Essay Example about Thorium Nuclear Reactors

Current nuclear technology has shown throughout history to be both miraculously beneficial and devastating. From 1952 to 2011, there have been 31 major nuclear accidents throughout the entire world. (Rogers).  All these reactors use specific isotopes of the periodic elements Uranium and Plutonium to power their reactors. These substances have proven to be overly unsafe, weaponizable, and inefficient compared to alternative methods. We should focus on developing Thorium nuclear reactors because it produces clean energy that is more efficient, safer, and less wasteful than Uranium and Plutonium nuclear reactors.

Thorium nuclear reactors are more efficient than Plutonium and Uranium reactors because the usable isotope of Thorium is far more abundant compared to Plutonium and Uranium. Thorium reactors can also use their byproducts as fuel sources for their elemental reactors to use all available resources and maximize power output. The usable isotope of Thorium is 232. This number represents the mass of the element and the number of protons and neutrons. In Thorium-232’s case, there are 90 protons and 142 neutrons. This isotope of Thorium is the most abundant one found beneath Earth’s crust. This isotope is usable within nuclear reactors, specifically, a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). By comparison, natural Uranium comprises 99.3% fertile Uranium-238 and only 0.7% fissile Uranium-235, the usable isotope within reactors. “It is estimated that one ton of Thorium can produce as much energy as 35 tons of Uranium in an LFTR. Conventional reactors utilize less than one percent of Uranium, whereas a well working reprocessing reactor can utilize 99% of its thorium fuel.” (Ting). “This isotope is fertile rather than fissile but can be used within a reactor whenever primed with a fissile compound, most prominently recycled Plutonium” (World Nuclear Association). The extreme abundance of usable Thorium compared to usable Uranium or Plutonium found within the Earth’s crust allows for a greater power output since Thorium-232 does not require enrichment. “Enrichment is the process in which Uranium isotopes are separated by lasers. This process of exciting molecules by laser light is called Photoexcitation. These lasers can increase the energy in the electrons of a specific isotope, changing its properties and allowing it to be separated.” (“Uranium Enrichment”). The enrichment process requires money and resources that are not necessary with Thorium, therefore enhancing the efficiency of Thorium even more. Due to the needed enrichment of Uranium and Plutonium to make it usable, there is an extreme amount of material that is wasted and cannot be used to produce power. “As Thorium-232 is burned, it gains a neutron and turns into Thorium-233. This isotope has a half-life of only 22 minutes and turns into Protactinium-233 through Beta decay. “Beta decay occurs when, in a nucleus with too many protons or too many neutrons, one of the protons or neutrons is transformed into the other.” (Matis). This currently useless element beta decays for about a month into Uranium-233.  Uranium-233 is a highly usable isotope within reactors and allows for excessive power output without the hazardous waste brought from burning Uranium-238 and specifically using Uranium-235 in the reactor. The Uranium-233 then decays more into usable elements that are used for a diverse multitude of important products.” (Campbell et al.) The transformation into new elements occurs because the Uranium-233 nucleus splits into unequal parts, therefore turning into different elements. Some examples include Cesium, Neodymium, Strontium, Technetium, and Xenon. The vast abundance and variety of thorium’s usability show the efficiency that can be tapped into with the switch from Uranium to Plutonium reactors.

Thorium is safer than Uranium and Plutonium fueled reactors because of Thorium’s lack of fissile attributes. This means that it can be stopped when necessary. This is highly superior to Uranium or Plutonium reactors, which do not stop emitting energy until it burns out. “Safety is achieved with a freeze plug which if power is cut allows the fuel to drain into subcritical geometry in a catch basin. There is also a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity due to expansion of the fuel.” (“Thorium - World Nuclear Association”). Plutonium is usually required to activate the fertile Thorium to produce energy; however, one can cut off all power by simply separating the sample of Plutonium from the mass of Thorium fuel. Thorium reactors also have a much lower chance of melting down or, all in all, causing another Chernobyl. “Also, proponents say that thorium doesn’t require the high temperatures and mitigation equipment of uranium-based reactors. “The plants would be much smaller and less expensive,” Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering, told the UK’s Telegraph last year. “You wouldn’t need those huge containment domes because there’s no pressurized water in the reactor.” With no high temperatures, thorium reactors can’t “melt down” and release radiation.” (Scheer and Moss) “Thorium reactors generate significantly less radioactive waste, and can re-use separated uranium, making the reactor self-sufficient once started. LFTRs are designed to operate as a low-pressure system unlike traditional high-pressure nuclear systems, which creates a safer working environment for workers who operate and maintain these systems. Additionally, the fluoride salts have very high boiling points, meaning even a large spike in heat will not cause a massive increase in pressure.” (Surampalli). Thorium has shown to have many properties idolized in the nuclear world, for both its low melt-down probability and its reliability when powering down when compared to the unreliable fissile Uranium and Plutonium.

Thorium-fueled reactors are far less wasteful than Uranium or Plutonium based reactors because of the astronomical difference of waste produced and the reduced time the small amounts of waste produced takes to decay to safer nonradioactive levels. Since Thorium does not require enrichment, there is no waste from the enriched elements made. Thorium on its own burns through all its fuel since it is found in the usable isotope naturally, compared to Uranium and Plutonium that burns through its usable isotope and then has the unusable radioactive isotopes left over. “Compared to uranium reactors, thorium reactors produce far less waste and the waste that is generated is much less radioactive and much shorter-lived” (Katusa). “Importantly, thorium reactors produce substantially less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium reactors.” (Schaffer). “There is up to two orders of magnitude less of nuclear waste in the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, eliminating the need for large scale and long term storage for the waste. [2] This is because the Thorium-Uranium fuel cycle does not irradiate U-238, so it does not produce atoms bigger than uranium. Furthermore it takes a couple hundred of years for the radioactivity of the waste to drop to safe levels, whereas it take tens of thousands of years for current nuclear waste to drop to safe level.” (Ting). Estimates show about 99% less waste produced from thorium reactors than Uranium or Plutonium fueled reactors. This massive reduction of waste made both exceedingly helps the environment and the people living in it. Less radioactive waste means fewer chances of radiation poisoning, mutations, and forms of cancer, as well as other nefarious ailments caused by the waste produced from Uranium and Plutonium. 

In their own rights, uranium and Plutonium are beneficial substances that have helped advance and change the course of history worldwide for nearly a century. However, there are too many drawbacks to consider them as the only road to the future. Thorium has shown time and time again to be vastly more beneficial to both energy production and the world running said reactors. Nuclear energy has a bad stigma due to past accidents, some caused by nature, others human error. Also, the atomic weapons used during the Second World War, threatened with during the Cold War, and repeatedly raised concerns during international affairs and culture for almost a century. The energy efficiency, overall safety, and astounding depreciation of toxic waste produced from Thorium fueled reactors is reason enough to switch from expanding on Uranium and Plutonium fueled reactors to developing commercial Thorium fueled reactors instead.