Thorium and the Future of Nuclear Energy

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

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Matt O'Dowd (1:00)

Energy too cheap to meter. That was the promise of nuclear power in the 1950s, at least according to Lewis Strauss, German of the Atomic Energy Commission. That promise has not yet come to pass. But with some incredible new technologies, perhaps it still could. The question is, should it?

Energy isn't scarce. It's everywhere. Seriously, literally, all mass is energy. The trick is getting at it. Burn coal and you liberate a tiny bit of the energy locked in its chemical bonds. That's easy and cheap to do, but the energy you get is pathetic per kilogram of coal, and worse, per ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. At the other end of the spectrum is the energy released and particles of matter and antimatter are brought together. They annihilate each other, releasing 100% of the energy contained. Sounds great, except that antimatter is incredibly difficult to create and store. In between breaking chemical bonds and matter-antimatter annihilation, we have nuclear energy. The strong nuclear force holding nuclei together contains an enormous amount of energy. The sun is powered that way, releasing a mere 0.4% of the mass of hydrogen nuclei as it fuses them into helium. But that's enough to power the sun for 10 billion years.

Practical fusion power stations are a holy grail of energy production, but are still a long way off.

Until then, our only viable source of nuclear energy is fission, which means breaking very heavy nuclei into more stable, smaller parts. If we want to convert mass into energy, fission gives us the most bang for our buck. Unfortunately, that bang can be literal. Use of nuclear energy may risk the proliferation of nuclear weaponry, and there's also the problem of nuclear waste, and the specter of horrible accidents. This last one was painted in terrifying detail in the recent dramatization of the Chernobyl disaster.

Nuclear reactors sound scary because the disasters are pretty epic. However, the reality is that far, far more people die from straight up air pollution due to coal-fired power plants than ever died in nuclear reactor accidents. In fact, the radioactivity around coal-fired plants is also higher due to the trace but completely uncontained radioactive products of coal burning. But the most compelling attraction is that nuclear power doesn't directly produce carbon emissions. In fact, nuclear power may be our most sure path to reducing carbon emissions and halting climate change. But can we do nuclear power safely enough? There are modern ideas, including the much hyped Thorium reactor, that suggest maybe we can.

Before we can understand those, we'll need to review.

SPEAKER_1 (4:01)

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SPEAKER_2 (4:30)

This episode is brought to you by Perfect Bistro Cat Food. Cats, this ad is for you. Has your human ever called you picky, persnickety, choosy? If so, Perfect Bistro Cat Food is for you, with ingredients like wild-caught tuna and pasture-raised lamb, tantalizing textures and delectable flavors that meet even the most discerning cat standards. You're not picky, you're just perfectionists. Perfect Bistro, mealtime perfection for every cat. Have your human visit perfectbistro.com.

Matt O'Dowd (5:00)

And I'm going to talk to you about how nuclear reactors work. Every fission reactor exploits the same phenomenon. Certain very large nuclei like uranium and plutonium can split into smaller nuclei when hit by a single neutron.