Waarom uranium en geen thorium?
Thorium is van zichzelf niet splijtbaar. Maar als er een neutron in wordt geschoten, valt het uiteen in uranium 233. Uranium 233 is wel splijtbaar en daarmee kan thorium indirect dienen als brandstof voor een kerncentrale.
Wat is het verschil tussen thorium en uranium?
Brandstofvoorraad. Thorium komt drie keer zo veel voor in de aardkorst als uranium en in tegenstelling tot uranium is 100% van het beschikbare thorium bruikbaar voor de opwekking van energie. Vooral in Australië, de Verenigde Staten, Turkije, en India komt veel thorium voor, maar ook in Noorwegen.
What is the difference between thorium and uranium?
Thorium and uranium are the two natural-occurring elements on Earth that can release nuclear energy through fission. Thorium is about three times more common than uranium, because it has a longer half life and decays more slowly.
Are thorium reactors safer than uranium reactors?
Concerning safety aspects, thorium reactors will generate less nuclear waste than their uranium equivalents. The radioactivity of their nuclear waste is also predicted to diminish to safe levels after a few hundred years, whereas nuclear waste produced by current reactors stays radioactive for thousands of years.
What is thorium and how is it made?
Discovered in 1828 by a Swedish chemist who named the element after the Norse god of thunder, Thor, thorium is a slightly radioactive element that is naturally occurring in the Earth’s crust. It is more abundant in nature than uranium and is fertile rather than fissile, meaning it can be converted into fissile material through radiation.
Why is thorium used as a fuel for nuclear weapons?
The pioneering research and development in the nuclear domain was performed with the purpose of creating nuclear weapons. Since the fission of thorium doesn’t produce plutonium (one of the elements used in nuclear weapons) as a byproduct, uranium, the dual-purpose nuclear fuel, took precedence.