Thorium: A cleaner, greener nuclear?...

My cousin and I were chatting a week or so ago and he brought up a bizarre-sounding chemical called Thorium that he had read about in an issue of Wired Magazine. I scoffed at the title of the chemical and jokingly brushed it aside as some strange fantasy blood from Thor. But my scoffing soon turned to curiosity when said that thorium is an alternative fuel source to uranium and could be considerably more environmentally friendly.

So I looked up the article and I began researching thorium (chemical symbol Th). It is quite an astonishing chemical. I should warn you that I am not a chemist and I would not want to bore you with my struggles to understand the actual chemical details of Thorium (I'll leave that up to you to research, if you so please), but I know enough to say it is very similar in nature to uranium. In fact, the two are only two spaces away from each other on the Periodic Table (Th is 90, while uranium is 92).

Uranium is the fuel of choice used in our modern day nuclear reactors (and has been used for decades). It is first mined from underground, then processed several times before being combined with its buddy plutonium to create what we understand as nuclear energy. It is radioactive, and while being relatively advantageous from an energy perspective, can be very damaging to human beings and the natural environment.

Once the uranium is no longer up to snub -- that is, it becomes inefficient to use as a fuel source -- it is replaced by more uranium. The depleted uranium then has to be stored. This is what we know as radioactive chemical waste. The trouble is, at this point, neither Canada or the United States (both among the world's leaders of nuclear energy production) have any long term solution outside of temporary storage in big holding vats, which are filling up fast. Because it is so harmful, nobody wants it stored near them, where it could potentially destroy the natural environment or poison the water supply.

The actual mining of uranium is certainly no happy walk in the park either. Mining companies tend to leave tailings behind that poison water supplies and demolish the surrounding environments, as has been witnessed near Elliot Lake.

And nuclear power is not cheap. Ontario's nuclear reactors have frequently run into cost overuns in the billions of dollars. The monitoring and stabilizing technologies are expensive and the size of the actual plants is usually 200,000-300,000 square feet. Tack on insurance and some other bells and whistles and you're looking at something that is not cheap.

To top it all off, uranium can be enriched to create nuclear weapons. Nukes are never a good thing.

So as you can imagine, I was astonished when I read that thorium could cure almost all these problems (I'm not sure about the mining process as I didn't come across anything about it). First, thorium is considerably more energy efficient. The amount of energy obtained from thorium is several times greater than the equivalent amount of uranium. Second, when thorium is done doing its thing, it contains only a fraction of the waste left to deal with from uranium. Third, thorium can be cooled without water, needing only a special salt bath to dissolve the chemical and is self-regulating. As a result, it doesn't need the massive cooling towers of uranium plants nor the same level of monitoring and stabilizing technology. Power plants, in theory, could be only a few thousand square feet big. The Toronto Star's Tyler Hamilton has mentioned the advantages of small nuclear in his blog, Clean Break. Fourth, when mixed with plutonium -- which is generally needed for nuclear energy -- and used in a reactor, the amount of plutonium left over is negligible and therefore can't be used for nuclear weapons. Plus, it's abundant throughout the world and can be found in many more countries than just Canada and Australia (where you find most of the world's uranium).

So what's the catch? Why isn't this everywhere?

The article goes through it in greater detail, but what it boiled down to was the investment in uranium took over. With the advantages of nuclear proliferation, uranium hit two birds with one stone. And with billions of dollars invested in uranium powered plants, there is a huge push to keep it that way.

These small power plants that use a salt bath can be extremely corrosive and therefore require very advanced holding tanks made out of expensive alloys, making the initial capital investment very high.

But that is not stopping some countries from exploring it. China, Russia, India, France and even the United States are looking seriously into thorium. One of its biggest benefits is that it can be used in today's reactors without much added cost to make the shift. Some have likened it to using biofuels in regular cars.

What I'm surprised about is that very little seems to be known about it. Several friends of mine have never heard of it and even my instructor in my waste management course, a man who has spent nearly twenty years at the forefront of nuclear waste siting, had never heard of thorium. But perhaps we will soon hear more...    

Oh yeah, and happy birthday Graeme!

Nucular. It's pronounced nucular...

Nuclear energy is undoubtedly one of the more controversial choices amongst the carbon-emissions-free toolbox.

For those who like it, they probably like it a lot. Firstly, it is free of carbon-emissions and doesn't emit any other airborne pollutants that may contribute to poor air quality the same way a coal-fired plant or oil refinery may. From the climate change point of view, this is a big deal.

The energy can also be produced domestically, allowing countries to be free from foreign influence, which has been a boon of the American energy supply. It's relatively easy to do and much more advanced since the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl days. The plants also produce necessary radio-isotopes used in radiation treatment.

Most importantly, it wouldn't require a massive societal shift in electricity consumption. One of the implications of climate change mitigation is that our consumption-based way of life may have to take a hit. Imagine if we didn't have to and kept the air clean. Sounds pretty good.

Many look at the downsides. It's expensive and not always reliable. Nuclear plants shut down from time to time, often take too long to build and generally go over-budget. Not to mention the size of the facilities necessary.

They're also not completely emissions free. While the air may be free from nuclear impact, the land and water may feel the effects of disposing the toxic waste produced by nuclear plants. Storing this waste is costly, slightly dangerous and the waste takes thousands of years to breakdown. Getting the uranium needed for nuclear production is also less than an attractive activity, requiring mining that has been shown to have detrimental effects on the surrounding areas. Near Peterborough, an environmental battle has erupted over the mining of uranium.

The safety of nuclear is also a concern. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were serious events, and Chernobyl especially showcased the devastating effects a nuclear disaster can have. Such a disaster is possible with any nuclear facility.

Nuclear is potentially dangerous and expensive, but it has the potential to power our lives without requiring we drastically change the way we live. The latter may be too tempting to refuse.