Thursday February 15, 11:24 PM Nuclear committee under tight...

Thursday February 15, 11:24 PM
Nuclear committee under tight deadline
The federal government appears to be racing towards making recommendations on developing nuclear power generation in Australia.

Officials say an inter-departmental committee (IDC) has been given a tight deadline of just a few months to make recommendations to government on a response to the Switkowski report into the viability of nuclear energy.

The government-appointed taskforce headed by former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski has suggested 25 nuclear reactors could produce a third of Australia's electricity by 2050.

The controversial report, released in November, found nuclear reactors would need to be built close to population centres, mainly on the east coast, but that nuclear power would not be competitive with coal unless a price was placed on carbon emissions.

The Department of Industry, which heads the IDC, revealed late Thursday it was working at breakneck pace to provide recommendations to government.

"We're working towards the first quarter of this year," department deputy secretary John Ryan said.

He could not reveal any detail of what the advice might be, but said the committee's recommendations would form the basis of the government's formal response to the Switkowski report.

"The nature of that advice to government we can't comment on," Mr Ryan said.

"It's bringing forward on a whole of government basis a series of recommendations as to how it might deal with those issues."

As well as Dr Switkowski's report, the IDC is also considering options for the future of uranium mining in Australia.

Dr Switkowski has tipped that Australia could have nuclear reactors up and running in 10 years. (((STOP

More news you all probably missed last year.


Nuclear inquiry urged to consider thorium reactors. 06/07/2006. ABC News Online

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1679911.htm]
Last Update: Thursday, July 6, 2006. 10:05am (AEST)

Accelerator-driven reactors using thorium could provide one solution to nuclear waste. (ABC TV)

Nuclear inquiry urged to consider thorium reactors
Australia's only expert in accelerator-driven nuclear reactors says the Federal Government's nuclear inquiry needs to examine their use.
Dr Reza Hashemi-Nezhad argues the reactors will be important for waste management.
The doctor of physics says accelerator-driven reactors, using the less radioactive thorium, produce power but not plutonium.
However the inquiry is only examining the economics of uranium reactors, and of mining and selling thorium.
Dr Hashemi-Nezhad says the prototype reactor can provide one solution to nuclear waste.
"Only these systems are capable of incinerating nuclear waste, both from these accelerators themselves and also from the conventional nuclear reactors," he said.
Dr Hashemi-Nezhad says the eventual waste is not as long-lived as waste from conventional reactors, and thorium is plentiful in Australia.



India unveils 'world's safest nuclear reactor'

August 25, 2005 14:24 IST


India unveiled before the international commuity Thursday its revolutionary design of 'A Thorium Breeder Reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'
Designed by scientists of the Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world.
Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as 'seed' to ignite the reactor core initially.
Eventually, the ATBR can run entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment).
BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented at the week-long 'international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems' in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years.
According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from 'seed' rods, converts 1,100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. This diffrential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder.
The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect 'balance' between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years.
This does not happen in the present day power reactors because fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones.
BARC scientists say that "the ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of the future reactor programme."
They say that long fuel cycle length of two years with no external absorber management or control manoeuvres "does not exist in any operating reactor."
The ATBR annually requires 2.2 tonnes of plutonium as 'seed'. Althouth India has facilities to recover plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel, it requires plutonium for its Fast Breeder Reactor programme as well. Nuclear analysts say that it may be possible for India to obtain plutonium from friendly countries wanting to dismantle their weapons or dispose of their stockpiled plutonium.

Thorium reactors: a new type of nuclear reactor
Kate Holdsworth
PRESS RELEASE





It's nuclear, but not as we know it. No risk of a Chernobyl-style meltdown, no weapons-grade by-products and a reactor that burns existing radioactive waste as well as old nuclear weapons.
Cosmos magazine profiles thorium reactors, a radical new type of nuclear technology that promises to deliver what conventional atomic power never could. Not only might it provide an answer to Britain's energy crisis, it burns old nuclear waste in the process, which security experts have warned is vulnerable to a major terrorist attack.
Energy is a hot topic in Great Britain and an innovative, greener and safer solution is desperately being sought. Cosmos breaks through the barriers to present a new side of the debate.
"The world is too complex, the decisions too important and the implications too far-reaching for us not to listen to the best scientific advice available. And there is a range of technologies out there – like thorium systems – that look really promising, and should be investigated. While we still have the time." - Wilson da Silva, Editor, COSMOS.
In simply arguing for or against conventional nuclear power, precious time is being lost. The advantages that new technologies and scientific research have to offer are too great to overlook (amongst the political squabbling) if we are to find a solution to the growing global energy crisis, say the editors in their special 12-page report.
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive element that shares many properties with uranium. It is not active enough to maintain a chain reaction (which allows electricity generation) but can be induced to this state with a beam of protons from a particle accelerator. The beauty of this technology is that if any problems occur a switch can simply flicked, stopping the proton beam and ceasing the reaction. Meltdown is impossible.
Being a more ‘gentle' material, thorium also leaves less waste than conventional uranium based reactors whose half-life is tens of thousands of years. Thorium reactor waste has a half-life of a mere 500 years, much less dangerous and much much simpler to store. To sweeten things even further, thorium reactors actually incinerate other nuclear waste, solving the problem of the growing stocks of current nuclear waste.
Oh yes, it also generates cheap, green electricity.


I don't hold SMM but thought it might be of interest to the thread. Thorium is one of my projects.

Big things coming for SMM imo.

Cheers

Xan