All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Thorium Energy - The Weinberg Foundation Breaks Through!

Have just received an email from the Weinberg Foundation, headed:  Safer, cleaner nuclear alternative tops the agenda for new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Thorium Energy

World’s first coalition of cross-party legislators formed to examine thorium-fuelled nuclear power

With the following Information:

The list of founding members of the APPG is as follows:

Officers

Chair: Baroness Worthington (Lab)

Vice-Chair: Dr Julian Huppert MP (Lib Dem)

Treasurer: Lord Lucas of Crudwell (Con)

Members

Lord Clark of Windermere

Mike Crockart, Lib Dem

Tony Cunningham, Labour

Lord Deben, Conservative

Barry Gardiner, Labour

Lord Grantchester, Labour

Viscount Stephen Hanworth, Labour

John Hemming, Lib Dem

Lord Jay, Cross bench

The Rt Reverend Bishop of Hereford, Antony Priddis

Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, Labour

Lord Oxburgh, Cross bench

Baroness Smith, Labour

Lord Stoddart, Independent Labour

Lord Taverne, Lib Dem

Lord Teverson, Lib Dem

James Wharton, Conservative

Heather Wheeler, Conservative

Lord Whitty, Labour

Simon Wright, Lib Dem

Tim Yeo, Conservative

If you have any questions, comments or information for any or all Members of the APPG, you can find email or snail-mail data at:  http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

Please let's give them all the support we can!

Contact your local MP and do your best to persuade them to join!

Rolls-Royce to Develop Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)

It's all in this House of Lords' Report! It's a bit in code and you have to read between the lines, as to how Rolls-Royce would go about selecting a small (200 - 300 megawatt size), Gen IV, high temperature reactor.

So what are the choices:

(1)  Gas Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) - thick walled pressure vessels; solid fuel; fuel reprocessing; inefficient fast neutron spectrum.

(2)  Lead Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) - inefficient fast spectrum; expensive solid fuel manufacture; low temperature linked to low-efficiency steam turbines; no prospects of high temperature operation, so no hydrogen economy, until corrosion resistant materials are developed and tested.

(3)  Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) - All the disadvantages of (2), with the added hazard of highly-reactive sodium as a potential propellant of radio toxic substances into the environment.

(4)  Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR) - Thinly disguised version of an LWR, carrying all the same risk and sourcing baggage, associated with high-pressure, thick-walled vessels. And for what? A few percentage points improvement in efficiency.

(5)  Very High Temperature Gas Reactor (VHTR) - High pressure, thick-walled vessels with the same risk hazards and sourcing difficulties of an LWR. Costly solid fuel manufacture and inefficient open cycle fuel use.

(6)  Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) - (1) to (5) are all solid fuelled reactors. The following is copied from the 'Generation IV Nuclear Reactors' section of the World Nuclear Association website:

Compared with solid-fuelled reactors, MSR systems have lower fissile inventories, no radiation damage constraint on fuel burn-up, no spent nuclear fuel, no requirement to fabricate and handle solid fuel, and a homogeneous isotopic composition of fuel in the reactor.  These and other characteristics may enable MSRs to have unique capabilities and competitive economics for actinide burning and extending fuel resources.

It's a No-Brainer - Mr Ric Parker is talking about Rolls Royce investing in MSRs and the one-and-only choice is LFTRs!!!

All you Fund Managers and Venture Capitalists get your money into

Rolls Royce and Thorium - It's all about to happen!!!

