Thorium has always been an alternative to uranium for fueling nuclear reactors, but it hasn’t gotten much play. That may soon change. According to a report by Doug L. Hoffman at Resilient Earth, the Norwegian government and Westinghouse are beginning a five-year experiment to test thorium as a fuel for the reactors. Read that post for details. The thorium cycle is shown in the graphic below:

Thorium has some advantages over uranium: it is more abundant; it produces less toxic waste products, and its by-products cannot be used in weapons. Thorium reactors can also burn up existing nuclear waste.

According to Hoffman, “If thorium is so fantastic why isn’t it in wide use already? There have been prototype reactors built in the past. A pair of reactors operated in Germany between 1983 and 1989, and three operated in the US between the late sixties and early eighties. Alas, all of these plants were abandoned. In the US, the military was not interested in ‘safe’ atomic reactors, they wanted the enriched uranium and plutonium produced by uranium fueled reactors for use in weapons. The world’s largest consumer of civilian nuclear power turned its back on thorium because it did not produce dangerous enough waste products.”

Let’s now turn to geology to see where thorium comes from. A good overview is in USGS Circular 1336: “Thorium deposits of the United States.”

“Thorium minerals occur in alkaline igneous rocks and carbonatites, but the most concentrated deposits occur in epigenetic veins that surround alkaline igneous complexes. Thorium’s genetic association with alkaline igneous rocks also places thorium in close association with minerals that host other valuable elements, such as those containing rare earth elements (REE), titanium, niobium, and phosphorus. Large titanium deposits can exist in the ultramafic units of the alkaline igneous

complex. In addition to metallic resources, many of the rock units of these alkaline complexes, such as nepheline syenite and carbonatite (an apatite source), can have industrial mineral uses in their raw crushed form.”

The principal thorium minerals are: Monazite (Ce,La,Y,Th)PO₄, Thorite (Th,U)SiO₄, Brockite (Ca,Th,Ce)(PO₄) H₂O, Xenotime (Y,Th)PO₄, and Euxenite (Y,Ca,Ce,U,Th)(Nb,Ta,Ti)₂O₆.

The map below shows known sources of thorium in the United States. The two largest deposits are Lemhi Pass district of Montana-Idaho and the Wet Mountains area of Colorado.

Thorium has been tried before. One technology was the liquid thorium fuel reactor with molten salt coolant for which interest is re-emerging as a potentially safe, cost-effective energy source. If the Norwegian experiment is encouraging, we will have another energy source, one with the advantage of also providing the increasingly important rare earth minerals also.

According to NASA Science News, ” the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.”  Except we can’t harvest that energy.

“For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy.  Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.”

I rarely see NASA characterize carbon dioxide as a coolant.  However, in a previous post, I discuss how water vapor, a strong greenhouse gas, has a net cooling effect.

“During the heating impulse, the thermosphere puffed up like a marshmallow held over a campfire, temporarily increasing the drag on low-orbiting satellites.  This is both good and bad.  On the one hand, extra drag helps clear space junk out of Earth orbit.  On the other hand, it decreases the lifetime of useful satellites by bringing them closer to the day of re-entry.”

The solar storm was measured by the SABER instrument aboard the TIMED satellite. The link above provides graphics and a video.

The graphs below show the surge of infrared radiation that was dumped back into space by nitrous oxide (NO) and carbon dioxide.

Note on a previous NASA announcement:

My post: NASA Says Earth Is Entering A Cooling Period, featured an article from NASA which included the following statement: “Other important forcings of Earth’s climate system include such ‘variables’ as clouds, airborne particulate matter, and surface brightness. Each of these varying features of Earth’s environment has the capacity to exceed the warming influence of greenhouse gases and cause our world to cool.”

I and several others note that this page has disappeared from the NASA website, possibly because it was deemed  politically incorrect. Fortunately a screen shot was  preserved. I wonder if the primary NASA link to this post will survive political correctness.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (March, 2011), “U.S. proved reserves of oil total 22.3 billion barrels, and reserves of natural gas total 283.9 trillion cubic feet. Undiscovered technically recoverable oil in the United States is 134.5 billion barrels, and undiscovered technically recoverable natural gas is 1,176.2 trillion cubic feet. The demonstrated reserve base for coal is 486 billion short tons, of which 261 billion short tons are considered technically recoverable.”

This should be enough for the U.S. to be independent of middle-eastern and other unfriendly sources. However, a large part of these resources are unavailable due to government regulations. For instance, most of the off-shore component of these resources is unavailable due to the de facto moratorium on exploration (see Obama’s April Fools Joke.) Many prime on-shore areas are blocked due to various government regulations such as application of the Antiquities Act.

The resources reported above are just part of the potential ultimate resource. The graph below (from the Congressional report) shows the situation for Oil, but the pyramid structure holds true for all mineral resources.

 The “Reserves” category is that portion of the resource that has been proven and measured according to strict rules and reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission as bankable assets.

 The “Undiscovered technically recoverable” category also has a strict meaning. This category consists of those areas that have geological characteristics similar to those of producing areas. These estimates are made by the U.S. Geological Survey for on-shore resources and by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the Minerals Management Service) for off-shore resources.

The bottom and largest resource category is the “Discovered and Undiscovered sub-economic resources.” These deposits may be currently sub-economic because of the state of technology, the state of supply and demand, or the state of regulation. Shale gas was in this category until very recently. Methane hydrates are still in this category.

When I first began working as a geologist, oxide copper deposits were in the bottom category because there was no economic way to exploit this resource on a large scale. However, with development and widespread use of solvent-extraction/electro-winning technology, these deposits because economic and are now responsible for a significant part of our copper production.

Human ingenuity produces the technological innovations and human ignorance or ideology produce the regulatory impediments. With a more rational energy policy the U.S. could have more jobs and more secure sources of the natural resources we depend upon.

See also:

Obama Clueless on Energy – Part 1

Obama Clueless on Energy – Part 2

Obama administration still clueless on energy

Obama says Drill Baby Drill just not in the United States

Gasoline Prices and the Obama Energy Policy

Clean Coal: Boon or Boondoggle?