Why LFTR?

The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) solves many of conventional nuclear powers major problems. Using thorium instead of uranium was dropped because unlike uranium-fuelled reactors, thorium cannot generate weapons’ grade plutonium. LFTRs transform thorium into fissionable uranium-233, which then produces heat through controlled nuclear fission.  Once started, the controlled nuclear reactions are self-perpetuating as long as the reactor is fed thorium.

LFTR is highly fuel efficient and burn up to 99.9% of fuel.  Conventional nuclear power technology is very wasteful, typically burning only about 3% of fuel. LFTRs produce less than 1% of the long-lived radioactive waste of light water reactors, where after 10 years 83% of waste looses radioactivity, where the remainder is radioactive for around 300 years.

LFTRs produce electric power via a waterless gas turbine system. Reactors are small and air cooled, and can be installed anywhere. LFTRs with 100 MW output can be manufactured on assembly lines dramatically lowering costs. This allows large supplies of energy to be cheaper and affordable compared to costly wind power projects. A LFTR project would allow for swift construction with reliable results, avoiding delays and cost overruns.

A LFTR can never meltdown, due to its fuel being in a molten state by design. Terrorists, even with forceful entry, could not remove any of the hot molten fissionable fuel. Since LFTRs are air cooled, large containment structures are not needed, resulting in LFTR enclosures that are small, tightly fitting and compact. Any overheating of LFTR causes the molten salt fuel to naturally expand, which pushes fuel molecules so far apart that nuclear fission can no longer take place.  This creates an inherent controlling negative feedback which keeps core temperatures stable; even a total loss of operational reactor control would not cause disaster.  In addition to the fuel’s natural safety, any excess heat in the reactor core would automatically melt built-in freeze-plugs, causing the liquid fuel to drain via gravity into underground storage compartments where the fuel would cool into a harmless, noncritical mass.

The cost savings of using a liquid fuel is LFTRs biggest asset.  Thorium is more abundant than tin, where a LFTR is up to 200 times more fuel efficient than a traditional nuclear power. Thorium is incredible energy dense where lifetime energy needs, at western standards, can be held in ones hand. The massive industrial capacity needed to harvest thorium is already in operation as thorium is currently seen as a waste when mining rare earth metals. Displayed below, shows how simplicity of the thorium fuel cycle is compared to its uranium counterpart.

LFTR, fuelled by thorium and not uranium or plutonium cannot make nuclear weapons.  The fissile uranium-233 produced in LFTRs is unavoidably contaminated with uranium-232, which would make producing an atomic weapon from LFTR, very difficult even for a major superpower.  Uranium-232 emits intense gamma rays, which interfere with electronic devices needed to make atomic bombs detonate. The presence of gamma rays also makes fabricating bomb components hazardous without very complex and expensive remote controlled equipment. Uranium-232 puts out such a strong, easily detectable signal that any terrorist organization obtaining it would immediately broadcast their location to the world. Even uncontaminated uranium-233 is not a good candidate for bomb making, and any small nation wishing to join the nuclear club would find it far easier and cheaper to make bombs using plutonium made from conventional nuclear power.

Summarised below are the benefits of a thorium powered nuclear LFTR reactor.