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THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal
Thorium energy can help check CO2 and global warming, cut deadly air pollution, provide inexhaustible energy, and increase human prosperity. Our world is beset by global warming, pollution, resource conflicts, and energy poverty. Millions die from coal plant emissions. We war over mideast oil. Food supplies from sea and land are threatened. Developing nations' growth exacerbates the crises. Few nations will adopt carbon taxes or energy policies against their economic self-interests to reduce global CO2 emissions. Energy cheaper than coal will dissuade all nations from burning coal. Innovative thorium energy uses economic persuasion to end the pollution, to provide energy and prosperity to developing nations, and to create energy security for all people for all time. "This book presents a lucid explanation of the workings of thorium-based reactors. It is must reading for anyone interested in our energy future." Leon Cooper, Brown University physicist and 1972 Nobel laureate for superconductivity "As our energy future is essential I can strongly recommend the book for everybody interested in this most significant topic." George Olah, 1994 Nobel laureate for carbon chemistry
482 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2012
53 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 5, 2016
Despite this being a little repetitive and it reading a bit like some crackpot's manifesto, it's actually got several really good ideas and is worth reading if you're into nuclear energy, global warming and/or the environmental effects of power generation and burning fossil fuels. The print isn't too dense and there are lots of graphs, charts, and diagrams to break up the text. There are a lot of subsections too, which is good because the chapters are long. However, it's not always clear how the subsections relate to the overall chapter or each other, which is probably why they tend to overlap and repeat themselves. A bit more organization to this would have made it leaner, shorter, and easier to remember.
The basic premise is that creating smallish power plants that use Thorium in a liquid salt fuel form can provide energy at a cheaper cost than burning coal, eliminate atmospheric CO2 release and ameliorate global warming, eliminate existing nuclear waste, save lives, produce synthetic fuels and/or desalinized water, and achieve world peace. Okay, that last one isn't claimed directly, but the author does say that it can provide stable and cheap energy worldwide for centuries (at least), reducing competition for resources and helping nations develop. His arguments are fairly convincing, although to get a good understanding of why the world hasn't adopted this wonder energy you'll have to read SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future instead. There's a lot of science discussion in here so you'd want to have a solid science background, but none of it is too complicated.
I wish the U.S. government really would start nuclear research again and pour 5-10 billion dollars into developing liquid flouride salt reactors using thorium. That's a lot of money, but the government already spends a lot more than that on things that are much more ridiculous. Heck, they lose track of multiple times that amount every year.
The basic premise is that creating smallish power plants that use Thorium in a liquid salt fuel form can provide energy at a cheaper cost than burning coal, eliminate atmospheric CO2 release and ameliorate global warming, eliminate existing nuclear waste, save lives, produce synthetic fuels and/or desalinized water, and achieve world peace. Okay, that last one isn't claimed directly, but the author does say that it can provide stable and cheap energy worldwide for centuries (at least), reducing competition for resources and helping nations develop. His arguments are fairly convincing, although to get a good understanding of why the world hasn't adopted this wonder energy you'll have to read SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future instead. There's a lot of science discussion in here so you'd want to have a solid science background, but none of it is too complicated.
I wish the U.S. government really would start nuclear research again and pour 5-10 billion dollars into developing liquid flouride salt reactors using thorium. That's a lot of money, but the government already spends a lot more than that on things that are much more ridiculous. Heck, they lose track of multiple times that amount every year.
Want to read
June 14, 2014I had never heard of a Thorium reactor until I stumbled cross a couple of documentaries. One at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knofN... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLk46.... There were several prototypes built in the early sixties, but one of its great advantages was precisely why development was not continued: the lack of plutonium production as a byproduct of running the reactor. The military wanted plutonium for their nuclear bomb factories. Now I'm not a physicist, but the arguments are compelling, much safer, i.e. no chance of meltdown, self plugging, i.e. if some of the liquid salt does leak out, it cools to a solid, and an almost infinite supply of thorium which is abundant. I know that other countries are experimenting with them; perhaps we should be, too. They emit no carbon at all.
January 11, 2025
Reads a bit like someone’s uncles fb comment thread. Some interesting stuff in here but quite repetitive and I think outdated, I agree with the author that LFTRs are a good idea but they will take a LOOOONG time to commercialise and there are many issues we have not encountered yet when operating them. Yes LFTRs have been run in the past but for a very small amount of time compared to LWRs. I feel we should look to commercialise these in the future but we have better solutions now. By the time LFTRs are ready we will have done a lot of damage to the climate
June 5, 2020
I loved the scientific and data aspect, but it could have gone through another round of editing to clean up all of the typos. It’s also a bit repetitive at times.
June 12, 2019
I clearly appreciate the author's viewpoint. And he is by all standards a true expert. I learned some things but unfortunately overall I did not find the book entertaining at all. But that is probably not what the author wanted to achieve. It is a clear rational argument for advanced nuclear energy. But no super enjoyable and smooth reading experience. I was looking for the latter.