HOUSE OF LORDS

Select Committee on Science and Technology

3rd Report of Session 2010–12

Ordered to be printed 15 November 2011 and published 22 November 2011 Nuclear Research and Development Capabilities

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldsctech/221/221.pdf

Mr Ric Parker of Rolls Royce told us that "there are two clear areas for the UK" to play a role in the development of these technologies: "the prime investment is in high-integrity manufacturing, monitoring and some of the technical and engineering support for these new facilities. Another great opportunity is ... small reactors, of the 200-, 300-megawatt size [which could] be a major earner for the UK." In his opinion, the UK has both the "strength" and the "intellectual horsepower" to generate some real intellectual property and therefore lock-in value for the UK from involvement in Generation IV reactor development, particularly given the UK’s strengths in the field of high temperature reactors. The NIA said that "given the international dimension to the nuclear market there could also be significant benefits in international collaboration, not only in developing new Gen IV reactor designs ... but generally across the fuel cycle". In their view, and others, "involvement in relevant programmes could provide useful opportunities for UK industry as the work translates from R&D to demonstration—which might be lost without UK participation".

LFTRs are 'in the air' in the Corridors of Power

But not in a short term, optimistic way. Email your local MP - http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/  and find out their views.

House of Lords - Written Answers

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Energy: Nuclear Reactors

Question

Asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the desirability of supporting the building of thorium-fuelled nuclear power stations in preference to uranium-fuelled stations.[HL12948]

Baroness Stowell of Beeston: Ultimately it is for industry to propose what type of fuel to use in any future nuclear reactors, the designs of which would be subject to independent regulatory assessment and acceptance. To date, no potential operator has put forward proposals for a thorium-fuelled plant in the UK.

That said, the department is aware of the potential of thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor designs and is in the process of assessing claims regarding its suitability as an alternative to uranium based reactors in the longer term.

The current view of thorium reactor technologies from the nuclear industry is that, whilst the science is reasonably sound, developing reactors based on a thorium fuel cycle would carry major technological and commercial risks. The resources required to develop these technologies to the point at which they might be deployed successfully at a commercial scale are also very significant.

To date, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world, this has prevented private industry and government from investing significantly in the development of the technology. No thorium reactor design has been implemented beyond relatively small, experimental systems, whilst many either only exist on paper or have only had specific subsystems demonstrated.

As an indicator of the challenge of taking this technology further, the Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that a development period of at least 20 years will be required before a demonstration thorium molten-salt breeder reactor might be available.

While thorium does not appear to have a part to play in the UK's near to mid-term energy market, we do maintain an interest in its development. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has asked the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) to look further into the wider benefits of next-generation reactor designs and to compare the use of thorium and uranium fuels in them. We are expecting the findings to be available in due course.

The Weinberg Foundation Launch - I was there!!

After my plea from the heart, Laurence O'Hagan, one of the Founder members of the Weinberg Foundation, was kind enough to invite me to the launch.

Who'd think that 57 years after a 16 year old lad had walked half a mile from his pit-house, to his first job with the National Coal Board, he'd be walking amongst luminaries of the scientific, political and media worlds, in the River Room of the House of Lords.

Kirk's speech was concise and, as usual, from the heart and full of hope for rapid progress. He makes the art, of presenting important technicalities in a digestible form to the uninitiated, look so easy.

Baroness Worthington determinedly shifted LFTRs up the political agenda, as well as encouraging probing investigation of the technology by the media and opening the door widely to welcome environmentalist converts into the fold. Politically significant was the announcement that The Foundation would lobby for the formation of an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) of LFTR supporters. Maybe we UK advocates could pressurise our own MPs; even if they're not interested, we could ask them to inform political friends and acquaintances of the need for such a group.

Optimism of a promising future was the take-home message from John Durham's speech; optimism marks out LFTR advocates. John contrasted this with an audience embalmed with depression after watching the film he backed - Age of Stupid, starring the late, great, Pete Postlethwaite. What we have already done to the planet and what might happen in (a business-as-usual) future is enough to depress everybody - EXCEPT US!

It was indeed a pleasure and a privilege to see, hear and shake the hand of Richard Weinberg, Alvin's son. The spitting image of his father and so unassuming, he recalls a kind and generous father, but one steeped in his scientific work and surrounded by papers - the tools of the trade. I just had to express my opinion to him, that if LFTRs fulfill their energy-supply potential, his father will be marked out as the most significant person in recorded history, to so beneficently affect humankind.

