[ RadSafe ] Thorium

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Hmmmm,

        This is from:    jpreisig at aol.com    .

         Howdy Radsafers:

                Hope all is well where you are.  Last I heard, there is 
considerable 
         Thorium in the beach sands of South Carolina (USA).  Just go get your
          plastic bucket and shovel and dig it out.  Don't take too much 
though.

                In recent issues of Health Physics magazine there is some 
description
          of the next generation of Fission (Power) Reactors.  Pretty neat.
          Sounds like much of the design engineering has already been done.
          We'll see what happens here in the USA.

                People always refer to spent nuclear fuel as waste.  Perhaps 
if we
          store it 200-500 years at Yucca Mountain, it can then be
          reprocessed (at much lower gamma dose rates than now) and used
          in reactors built at that time.  Who did a Ph.D. on this topic???
          Energy for the future, I guess...

                Who went out and bought  distillation equipment for making 
ethanol
          at home?  The people at Oak Ridge already do well at neutron
          measurements and Monte Carlo Modelling???  Perhaps they will
          also lead the efforts at making Moonshine alcohol for your car.
          Speaking of Oak Ridge Lab, how is the Spallation Neutron Source
          coming along???

                Have a good weekend!!!!

          Regards,           Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig, Ph.D.