8 Sept (NucNet): A new London-based lobbying organisation aimed at promoting nuclear technologies fuelled by thorium is calling for the UK's Sellafield site to be used as a research centre into next-generation reactors.
Baroness Worthington, the new organisation's patron, said yesterday in the House of Lords that Sellafield is a unique site and could become the home of “world-leading research” into the use of next-generation nuclear reactors.
She said thorium reactors, as well as being more efficient in their fuel use, generating no long-lasting waste, can be designed to burn up existing stockpiles of plutonium held at the Sellafield site.
And she called on the government to do more to support R&D into new nuclear designs.
One of Baroness Worthington’s fellow peers, Lord Winston, said it was “a crying shame” that the UK is now annually investing less than 25 million pounds (39 million US dollars, 28 million euro) a year in research into nuclear fission, which is way behind all its major competitors.
Conservative peer Baroness Wilcox told the House of Lords that it is right that the UK has not been investing as it should. “We have been in government for only a year and we are trying our best to get ahead as fast as we can,” she said
The Weinberg Foundation, which is being officially launched in London later today, says thorium-based reactors could “radically change perceptions of nuclear power leading to widespread deployment”.
Thorium is a naturally occurring, mildly radioactive chemical element. According to the Weinberg Foundation thorium can be “found in abundance” throughout the world.
In a statement released to mark its launch the foundation said thorium reactors operate at low pressure and are chemically stable. They shut down passively and remove decay heat without human intervention or mechanical systems, eliminating the possibility of accidents such as that at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan.
The not-for-profit foundation is named after Alvin Weinberg, who pioneered a Liquid-Fuel Thorium Reactor (LFTR) during the 1950s and 1960s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US.
The foundation said the LFTR was proven to be safe and to “massively reduce” the generation of long-lived waste. Despite its many potential benefits this unique reactor was never fully developed or commercialised, the foundation said.
The foundation said China has announced a programme to develop a thorium-fuelled molten-salt nuclear reactor. Success of the multi-million dollar endeavour would establish China as “a world leader” in generating safe, cost-effective and politically palatable thorium energy.
The Weinberg Foundation: http://the-weinberg-foundation.org
EnergyFromThorium: http://energyfromthorium.com
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
India Calls For Greater Consideration Of ‘Thorium Route’ (News No. 204, 21 September 2006)
Thorium Reserves ‘Enough To Power US For Centuries’ (News in Brief No. 4, 13 January 2009)
