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This otherwise excellent section refers to "Pu239, a toxic transuranic element". For a start, it should say "toxic transuranic isotope" But by what criterion is Pu239 more toxic than U233? If this refers to its chemical toxicity, how is that different from all the other actinoids, thorium and uranium in particular? Presumably we are referring to the radiotoxicity and long life of the particular isotope. But Pu239 is long lived precisely because its rate of radioactive emission per atomic nucleus, is slow! Admittedly, U233 is only one third as radioactive as Pu239, but that's because it's longer lived. The advantage of the continuous breeder reactor is that neither the radioactivity nor the long life matters, because the reactor consumes the product. Plutonium-239 breeding is perhaps inferior to the LFTR scheme, but let's not feed the idiotically false popular belief that plutonium is more toxic than anything else.
The article states that protactinium separation is part of the LFTR design. This allows the newly created Pa-233 to escape further neutron capture and decay undisturbed to U-233; this permits a breeding ration > 1. A weapons proliferation concern is that such separated U-233 may be used for a weapon. Most LFTR advocates I know (Hargraves, Moir, LeBlanc,...) prefer a design with no Pa separation and a breeding ration ~1.0, not presenting the risk of U-233 separation and ensuring that any U-233 is contaminated with U-232 whose decay chain emits 2 MeV gamma rays too hazardous for weapons workers. So, could somebody revise the article to illustrate this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert Hargraves (talk • contribs) 22:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I am in strong agreement with Robert Hargraves, but I'd go a little further. "Transuranic" seems to me irrelevant, and the Wikipedia reference gives no help to its relevance under ==Safety==, because it deals with the longest lived isotopes of the transuranic elements. I have a suspicion that the LFTR enthusiasts think that it means a danger not associated with the "naturalness" of uranium, which is humbug. The IFR fast breeder reactor design has most of the virtues of the LFTR with respest to the water moderated thermal designs. I have read that it is even unbothered by the neutron-poisoning krypton and xenon isotopes. I discount the fear of sodium's reactivity, thinking that tritium fluoride is an equal risk. But the difficulty of replacing all coal burning as quickly as possible with breeder reactors turns out to revolve around each initial reactor-load's required fissile content. The thermal spectrum of the LTFR seems therefore capable of being the key to making that small, and therefore reducing the enrichment process for the first startups. But the actual experimental data seem all over the place, and there is the question of the neutron economy of U-235 or Pu-239 relative to U-233 in such startup loads.DaveyHume (talk) 21:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
Which sources actually use the term "liquid fluoride thorium reactor"? --JWB (talk) 18:37, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I am new to this and may have put things out of place. The first two items under 'External Links' are good sources for the actual word LFTR. The first two links in 'References' are the technical background but may not use the term. Also I noticed the last external link may not be appropriate or maybe that is Wikipedia's redirection to sponsor books in the nuclear field. (JAJAB (talk) 14:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC))
If it's simply a synonym, this should be a redirect to the MSR article rather than a separate article. The Energy From Thorium link refers to the original Oak Ridge project as liquid-fluoride reactor, so there's no evidence this term is a new one applying to new work and differentiating it from the older work. --JWB (talk) 18:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
That is where this all started from. I have gotten many complaints that LFTR was a link to MSR and then it was never mentioned in the article at all - which did not make sense. Also the MSR article is far to large and complicated. It is trying to span too broad an area as it is. The different salt combinations have separate pages to cover their properties. By the same token, Navy ships are given a page as well as the ship class. As far as the technical work, I was told just today by another researcher the important difference LFTR will make over the MSR. I also asked a few of the other nuclear developers to add to this article. Are you in the nuclear field or have technical background in this area? (JAJAB (talk) 04:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC))
Whether this is a separate article or not, if this is a distinct molten salt reactor design, it should have a subsection in the MSR article, with link to the separate article with more detail if one exists. If the description is short, it can fit in the MSR article.
The MSR article is 34k, which is slightly below the WP:Article size suggested limit. If we start breaking it up, the policy mandated method is WP:Summary style which has a main article with summaries, linking to detail articles with more detail.
So far the only one of the four references and three links in this article that uses the term "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor" as a primary description is the Naval Postgraduate School link, which is about a single student project. Kirk Sorensen's site mentions the term but seems to use it interchangeably with MSR.
