Google TechTalks
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2012–2022
36:02 · 663K views · Dec 22, 2011
Kirk Sorensen's Google Tech Talk on thorium molten-salt reactors (LFTR). He covers why the technology was shelved after early development and argues that now is the right time to revisit it.
Recommended as the go-to pitch for liquid fluoride thorium reactors whenever nuclear power comes up.
4 comments from Hacker News
From my understanding it comes down to part politics, part feasibility. When nuclear power first started becoming popular light water reactors were easier to make and their fuel/byproducts aligned with the production of nuclear weapons. As years went on regulation and inertia did a great job of cementing us into our old ways. Today, advances in (material) science have made producing molten salt reactors more feasible. They also seem more attractive now that the public is generally very adverse to nuclear waste and power plant failures. I'm paraphrasing what was explained to me so someone that knows more please chime in. Kirk Sorensen has been a major advocate of molten-salt reactors and gave a great Google tech talk on the subject. this video
This discussion always leaves out LFTR [LINK] [LINK] Top comment: "Advantages of thorium: Much safer than uranium-no pressure vesel, no fuel rods to melt down Much simpler reactor-Thorium salt liquid is pumped from the reactor tank through a heat exchanger and back into the tank Thorium is much more plentiful than uranium--in fact so plentiful it is considered a waste product from rare earth mining Thorium doesn't need expensive enriching to make it usable Thorium is of little use for weapons If power goes off liquid fuel simply drains into a pit which stops reaction. No fuel rods to cool or melt down if power fails This technology has been around for years. Why was it not developed long ago?" this video
There is a Google Tech Talk on this very subject by Kirk Sorensen. He's a big thorium proponent so apply salt as you see fit but his talk seems fairly well cited. this video
The sad thing is we've already got the technology for clean(er), cheaper reactors now: this video But we lack the infrastructure and investment to build them.