emission of gamma rays: Presence of Uranium-232 in irradiated thorium or thorium based fuels in large amounts is one of the major disadvantages of thorium nuclear power reactors. It can result in significant emissions of gamma rays.  http://nuclear.energy-business-review.com/news/major-pros-and-cons-of-thorium-nuclear-power-reactor-6058445

February 17, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, thorium | Leave a comment

“Make A Change World” – brothers work to clean up polluted superfund sites

These Brothers Are Cleaning Up Waterways Where The EPA Has Failed http://uproxx.com/life/make-a-change-world-environmental-clean-up/, ZACH JOHNSTON, LIFE WRITER01., 17.18 
Environmental pollution from industry abuse and human negligence feels like it’s part of another era — especially if you live in America. For many of us, it all feels like something that happens elsewhere and not in our own backyards. While we have made great strides in fighting against industrial pollution since President Nixon founded the EPA, there have been numerous regressions and disasters along the way. Sometimes, it’s right under our noses.

Brothers Sam and Gary Bencheghib have taken matters into their own hands. When they moved to Brooklyn, they were shocked to find several of the country’s most polluted waterways weren’t a country away but, literally, in their own backyards. For the earth-loving duo, it was a call to action.

The brothers — along with millions of residents in Queens and Brooklyn — live within a stone’s throw of three Superfund sites. Those are the places the EPA deems so polluted, toxic, or destroyed by a natural disaster that a fund has to be set up to clean up the area as quickly as possible. Among these, Newtown Creek is considered one of the most polluted spots in all of the United States. This is thanks to over a century of industrial waste being spewed into the river, raw sewage still being pumped into the waterway every day, and a semi-continual oil spill that’s seen 30 million gallons spilled into the water.

Add in the usual plastic waste that’s clogging our waterways and you have an American river that’s bafflingly poisoned.

The Gowan Canal is similarly toxic. The freshwater stream has been used for shipping of waster and toxic materials for so long that if you were to fall into the water, you’d have to be rushed to a hospital for decontamination procedures. Drinking the water would risk dysentery, arsenic poisoning, and, eventually, cancer.

The Bencheghib brothers know they cannot clean this up all by themselves. Their task is to bring awareness to the sites through their work with Make A Change World. The group aims to directly involve the average person is cleaning up the messes we’re making around the world — through an overuse of plastics and the under-regulated waste from industry.
Currently, “the bros” are focusing on their own backyard in Brooklyn, by highlighting the Superfund sites of Newtown Creek and Gowan Canal. These two sites are both earmarked for clean up operations to begin, but the process is slow and faces hurdles. Meanwhile, the current White House leadership plans to cut $327 million out of the EPA’s Superfund budget and has forbidden the EPA from speaking with citizens.

Luckily, the administration’s disinterest in the environment won’t have drastic effects on the clean up of Newtown Creek and Gowan Canal, as those sites have responsible parties who have been tasked with funding the lion’s share of the cleanup costs. WNYC reported back in November that the six major polluters of Newtown Creek were identified along with the 30 polluters of Gowan Canal. This means, hopefully, the cleanups will go forward unhindered.

Just down the street from Newtown and Gowan is a site called Wolff-Alport. This was the site of an earth metals extraction facility that shuttered in the 1950s. One of their extractions was the radioactive element thorium. That process has made the Wolf-Alport site the most radioactive spot in New York City. Since the company responsible for the radioactive pollution went out of business over 70 years ago, there’s no one to fine and, thereby, collect the funds to clean up the site. The whole tab falls on the shoulders of the EPA’s Superfund budget. WNYC talked to the EPA and they have an estimated cost of $39.9 million to clean up this radioactive site. Currently, there’s $650,000 in the account designated for that job. The acting deputy regional administrator for EPA said bluntly of the site that “What we do know is that people are actually being exposed.”

It would seem to reason that radioactive exposure to the citizens of New York would be a little higher on the list of sites the EPA and local, state, and the federal government would be rushing to clean up. That’s where Make A Change World comes in. 75 years is too long to wait for a radioactive, oil-soaked, or just plain toxic site to be cleaned up. Like the Bencheghib brothers, it’s time to take action in our backyards, in the voting booths, and in how we live our lives.

January 19, 2018 Posted by | environment, thorium, USA | Leave a comment

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