Nuclear Energy Fusion

I'm pretty opinionated when it comes to Thorium. It is my opinion that the half life argument is by far one of the most misleading, and potentially damaging, arguments for thorium.

If you are interested I will happily lay out the science behind it while trying my best to keep my opinions out of it.

 

I would like to know.

 

I am aware that the waste produces gamma rays producing uranium. And I'm confident enough to understand how Th-U fuel cycles goes, tho internet can tell you so much without going over heads of average-joes like me.

But yes, I can see that many might have some reservations about it. But then again, it hasn't researched that much altho many countries have test plants going on.

EDIT: I can't find the articles about half-life thing anymore, and it was ages ago when I read about it. So, if you Jillicious could be kind clear that out please.

 

Lol. No, when refining thorium to viable fuel to use the process produces uranium isotope 232 (or thats how I understood it) which in turn decays into isotope TI-208 that is gamma radioactive.

EDIT: this is what you get when you are trying to be smarter that you are, and I'm talking about myself here

 

I haven't forgotten about this thread! Really, I haven't. I just needed some time to get things together, I guess.

There appears to be, at the very least, a desire to understand nuclear fission and thorium's potential role in the future of electrical power generation. So let's begin at the beginning. Let's ignore any statements or assumptions that may or may not be true, or false. Nuclear fission is not actually a difficult subject. We, as a society, have made it a difficult subject out of fear and mongering of nuclear weapons. I will not be discussing nuclear weapons in any shape or form. I will be discussing the use of radioactive material for the purpose of generating electricity.

In order to gain an understanding of nuclear fission we need to begin with the basics. What is radioactivity and why are people completely unnecessarily scared of it? Radioactivity is considered ionizing radioactive decay. There are 5 types of ionizing radiation: Neutrons, Alphas, Betas, X-Rays, and Gamma Rays.

Atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. These are the basic building blocks of all physical items.



When an atom is broken apart, or unstable, it is considered to be radioactive. This means that either an electron, proton, or neutron has been stripped away from the atom. When a radioactive element, such as uranium or thorium, loses a small piece then energy is released with it. That energy is in the form of X-rays or Gamma Rays. The fascinating thing about the energy released in radioactive decay is that it can interact with an incident atom and contribute to its radioactive decay. However, that subject is much more deep that I wish to go. Let it be sufficient to know that X-rays and Gamma rays both strip away particles inside an atom if it runs into one.

UV lights, microwaves, visible light, and the majority of the light spectrum is not considered radioactive even though they radiate. The two exceptions are X-Rays and Gamma Rays.

Alpha particles are the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. They are large and slow but they pack a punch. Radiation shielding for alpha particles can be as thin as a piece of paper. This is easy to demonstrate. They travel a very short distance, about the length of the end of the last joint on your pinky.

Beta particles are commonly referred to as electrons but may also include a proton element. They are not as powerful as x-rays or gammas. They are also not as powerful as alphas but they travel much further. Your skin can stop beta particles without damage to you. However, if they interact with soft tissue, such as your eyes, they can cause serious damage if there are enough of them.

Neutrons, well, they are just special. They don't like to interact with things but they will and they can. Especially in large quantities. They are the only radioactive particle to be given an intensity rating based on the energy they exert and the amount observed. There are entire books devoted to neutrons which discuss neutron "cross sections" or the probability that they will interact with some kind of matter. For the purpose of this discussion we will talk about them extremely generically.

All elements on earth have a radioactive counterpart. It is no coincidence that Carbon-12 has an atomic weight of 12.01. Why would it weigh more that 12? Why not just a round number? Because atomic weight is based on the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus and there are radioactive carbon isotopes in nature. The 12.01, for Carbon-12 is an average of what we have found in nature. If you look at a periodic table you will notice that there are no elements with a perfectly round number except those which have been man made in an accelerator. These elements also have no stable isotope. In other words, they are always radioactive.

If you wish to be somewhat overwhelmed you are welcome to peruse through the chart of nuclides and isotopes. You will find that each element has multiple isotopes, even the most simple elements such as hydrogen.

Feel free to ask any questions concerning this post. At this time I will only answer questions about the information in this post and not dive further into the remainder of the thorium, or uranium, discussion.

I'll end this post here. In my next post I'll discuss the basics of transmutation, which thorium is dependent upon, and which Uranium can also use to expand its usefulness.

 

Good reading. Great review of what I already know. I watched yesterday a video from youtube about thing called The Demon Core. It was 3rd nuclear core that was planned to use in WW2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And how 2 scientists got themself killed by playing plutonium's criticality (not sure if this real word).

 

I really don't want to talk nuclear weapons for a few reasons. I will verify that the Demon Core was real and so were the stories. I worked fairly close to the building that Slotin was exposed in and drove past it every morning. It took him nearly a week to die. I've heard it was really agonizing. They also lined his coffin with lead because his body was very radioactive.

Slotin wasn't just giving a demonstration to a few researchers, he was teaching a class on criticality. This is a great example of radioactive safety. Time, distance, and shielding. In this example of Slotin teaching the class the time was short and the distance was large enough that it was only fatal to him. The next closest person was about 10 feet away. That's all the distance he needed to live. The inverse square law is very real and very demonstrable using nuclear radiation.

 

That is why I brought it up, perfect example about radioactivity. Damn shame it always needs victims 1st before risks are understood.