If you can add substantial information from references that use LFTR as a separate term and explain why MSR is not applicable, then this should be a separate article with that information. Right now almost all the material is about MSRs, using the term MSR, and also using liquid fluorides and thorium fuel, but not using the term LFTR much less defining it as separate. --JWB (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
We should make MSR article only about general MSR concept, since thats what its called (it warrants a big reduction in content imho) and move more specific reactor subtype stuff into LFTR article. The whole section "Molten salt fueled reactors" was almost ONLY about LFTR and thorium fuel. There should be only brief description of LFTR subtype in the MSR article, with link to LFTR article for details.
How does this topic differ from Molten salt reactor? It was a redirect to that article until recently. I don't see anything specific to liquid fluoride here. Will Beback talk 23:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Folks, JWB has fought the separate LFTR entry for years as the record above shows. LFTR has come onto it's own and there are now at least 3 start ups in the US, not to mention the Chinese that are developing LFTR. The "MEME" is LFTR, not MSR. As noted, LFTR is a variant of the MSR and since it's receiving literally ALL the publicity about it, it needs it's own entry. The MSR article should be cut down to size with most of the data coming here filling out the LFTR one. The meme "LFTR" is now THE MSR in development. Wiki needs to acknowledge this and that's what's happened.--David Walters — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.81.228.221 (talk) 14:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
We now have duplication between several articles - Thorium fuel cycle, Molten salt reactor, Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment, Liquid fluoride thorium reactor, and others.
Stuff that is generic to the thorium fuel cycle should be primarily covered in that article. Stuff that is generic to breeder reactors should be covered in that cycle. Stuff that is generic to molten salts in reactors should be covered in that article. LFTR would be fine as an article on the specific proposals going by that name, if there are now published references for them, but should not be the primary article for the more general stuff - it should have summary coverage and "Main article:" links to in-depth coverage.
A big problem with "new nuclear" concepts is each group of promoters talks about its design as if it is completely new and independent of others. Wikipedia can provide value by having information on all and by comparing them. --JWB (talk) 20:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I propose striking out the paragraph dealing with hydrogen inside the reactor. It has been pointed out that there are no hydrogen within the reactor. MegaHasher (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2011 (UTC) Just a minute. The only scary bit, to me, about FLiBe is the risk attached to the isotopic purity of the lithium, such that you really want it highly depleted of the isotope Li-6, lest the neutrons split it into tritium and helium. the tritium being hydrogen-3, and the nice chemically stable molecule (or ions) of lithium fluoride transmogrify into the ravenously acidic HF, hydrofluoric acid.DaveyHume (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 21:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
All of the known disadvantages need to be listed (not just two) including that there are probably a large amount of disadvantages that are not even known yet, due to this technology not being mature. A lot of new research has to be completed before these things become mature enough to dot the earth with. There is a lot of potential, but still a lot of unknowns. This article is currently very biased and needs to be revised by a specialist in the needed field. This is Wikipedia people, not a cheer leading squad. Those with the knowledge, PLEASE make the needed additions/revisions. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.118.178.90 (talk) 21:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
(http://www.mit.edu/~jparsons/publications/MIT%20Future_of_Nuclear_Fuel_Cycle.pdf)
"The increased difficultly in prepossessing spent fuel from such makes a closed fuel cycle much difficult and therefore more expensive to achieve than in other designs. While this is good from a nonproliferation standpoint a closed fuel cycle does have benefits for civilian use and may be desired by some nations."
I have not found this in the citation, and it probably refers to traditional uranium solid fuel reprocessing closed fuel cycle, or solid fueled thorium reactor (AHTR) not online continual reprocessing of thorium fuel cycle as in liquid fueled LFTR. It is also a difficult to parse sentence. Should I remove it? ShotmanMaslo (talk) 19:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
It seems like you have added a lot of disadvantages that are not specific to the LFTR (Graphite decay,etc) . Could you be clear what you are comparing it against to generate these disadvantages. In addition you contradict the advantages in a number of areas, should you not just add a coment to the advatage rather than list it twice (Proliferation)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.244.72.4 (talk) 11:03, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
There's far to many, they're all bias in favor of the technology and there's far to many blogs and news sources. I want to delete all of them except:
As "advocacy groups" or something.
The the most objective and informative videos (ie not ones trying to sell the technology) should stay. I haven't watched any though so I don't which fall into that category.