July 25, 2025
Robert Hargraves is a retired physics professor and an advocate of advanced nuclear power as a means of meeting the world’s energy needs while avoiding environmental issues associated with other forms of power generation. In this book, he is advocating reactor designs that utilize Thorium-232 as a feed stock for breeding uranium-233. Thorium-232 cannot fission, but it can capture a neutron from uranium or plutonium fission, becoming thorium-233, which beta decays first into protactinium-233 and then into uranium-233, a fissionable isotope of uranium. Dr. Hargraves sees certain advantages of using thorium-232 to breed uranium-233 over using uranium-238 to breed plutonium-239, which is what usually happens in reactors:
• Plutonium-239 can capture neutrons to form higher level isotopes of plutonium, some of which are fissionable and some of which are not. These isotopes have exceedingly long half-lives and account for the bulk of the long-term radioactivity of spent fuel. A thorium reactor would produce only trace amounts of plutonium, and the radioisotopes associated with its spent fuel would decay to manageable levels within centuries rather than the millennia required to decay large quantities of plutonium.
• Certain nuclear reactions would transmute some of the uranium-233 into uranium-232, which is not fissionable but is highly radioactive, making the uranium-233 much more dangerous to handle than the uranium isotopes used in current reactor designs. While it presents issues associated with operating a thorium reactor, it presents a major obstacle to diverting uranium-233 from a thorium reactor for the production of nuclear weapons.
He also sees advantages to molten salt reactor designs over conventional designs:
• In conventional reactor designs, the fuel is confined to structural elements that are degraded by the effects of fission. As a result, even if they could be used to breed new fissile materials indefinitely, they would still have a finite lifetime on account of mechanical degradation. Furthermore, there is a need to properly cool them at all times to avoid overheating damage. Reactor fuel dissolved in molten salt avoids these issues.
• Mechanical reactor fuel has to have sufficient fissile materials to produce power until it is replaced. As a result, the control rods have to be sized to shutdown the reactor with such excess reactivity. A molten salt reactor is refueled by dissolving more fuel or by breeding uranium from dissolved thorium. There isn’t a lot of excess reactivity, and there isn’t a need for an abundance of control rods.
One of the more fascinating parts of the book was Dr. Hargraves’ critique of renewables such as solar and wind. He doesn’t tear them down. They have a role, but they are no the magic bullet of popular perception either. They have their own environmental downsides, especially when fossil fuel plants are used to compensate for the inevitable fluctuations in power produced by wind and solar facilities. For example, a natural gas plant adjusting its power production to make up the difference between power demand and wind and solar output is a good deal less efficient than if it were operating at full power. In other words, replacing fifty percent of a natural gas power plant’s output with wind and solar does not reduce its fuel consumption by fifty percent. The fuel savings is a lot less. Dr. Hargraves is not trying to trash renewables; rather, he is trying to expose the mismatch between the popular perception and reality.
Regarding the subtitle, Energy Cheaper than Coal, Dr. Hargraves recognizes that developing countries are trying to join the modern world by means of cheap electricity made by burning coal, which has its own environmental issues. Rather than trying to force these countries to use expensive sources of electricity that they cannot afford (Cost is access.), he argues that, if a less expensive energy source is available, it will be used instead. Obviously, he believes thorium reactors can be built and operated more economically than a coal plant. I hope he is right.
An engineer, I enjoyed reading this book. Dr. Hargraves presents a lot of technical information and makes his points in a way that the non-initiated should be able to understand. Those of us with technical backgrounds, if not careful, can talk over the heads of others without even realizing it. The book is worth reading for its arguments, but it also worth reading as an example of communicating arcane information to a general audience.
• Plutonium-239 can capture neutrons to form higher level isotopes of plutonium, some of which are fissionable and some of which are not. These isotopes have exceedingly long half-lives and account for the bulk of the long-term radioactivity of spent fuel. A thorium reactor would produce only trace amounts of plutonium, and the radioisotopes associated with its spent fuel would decay to manageable levels within centuries rather than the millennia required to decay large quantities of plutonium.
• Certain nuclear reactions would transmute some of the uranium-233 into uranium-232, which is not fissionable but is highly radioactive, making the uranium-233 much more dangerous to handle than the uranium isotopes used in current reactor designs. While it presents issues associated with operating a thorium reactor, it presents a major obstacle to diverting uranium-233 from a thorium reactor for the production of nuclear weapons.
He also sees advantages to molten salt reactor designs over conventional designs:
• In conventional reactor designs, the fuel is confined to structural elements that are degraded by the effects of fission. As a result, even if they could be used to breed new fissile materials indefinitely, they would still have a finite lifetime on account of mechanical degradation. Furthermore, there is a need to properly cool them at all times to avoid overheating damage. Reactor fuel dissolved in molten salt avoids these issues.
• Mechanical reactor fuel has to have sufficient fissile materials to produce power until it is replaced. As a result, the control rods have to be sized to shutdown the reactor with such excess reactivity. A molten salt reactor is refueled by dissolving more fuel or by breeding uranium from dissolved thorium. There isn’t a lot of excess reactivity, and there isn’t a need for an abundance of control rods.
