AW: [ RadSafe ] Article on Wired on Thorium reactors

[Franz Schönhofer]

Marco,

I slightly disagree: The argument of avoiding plutonium is of course funny.
Until now I have not heard of nuclear weapons constructed from U-233. I
know, that the possibility exists. Rather I have heard at the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, some years ago a paper which dealt
with the possibility of a thorium fuel cycle and I have to say that this
seemed to me to make sense. 

Many scientists seem not to be aware, that the uranium supply is limited
first of all by the cost of mining. Even the use of weapons uranium and
downblending will give only a few years or decades of postponement of
serious problems. Mixed oxide fuel elements could give a few more decades,
if their use will hopefully not be stopped by political interventions. At
this time of history the use of breeder technology seems to be politically
impossible to choose. Therefore the thorium fuel cycle should be seriously
investigated. As far as I understood, there are huge resources of thorium in
this world, exceeding the uranium resources by orders of magnitude. 

I wonder, what the opinion of the RADSAFE community is. Most of all I
believe that there are collegues out there, who might know much better than
I do....

Best regards,

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer
PhD, MR iR
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
AUSTRIA
phone -43-0699-1168-1319


> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im
> Auftrag von Marco Caceci
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 07. Juli 2005 11:27
> An: radsafe at radlab.nl
> Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Article on Wired on Thorium reactors
> 
> For everybody's amusement:
> 
> An article on
> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68045,00.html?tw=wn_7techhead
> in
> which a funny argument is presented: in order to avoid Pu proliferation,
> let
> us burn Th (and why not, increase taxes along the way).
> The gentleman who wrote that apparectly is not concerned with the
> proliferation risk posed by U233.
> 
> Marco
> 
> 
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