Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Thorium, eh?

re: Thorium, eh?
gbaikie — (archived)

"Thorium is a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of war. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is about three times more abundant than uranium. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium.

Thorium occurs in several minerals, the most common being the rare earth-thorium-phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium oxide. There are substantial deposits in several countries (see table). Thorium-232 decays very slowly (its half-life is about three times the age of the earth) but other thorium isotopes occur in its and in uranium decay chains. Most of these are short-lived and hence much more radioactive than Th-232, though on a mass basis they are negligible."

[I would guess that sitting on Thorium would less dangerous in terms of radiation than sitting on granite.]

Over the last 30 years there has been interest in utilising thorium as a nuclear fuel since it is three times as abundant in the earth's crust as uranium. Also, all of the mined thorium is potentially useable in a reactor, compared with the 0.7% of natural uranium, so some 40 times the amount of energy per unit mass might be available. "
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.htm

The Aussies have the most known Reserves. There is also large deposits of Thorium on the Moon.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (98 posts)