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In the past, breeder-reactor development focused on reactors with low breeding ratios, from 1.01 for the Shippingport Reactor [44] [45] running on thorium fuel and cooled by conventional light water to over 1.2 for the Soviet BN-350 liquid-metal-cooled reactor. [46]
A sample of thorium. Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium.A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle [Note 1] —including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced ...
Using breeder reactors, known thorium and uranium resources can both generate world-scale energy for thousands of years. Thorium-based fuels also display favorable physical and chemical properties that improve reactor and repository performance. Compared to the predominant reactor fuel, uranium dioxide (UO 2), thorium dioxide (ThO
or U-233) is a fissile isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a reactor fuel. [2] It has been used successfully in experimental nuclear reactors and has been proposed for much wider use as a nuclear fuel. It has a half-life of 160,000 years.
A sample of thorium. A Stage III reactor or an Advanced nuclear power system involves a self-sustaining series of thorium-232–uranium-233 fuelled reactors. This would be a thermal breeder reactor, which in principle can be refueled – after its initial fuel charge – using only naturally occurring thorium. According to the three-stage ...
Copenhagen Atomics is a Danish molten salt technology company developing mass manufacturable molten-salt reactors.The company is pursuing small modular, molten fuel salt, thorium fuel cycle, thermal spectrum, breeder reactors using separated plutonium from spent nuclear fuel as the initial fissile load for the first generation of reactors.
A two fluid reactor that has thorium in the fuel salt is sometimes called a "one and a half fluid" reactor, or 1.5 fluid reactor. [26] This is a hybrid, with some of the advantages and disadvantages of both 1 fluid and 2 fluid reactors. Like the 1 fluid reactor, it has thorium in the fuel salt, which complicates the fuel processing.
Thorium resources are the estimated mineral reserves of thorium on Earth. Thorium is a future potential source of low-carbon energy. [1] Thorium has been demonstrated to perform as a nuclear fuel in several reactor designs. [2] [3] It is present with a higher abundance than uranium in the crust of the earth. Thorium resources have not been ...