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Thor’s hammer to
crack nuclear nut
A radioactive chemical element named after the Norse god
of thunder is being heralded as the future of nuclear energy.
But as China and India race to wield its potential, is thorium
all it’s cracked up to be? ROSS McGUINNESS reports...
I
T MIGHT sound like the kind
of material used as a plot device
in a comic book blockbuster,
but it could solve the fuel crisis
in the real world.
Chemical element thorium is being
hailed as key in the hunt for safer
and more sustainable sources of
nuclear energy.
And just like in a Hollywood
movie, the race is on to be the first
to fully harness that power.
Named after Norse god (and the
Marvel comic book hero) Thor by
the Swedish chemist who identified
it in 1828, thorium has taken almost
200 years to be considered a serious
an energy contender.
After a period in the 1950s
and 1960s in which it
flirted with thorium, the US government
shut
down its research
into the radioactive element, preferring to go the uranium route.
Critics say thorium was pushed
aside because uranium was an easier component for nuclear weapons.
But times have changed, and thorium’s status as a safer alternative to
uranium is now a help, not the hindrance it was during the Cold War.
India, which has hundreds of
thousands of tonnes of the metal
amid its terrain, has announced
plans to build a thorium-based nuclear reactor by 2016. But it faces
competition from China, where scientists in Shanghai have been told
to deliver such a facility within the
next ten years.
W
HILE thorium nuclear exploration is
not new – Britain
had its own reactor
in Dorset carrying
out tests 40 years ago – the will to
make it a viable energy source is
growing stronger. Professor Roger
Barlow from the University of Huddersfield is part of a team researching thorium power generation.
He said thorium was safer as an
overheating thorium reactor can be
simply switched off, avoiding the
problem that occurred at Japan’s
Fukushima plant, for instance.
Thorium also produces less radioactive waste than uranium, waste
which needs to be secured for hundreds rather than tens of thousands
of years. He added that it was extremely difficult to weaponise.
But who will be the first across the
line in the thorium race?
‘The Chinese have thrown a lot of
resources at it,’ said Prof Barlow. ‘I
don’t know if they’ll succeed or not.
They know they’ve got a large population and as their standard of living improves, people are going to
want more and more energy.
‘Although they’re building lots of
coal fired power stations, they’re
also looking at other ways of generating power.’
Thorium is not without its critics,
who point to its nuclear reaction
producing uranium-232, the decay
products of which contain gamma
radiation.
Many supporters of green energy
believe the nuclear equation should
be abandoned, not solved.
But Prof Barlow added: ‘If you’re
trying to move to a low-carbon fuel
economy, you need a whole basket
of measures,’ he said. ‘Nuclear power
has got to be part of that basket.’
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1828
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