By Marv Balousek
A different kind of nuclear power plant may be the best solution to produce electricity and combat climate change caused by global warming, according to George Erickson, who spoke Monday to members of The Villages Civil Discourse Club at Colony Cottage Recreation Center.
Erickson, an author and retired dentist from northern Minnesota with a longtime interest in the science of nuclear power, said nuclear reactors using thorium instead of uranium would be better for the environment than coal and oil power plants. They also would avoid problems of overheating and waste disposal associated with conventional nuclear plants.
“When we do nothing or next to nothing about affecting climate change, we’re passing it off to the next generation,” he said, adding that some environmentalists also oppose conventional nuclear power.
Nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have soured many people on the advisability of building more nuclear power plants.
The best solution, Erickson said, is thorium-based reactors. Thorium is a plentiful, naturally occurring radioactive substance once used in gas-powered lamp mantles, which caused them to glow.
He said a thorium-based reactor was developed more than 50 years ago, but the nation decided then to invest in uranium-based reactors instead, partly because the plutonium byproduct can be used for nuclear weapons production. At the time, the country was in an arms race with the Soviet Union.
Thorium reactors, also known as molten salt reactors, use liquid instead of solid fuel cells and do not generate the high temperatures of uranium reactors, he said. Because it relies on liquid, the system can be drained into a cooling containment area when a problem arises. Molten salt reactors also can be built in smaller sizes than uranium reactors.
“There’s so many advantages to this and we just turned our backs on it back in the ’60s,” Erickson said. “We are just sitting on our hands.”
Bob Litman, a Village of St. James resident and consultant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said moving the industry to molten salt reactors would require a substantial amount of research, development and training for regulators. He estimated the cost of building a 1,000-megawatt thorium reactor that would serve about a million homes at $100 billion.
“That’s one of the biggest impediments,” Litman said. “The knowledge base is not there in the regulatory industry.”
Erickson said the political environment in the United States concerning climate change and nuclear power could mean that our country will end up buying thorium reactors from another country. Russia is building a portable molten salt reactor on a barge and both China and Canada are interested in the technology.
Erickson is the author of four books and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Humanist Association. The presentation will be repeated at 10 a.m. next Monday at the Savannah Center.
