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I'll Take that Thorium Challenge
I am a "pro thorium folk" (I am paid to design & evaluate thorium reactors) and I say--thorium reactors will not be safer than Generation III conventional nuclear reactors for several decades to come. However, Gen III reactors are already much safer than Fukushima Daiichi was (one of the oldest Gen II reactors in Japan), and in terms of lives lost and damage to the environment, Gen III nuclear power plants are far safer than coal, natural gas, petroleum, or hydroelectric power; and comparable in safety & environmental footprint to wind and solar, both of which are far more expensive than conventional nuclear (Gen III reactors), when you take into account the need for load-compensation to smooth out the power fluctuations: Solar and wind are simply not good sources of baseload electricity unless you have a grid-scale energy storage system--which currently does not exist in Japan or anywhere--or build a lot of backup natural gas plants to even out the load.
Sadly, better reactor technology based on thorium thermal breeder reactors will not arrive soon enough to save Japan from itself. The main purpose of going from uranium to thorium reactors will be to allow greater protections against weapons proliferation, and better options for nuclear waste management (because a thermal breeder reactor can consume most of its own nuclear waste). As for safety, any Generation IV reactor will be safer than existing Generation III reactors, EVENTUALLY-- but it takes decades to develop 10,000 reactor-years of operational experience to achieve the ultra-high safety records that nuclear power has now in France, the USA, and Japan... oops did I say Japan? Yes even in Japan the total lives lost per gigawatt-hour of electricity provided is LOWER in the nuclear industry than in coal, oil, natural gas, or hydroelectric. How is that possible? Well for starters, there are ZERO documented fatalities so far due to the Fukushima radiation release, and the leading academic studies on the issue suggest that there probably will not be any measurable increase in future cancer rates either. Low-level radiation is simply not anywhere near as dangerous as journalists (and due to misreporting, the populace as well) seem to believe.
To conclude, Japan should turn their reactors back on, and put more funding into plant upgrades to make sure all of their power plants meet Gen III safety standards. Finally, they should continue to fund Generation IV fission power plant development-- given Japan's high population density, that's a more likely energy future for Japan than windmills and solar cells. But hey, installing up to 20% of their electricity (for charging electric vehicles for example) in windmills is actually a reasonable choice-- as long as they can find a place to put them all. Wind is currently *almost* price-competitive with nuclear (if you use it for intermittant loads and not for baseload power) and is a lot better for the atmosphere than natural gas.
Sadly, better reactor technology based on thorium thermal breeder reactors will not arrive soon enough to save Japan from itself. The main purpose of going from uranium to thorium reactors will be to allow greater protections against weapons proliferation, and better options for nuclear waste management (because a thermal breeder reactor can consume most of its own nuclear waste). As for safety, any Generation IV reactor will be safer than existing Generation III reactors, EVENTUALLY-- but it takes decades to develop 10,000 reactor-years of operational experience to achieve the ultra-high safety records that nuclear power has now in France, the USA, and Japan... oops did I say Japan? Yes even in Japan the total lives lost per gigawatt-hour of electricity provided is LOWER in the nuclear industry than in coal, oil, natural gas, or hydroelectric. How is that possible? Well for starters, there are ZERO documented fatalities so far due to the Fukushima radiation release, and the leading academic studies on the issue suggest that there probably will not be any measurable increase in future cancer rates either. Low-level radiation is simply not anywhere near as dangerous as journalists (and due to misreporting, the populace as well) seem to believe.
To conclude, Japan should turn their reactors back on, and put more funding into plant upgrades to make sure all of their power plants meet Gen III safety standards. Finally, they should continue to fund Generation IV fission power plant development-- given Japan's high population density, that's a more likely energy future for Japan than windmills and solar cells. But hey, installing up to 20% of their electricity (for charging electric vehicles for example) in windmills is actually a reasonable choice-- as long as they can find a place to put them all. Wind is currently *almost* price-competitive with nuclear (if you use it for intermittant loads and not for baseload power) and is a lot better for the atmosphere than natural gas.
Edited by kricci
Updated - 25th Sep