One of the more fascinating parts of the book was Dr. Hargraves’ critique of renewables such as solar and wind. He doesn’t tear them down. They have a role, but they are no the magic bullet of popular perception either. They have their own environmental downsides, especially when fossil fuel plants are used to compensate for the inevitable fluctuations in power produced by wind and solar facilities. For example, a natural gas plant adjusting its power production to make up the difference between power demand and wind and solar output is a good deal less efficient than if it were operating at full power. In other words, replacing fifty percent of a natural gas power plant’s output with wind and solar does not reduce its fuel consumption by fifty percent. The fuel savings is a lot less. Dr. Hargraves is not trying to trash renewables; rather, he is trying to expose the mismatch between the popular perception and reality.
Regarding the subtitle, Energy Cheaper than Coal, Dr. Hargraves recognizes that developing countries are trying to join the modern world by means of cheap electricity made by burning coal, which has its own environmental issues. Rather than trying to force these countries to use expensive sources of electricity that they cannot afford (Cost is access.), he argues that, if a less expensive energy source is available, it will be used instead. Obviously, he believes thorium reactors can be built and operated more economically than a coal plant. I hope he is right.
An engineer, I enjoyed reading this book. Dr. Hargraves presents a lot of technical information and makes his points in a way that the non-initiated should be able to understand. Those of us with technical backgrounds, if not careful, can talk over the heads of others without even realizing it. The book is worth reading for its arguments, but it also worth reading as an example of communicating arcane information to a general audience.
June 5, 2016
Disappointing. The subject matter of nuclear power from Thorium is fascinating and at times compelling, though sadly barely mentioned in the first third of the book - it was like going to the movies but having to wait for 45 mins for the adverts and trailers to finish.
The middle third was quite well written, and the author clearly know the science; and the final third (applications of LFTR-generated nuclear power was repetitive and not that compelling.
Throughout, though, the text was repetitive, and strewn with typos ('Newcomer Engine' anyone?) and basic grammatical errors that distract the reader. It's clearly not benefited from a professional editor, proof reader or even a basic spell check in Word. That's inexcusable when you are asking readers to pay full price for what appears to be a self-published book.
Save yourself some money and time and read the two journal papers that inspired the book: American Scentist Jun/Jul 2010 (Hargreaves & Moir); and Nuclear Technology, volume 151, Sep 2005 (Moir & Teller). They are in the appendices, and are much snappier than the book.
The middle third was quite well written, and the author clearly know the science; and the final third (applications of LFTR-generated nuclear power was repetitive and not that compelling.
Throughout, though, the text was repetitive, and strewn with typos ('Newcomer Engine' anyone?) and basic grammatical errors that distract the reader. It's clearly not benefited from a professional editor, proof reader or even a basic spell check in Word. That's inexcusable when you are asking readers to pay full price for what appears to be a self-published book.
Save yourself some money and time and read the two journal papers that inspired the book: American Scentist Jun/Jul 2010 (Hargreaves & Moir); and Nuclear Technology, volume 151, Sep 2005 (Moir & Teller). They are in the appendices, and are much snappier than the book.
March 13, 2018
DISCLAIMER: I have a very limited background in science. When I first heard of a Thorium Reactor and how it could be the answer to so many of the world's problems, I became interested. I should have done a little more research on this book. Why? Because it is NOT for any reader who does not have some basis in scientific knowledge as it contains a lot of in depth analysis of chemical reactions, elements, formulas and graphic descriptions that frankly made little sense to this reader.
This in no way should be considered as a bad review of the book only that this reader failed to understand a great deal of what the author was conveying. I still believe that Thorium Reactors will solve the world's thirst for cheap, safe and very abundant energy in the form of Thorium. I would encourage everyone to read up on Thorium. If you have a scientific background this book may be for you. It is not, however, for the uninformed reader (like me) who has a limited background in the sciences.
This in no way should be considered as a bad review of the book only that this reader failed to understand a great deal of what the author was conveying. I still believe that Thorium Reactors will solve the world's thirst for cheap, safe and very abundant energy in the form of Thorium. I would encourage everyone to read up on Thorium. If you have a scientific background this book may be for you. It is not, however, for the uninformed reader (like me) who has a limited background in the sciences.
August 23, 2014
An impressive assemblage of facts about the current state of the energy economy and a compelling argument for a new generation of nuclear powered electrical generation technology based on liquid fuel thorium reactors. While the narrative suffers from the sheer volume of acronyms, charts and technical terms, it successfully addresses the pros and cons of the current mix in our energy portfolio and lays out a plan for how we can address the remaining technical challenges of LFTR and related approaches and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring the availability of cheap and sustainable energy for future generations.
Also contains copious notes, references and links to internet resources.
I would encourage readers to start with Appendix A for a less technical overview and introduction to the author's thesis.
Also contains copious notes, references and links to internet resources.
I would encourage readers to start with Appendix A for a less technical overview and introduction to the author's thesis.
December 29, 2013
Really two books in one. 1. A very easy to understand and thorough look at how wind and solar have a minimal reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the energy challenges we are up against 2. What it would take to implement thorium reactors.
April 27, 2014
More a poorly edited Power Point than a book. Repetitive, disjointed and disorganized. A pity as the subject is important
April 17, 2015
Incredible basis for the forward movement of this groundbreaking technology.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews