It is very likely that this will become a solution to the problem of nuclear energy for many countries in the world in the future.
An energy company in the Netherlands recently carried out a series of experiments using thorium salt to generate energy from nuclear reactions, which seemed to have been forgotten since the early 70s of the last century. . By using thorium as an alternative to uranium, we will be able to create a cleaner and safer energy source, in the context that some countries like China have started to return to research and development of energy. nuclear quantity.
In the past, when developing nuclear energy during the cold war, the “big guys” at that time preferred uranium over thorium, because uranium also had the potential to become a nuclear weapon used in war. painting. However, at the present time, when the fear of weaponization of nuclear energy is high, as well as the dangers that nuclear reactors can pose to mankind, thorium has begun to show itself. clearly superior to uranium.
“This is a very promising technology for large-scale energy production. We wanted to start earlier than before the technology became widespread,” – Sander de Groot, currently researching Research at energy company NRG said.
The biggest advantage of thorium over uranium is that it does not produce heavy isotopes, so it does not cause much harm to the environment after a long time. Furthermore, the products obtained from energy production from thorium would not be easily converted into nuclear weapons, because thorium’s efficiency in plutonium formation is very poor.
With such advantages, almost thorium will be the first choice in the field of nuclear energy research in the future.
However, thorium has been “abandoned” since the 1970s, so developing atomic energy from thorium is like starting a new study from the blank pages. Therefore, for major powers in nuclear energy such as the US or Russia, the study of producing nuclear energy from thorium is not an economically optimal choice.
India is another country that is also researching and developing nuclear plants using thorium as the main raw material, because this country possesses a lot of thorium.
In the Netherlands, the energy company NRG has begun to activate the first thorium nuclear power plant for testing. At this plant, fluorine salts are melted at low pressure, then dissolved in thorium salts and then irradiated the mixture to convert them to the isotope U-233 of uranium, thereby releasing energy.
There are still a lot of other experiments that need to be done to control the safety of the reactor, as well as treat the wastes generated from this process in the most efficient way. But until then, it is certain that the research and development of nuclear energy will remain controversial around the world.
Hopefully with thorium, we will have another clean and safe energy option in the future, besides other renewable energy sources.