Your Thoughts On Thorium?

Thorium is a topic that greatly interests me, but one that I do not know very much about. Specifically, I research thorium and it's uses in generating power. Thorium reactors (IMO) are a great idea for not only moon bases, but also for generating power here on Earth. Does anyone have any information they can talk to me with about thorium?

why do you keep making there kinds of threads

IDK to be honest. I guess i just like to talk to people about interesting topics like these.

And I would like to get other people's views on ideas and gain more understanding of certain topics.

I have big hopes for Thorium.

It is three times more common than Uranium, and much more widely distributed. More importantly for purposes of nuclear power, the key isotope of Thorium (Th-232) comprises 99.98% of the naturally-occurring Thorium on Earth, compared to the key Uranium isotope (U-239) which comprises less than 1% of the naturally-occurring Uranium.

... so fissile Thorium is about 300 times more common than fissile Uranium.

It also has superior physical characteristics as a nuclear fuel (far less poisonous than Plutonium, for example, and less flammable than Uranium) and the specific type of nuclear waste it produces is easier to concentrate and rather less hazardous.

My thoughts exactly! Thorium reactors are also much smaller and more stable than water cooled nuclear reactors.

There's nothing wrong with making threads on serious topics. We already have plenty of threads on "Count to a million" or "What's your favorite muppet?"

Wait, are there seriously threads like that?? That is actually hilarious.

Totally off-topic... but (since you enjoy this sort of thing) are you familiar with Hafnium-178m2?

It's a semi-stable isomer (not isotope, isomer) of Hafnium, which can hold and release energy at close to nuclear energy densities... that's about 100,000 times greater energy densities than chemical reactions, but 100 times less intense than nuclear reactions.

It's worth looking into.

No I am not. Can you send me any articles to read or something? It honestly sounds very intriguing to look into.

First, a bit of general info:

An isomer is an atomic nucleus that is in a semi-stable excited state. As a general rule, if an atomic nucleus gets excited it will quickly "relax" back into its ground state, typically by emitting the excitation energy in the form of a gamma ray. Some rare species of atomic nucleii can remain stuck in an excited state for long periods of time, instead of de-exciting immediately.

These oddballs are called isomers and are indicated my an -m suffix attached to the atomic weight. For example, Hafnium has several isotopes, including Hf-178... and the excited isomer of that species is Hf-178m2. Each atomic nucleus of Hf-178m2 can "hold" 2.5 million electron volts worth of energy (the energy equivalent of the total annihilation of two and a half electron-positron antimatter pairs!) and has a spontaneous de-excitation half-life of 31 years (!)

... so a small chunk of Hafnium (of a specific isotope and isomer, of course), the size of your finger, can hold nearly as much energy as a tactical nuclear bomb!

Something else to think about: How lasers work.

... this might seem like a change of topic, but it isn't. We are still on the track of Hf-178m2.

Lasers rely on an atom that has at least two states... a ground state (as all atoms do) and a semi-stable excited state. To make a laser, you pump as many atoms as possible up into the semi-stable excited state, and then flash them with a pulse of light tuned to the exact frequency that corresponds to the gap between the excited state and the ground state.

For example, if the laser's two states are separated by 7 electron volts (a typical figure), you would pump as many as possible up into the excited state and then hit them with a flash of light whose photons each carry 7 electron volts worth of energy. Then all of the excited atoms would release their stored energy at once, resulting in a laser pulse tuned to the 7 eV frequency.

This is called "stimulated emission", and perhaps you've heard of it.

But Hf-178m2 in its excited state stores not 7 electron volts per atom, but 2.5 MILLION electron volts per atom. It would make a laser that could punch a hole through a tank.

Or maybe a moon.

Of course, we're nowhere near weaponizing Hf-178m2, but it's worth thinking about.

Very interesting. I did not know that isomers could help produce lasers and other weapons. I know that when you shoot an electron at certain molecules, it releases large amounts of energy and that is what creates the explosion in atomic bombs.

Typically, these long-term isomers (such as Hf-178m2) get stuck in their excited state because of selection rules.

For instance, suppose that the most logical decay path involved emitting a particle with spin 1/2. If both the excited nucleus and the ground-state nucleus also have spin 1/2, then the math just doesn't add up...

Excited nucleus (spin 1/2) => ground state nucleus (spin 1/2) + particle (spin 1/2)

... that simply doesn't work, since the items on the left side add up to a fractional spin (1/2) while the items on the right side add up to an integer spin (1/2 + 1/2 = 1). 

So this decay path is forbidden by one of the conservation laws (spin, or angular momentum). 

If no other decay path of reasonable probability exists, that nucleus will get "stuck" in its excited state until some low-probability event happens to rescue it.

Again, a quick-and-dirty Wikipedia link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy#Background

The Wiki isn't always a good source, but it's often a good starting point.

Interesting. And you are right. It is the same in chemistry with chemical processes, everything must add up. Especially in cases like this.

i dont have an opinion on this