For an hour, questions came thick and fast from the floor; from a Friends of the Earth representative, from the BBC World Service, from members of the Press and from LFTR supporters and those with only 'passing-interests'. From all corners, that persistent 'chestnut': 'If they're so good, why aren't they wall-to-wall already?' kept popping up. I would hope that the Foundation adopts Alvin Weinberg's own words in response to this question, on every occasion - and express them in quotes. Being in the midst of people and events, his words will always be more authoritative than any 'explanation' we can concoct; I haven't heard one that couldn't be tagged with a 'conspiracy theory' label.

Afterwards, we had a couple of hours in a local pub, where optimism, enthusiasm and, gradually, a load of twaddle filled the air.

What a memorable day - I so hope this is the (UK) start.

Read All About It: Media Alive with Launch of Weinberg Foundation.

Thorium advocates launch pressure group

Huge optimism for thorium nuclear energy at the launch of the Weinberg Foundation

   Plenty of Comments on the Guardian Blog:   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/sep/09/thorium-weinberg-foundation?commentpage=last#end-of-comments  

Here are a couple of mine: 

                  

lftrsuk

10 September 2011 9:29AM

Here's a bit of hyperbole - if the rare earth mines ever stop paying us to take away their 'waste' thorium ore, and we ever run out of ideas of where to get the stuff for next to nothing, we can 'mine' the fly-ash tips from our coal-fired power stations. If you crunch the numbers, at an average of 17 ppm, the energy we could get from the extracted thorium would be 50x greater than that from the original coal. There's enough thorium in our fly-ash tips to provide all of the UK's electrical energy for the next 50 odd years.

Vote for UK manufacture of LFTRs on 38Degrees, the Campaigning Website. If we get enough votes, we can maybe force the Government to put some money into LFTR R & D. We're at about 60th now!!

lftrsuk

    

10 September 2011 12:26PM

If LFTR technology achieves widespread adoption, Alvin Weinberg, the Father of LFTRs, will become the most influential person, in the whole of recorded history, to enhance humankind's progress. Weinberg referred to a Molten Salt Breeder Reactors, or LFTR, as "The Breeder"; no words express the potential of LFTRs more eloquently than his, when he wrote in his essay "Energy as an Ultimate Raw Material, or Burning the Rocks and Burning the Sea": .....I spoke of "Burning the Rocks": the breeder, no less than controlled fusion, is an inexhaustible energy system. Up till then we had thought that breeders, burning 50% instead of 2% of the uranium, extended the energy derivable from fission "only" 25-fold. But, because the breeder uses its raw material so efficiently, one can afford to utilize much more expensive-that is,dilute-ores, and these are practically inexhaustible. The breeder indeed will allow humankind to "Burn the Rocks" to achieve inexhaustible energy!

Until then I had never quite appreciated the full significance of the breeder. But now I became obsessed with the idea that humankind's whole future depended on the breeder. For society generally to achieve and maintain a living standard of today's developed countries depends on the availability of a relatively cheap, inexhaustible source of energy .....

Continuing in this essay, he doesn't reveal a conspiracy theory - he thinks the human natures of the responsible parties simply keep them on a track to which they are already committed. He wrote: ..... Why didn't the molten-salt system, so elegant and so well thought-out, prevail? I've already given the political reason: that the fast breeder arrived first and was therefore able to consolidate its political position within the AEC. But there was another, more technical reason. The molten-salt technology is entirely different from the technology of any other reactor. To the inexperienced, molten-salt technology is daunting. This certainly seemed to be Milton Shaw's attitude toward molten salts-and he after all was director of reactor development at the AEC during the molten-salt development. Perhaps the moral to be drawn is that a technology that differs too much from an existing technology has not one hurdle to overcome-to demonstrate its feasibility-but another even greater one-to convince influential individuals and organizations who are intellectually and emotionally attached to a different technology that they should adopt the new path. This, the molten-salt system could not do. It was a successful technology that was dropped because it was too different from the main lines of reactor development. But if weaknesses in other systems are eventually revealed, I hope that in a second nuclear era, the molten-salt technology will be resurrected .....