Media articles can go there's absolutely no need for them as can blogs -Wikipedia isn't a place to promote your personal blog.
Objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.194.33 (talk) 13:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Not that many of the references listed use the term "liquid-fluoride thorium reactor". Could you point out which sources do use it, and especially sources other than Kirk Sorensen's publications, blogs, and news coverage. --JWB (talk) 20:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Production of Cesium 137 ocurs in all reactor types, because it is a common fission product. I think it has no relation to the LFTR's reduced production of transuranics. I intend to rephrase that part of the safety advantages. Ray Van De Walker 07:24, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
This material really has nothing to do with the topic of the article, which is about a type of nuclear reactor. It could be added to every other reactor article, and the first sentence could conceivably be added to every article touching on every heavy element. Gold jewelry, mercury amalgam fillings, lead acid batteries, platinum catalysts, etc, etc. The cited sources makes no mention of the topic, liquid fluoride thorium reactors. This kind of general background belongs ion the thorium article, if anywhere. Will Beback talk 23:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
As you can see above, I added the stable version template. I did this because this article was just found to meet class B criteria, and should the quality ever fall for some reason (as unfortunately happens with even Featured Articles that get demoted), this will hopefully preserve the hard work that has gone into this article thus far with an easy-to-access link. If you care to, you may read more about this new template in the template documentation, linked above. If for some reason you object to this template, feel free to discuss and remove it from this talk page. I just wanted to briefly explain what this is about! Thanks, Falconusp t c 19:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I propose merging the separate Disadvantages and Design challenges sections into one section called "Disadvantages and design challenges", since the difference between them is very ambiquitous. Most disadvantages seems to have an engineering (design) solution to counter or mitigate them (and such design challenges can also be seen as disadvantages). Keeping it separate only causes editors to make duplicate entries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShotmanMaslo (talk • contribs) 20:27, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that a lot of the 'disadvantages' points had counterpoints toward the end to soften them. But the 'advantages' tended to not have such counterpoints. The whole article seemed to me to be heavy on optimism, especially for a technology that hasn't been implemented in decades. 75.101.23.13 (talk) 02:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
This could be unverifiable speculation. Merely been plausible is not good enough for Wikipedia. One google hit reads: "The Department of Energy is doing some research and development in the area of molten-salt cooled reactors (e.g., the Small Modular Advanced High Temperature Reactor), but the projects are not yet to the point where the NRC is involved in the review of the designs. If a technology appears destined for commercial applications in the foreseeable future, the NRC will engage designers in pre-application discussions and develop the needed regulations and guidance to support the review process (much as we are currently doing for small and medium-sized reactors using light water and gas-cooled reactor technologies). -Bob Jasinski" No evidence of NRC not going to license MSR. MegaHasher (talk) 05:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
"The costs and performance of the necessary reprocessing are uncertain." In other words, "I don't know." However, Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Don't state what you don't know, but do state what you know (a verifiable result). One other issue is that this item is not a design challenge. MegaHasher (talk) 07:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Reverted the radiation objection. LFTR is a nuclear reactor after all. MegaHasher (talk) 05:08, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Liquid fluoride salts have been injected into water with no violent reactions. Also there is no water inside the reactor. Appears to be null result. MegaHasher (talk) 04:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Answer. Not really a null result... it's an important design criterium. With water cooled reactors, obviously having moisture ingress won't lead to any corrosion or safety issues. With a molten salt reactor this will cause chemical reactions. Not a safety issue unless very large water ingress comes into the reactor, though this seems like a deus ex machina considering the inherent safety, passive cooling, etc. Maybe call it a safety null result. Siphon06 (talk) 14:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
This increased Cesium-135 production also appears to be a null result. MegaHasher (talk) 00:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Answer: It's not a null result, it's an advantage for the LFTR. There are other long lived fission products other than Cs-135. The production of these is reduced simply by the increased thermal to electrical efficiency. As was shown in one of the references the Cs-135 contribution to long lived total fission products is relatively small. Since one of you guys deleted the entire section, this fact was also lost... which is why I ask, please don't delete entire sections that have several references in them.