Let's Hope! Let's Dream!

The Weinberg Foundation will be formally inaugurated at a talk and reception on 8th September 2011 at the House of Lords.

The event will be hosted by Bryony Worthington, and addressed by Kirk Sorensen, founder of Energy from Thorium and co-founder of the newly established Flibe Energy; dedicated to the design, development, manufacture and operation of Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactors.

“ The world desperately needs sustainable, low carbon energy to address climate change while lifting people out of poverty. Thorium based reactors, such as those designed by the late Alvin Weinberg, could radically change perceptions of nuclear power leading to widespread deployment. ”

-Baroness Worthington, Patron

Named in honour of Alvin Martin Weinberg (1915 - 2006), the nuclear physicist who pioneered peaceful nuclear technology and Thorium power, the Weinberg Foundation was co-founded by Laurence O’Hagan, JoAnne Fishburn and John Durham.

Baroness Worthington, Labour Life Peer, experienced climate campaigner and a key member of the team that drafted the UK's Climate Change Bill is the Patron

----------------------//----------------------

LFTRs in the heart of the capital!

"Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors" and "LFTRs" echoing through the corridors of power.

Is the UK Government going to sit up and take notice?

Is UK manufacturing going to get a slice of the action?

Let's Hope!     Let's Dream!

(Oh! and all being well, I might have got myself an invite to the launch).

The Rt Revd Lord Bishop of Hereford - Batting for LFTRs

Lord Bishop of Hereford, Rt Revd Anthony Priddis   

Written Answers

       Tuesday 24 May 2011                   

Energy: Nuclear Reactors

Questions

Asked by The Lord Bishop of Hereford

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Marland on 4 May (WA 157) on liquid fluoride thorium reactors, what assessment they have made of the independence of the assessment undertaken by the National Nuclear Laboratory, given the involvement of Nexia Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels.[HL9194]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland): Nexia Solutions was a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which focused on research and development. In 2008, it was transferred out of BNFL under the Energy Act Transfer Scheme to form the National Nuclear Laboratory, which is an independent company, owned wholly by Her Majesty's Government and is operated as a commercial entity under the management of a consortium led by Serco. The assessment referred to in (WA 157) was a position paper produced entirely by the NNL at its own initiative. While it is assumed that the technical expertise retained by the NNL from Nexia has underpinned the opinions in the paper, no assessment of the paper has been undertaken by my department.           

----------------------------//-----------------------------

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the independent assessment undertaken by the National Nuclear Laboratory, what plans they have to undertake further independent work to address issues associated with liquid fluoride thorium reactors.[HL9195]

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the readiness of the Government of China to undertake research and development work on liquid fluoride thorium reactors, whether they will commit to more work, either nationally or with international partners, on this source of energy.[HL9197]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland):

As noted in the Answer to your Question of 26 April 2011, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has asked the NNL to conduct further analysis of the wider benefits of next generation reactor designs and to compare the use of thorium and uranium fuels in them. This study includes assessments of safety, radio-toxicological hazard, scale, economics, and outstanding technical barriers. Molten salt reactors, within which category liquid thorium fluoride reactors fall, are one of the reactor designs being considered. We are expecting the findings of this study to be available by the end of the summer.                                                     ----

-----------------------------//--------------------------------

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will commission independent work specifically on the safety, cleanliness, scale and economics of liquid fluoride thorium reactors and any particular advantages they may offer in the United Kingdom context. [HL9196]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland): The Government support relevant R&D into nuclear technologies through a range of mechanisms and organisations, including universities and research councils, the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and others. Any future R&D on liquid thorium fluoride reactors would be done through these organisations. Findings of the NNL's forthcoming study and the position of potential international partners on this technology would be expected to inform any decision to support any new R&D.