Yet another null result. MegaHasher (talk) 00:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
At some time prior to the experiment it was feared that the loss of the delayed neutrons might result in a loss in damping of any power oscillations of the reactor. However, it was possible to demonstrate mathematically that the circulati on of the fuel tends to damp oscillations, and the operation of the experiment did not s how any tendency toward oscillations. [1]
Contributor | Fission fraction | Contribution to delayed neutron fraction |
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U-233 | 0.55 | 0.0014 |
U-235 | 0.23 | 0.0015 |
Plutonium | 0.22 | 0.00046 |
References
((citation))
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
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I have moved the program cancellation section to the MSR article where there is more extensive materials to support this section of text. Of course, the MSRE was not cancelled but ran to a successfully conclusion. It was actually the follow-on effort that was canceled. MegaHasher (talk) 03:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
We have two sections dealing with the historical ORNL one fluid and two fluid designs. If we want to include texts about modern one fluid or two fluid designs it might be best to use their own headings, in order not to confuse the modern with the old. MegaHasher (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
One important subject is the choice of subject heading in this article could lead to point of view biases, which is prohibited by Wikipedia. I would encourage editors to group texts into subject headings of bounded size, and to minimize bias. MegaHasher (talk) 18:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Many of the References appear several times. There is method to do this more elegant - having the references only, with several links back. This will help to keep the list a little shorter.--Ulrich67 (talk) 23:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Many of the references are from Thorium Energy Alliance conferences. As much as I would like to attend one maybe next year the best references are US government funded nuclear reports. You can quote them more extensively, and they lead you to more useful references. MegaHasher (talk) 04:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Somehow what appears to be TEAC Conference minutes appeared as a section in this article. This section need to be re-organized, or reverted all together. Much of the content is unrelated to Small Modular Reactors. We can't have anything that starts with "Kirk Sorensen said...". Maybe best to just revert. MegaHasher (talk) 04:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Comparing Brayton cycle versus Rankine cycle in web search had a mixed result. Some studies showed Brayton as more efficient, while other ones had Rankine as more efficient. MegaHasher (talk) 20:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Answer to MegaHasher:
The steam rankine cycle referred in the ORNL MSBR studies had an efficiency of about 44%.
Brayton cycles can be more efficient, but only when using closed gas, multiple reheat, intercoolers etc. The University of Berkeley work assumes such closed gas, multiple reheat cycles. At the ORNL MSBR operating temperature the efficiency is around 46%, but the temperature is higher than a steam cycle. At elevated temperatures >900 degrees Celsius, efficiency is over 55%.
Open Brayton cycles, such as today's natural gas burning gas turbines, are not more efficient unless extremely high temperatures can be attained, and even then are only slightly more efficient than supercritical steam cycles. However the advantage with a gas turbine burning natural gas is that the waste heat gas is very hot so can be used to power another, bottoming cycle, usually steam. This combined cycle allows up to 60% efficiency in the latest designs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siphon06 (talk • contribs) 13:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
For a single fluid reactor the MSRE was only 8 mega-watts. That is already very small. The sentence about "breeding breakeven" refers to the breeding ratio, and could it be a duplicated point about breeding ratio? I am pretty sure it is false to suggest only a two fluid reactor can have flexibility in reactor size. MegaHasher (talk) 21:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
References
The section Advantages describes some of the properties - not all are actually positive (the rather slow breeding from thorium compared to U238->Pu (about 10 times faster) is more a problem, than positive). Similar other points have both positive and negative sides to it or are just requirements to make the LFTR safe. Most of these points appear in some talks - but it is questionable if this belong in this article: the talks are given to point out the advantages, so they are highly biased sources (and they are far from sufficient quality to qualify as a reliable source). There just is no need make the article biased - this article is not about selling something, unlike some of the talks and videos.
It should be better to have a sections about things like fuel (could be mainly a link to thorium fuel cycle), safety-systems and waste. That have both the positive an negative parts. --Ulrich67 (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Under Advantages there is the point transparent coolant. Is this point really relevant ? This should only apply to the secondary salt (without fuel), and only in the hot liquid state. Water used in PWR is transparent too - so it's not really an advantage, just on par. As the list and the whole article is already on the long side, I suggest removing this small paragraph. --Ulrich67 (talk) 23:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
The section under advantages- safety about the temperature coefficient of reactivity seem a little to simplistic and optimistic. Newer, more detailed calculations (e.g. [ http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-ex/0506004] and [1]) show that the temperature coefficient is not negative in all cases - especially the ORNL-MSBR design often used as a basis likely does not have a negative temperature coefficient. Its only the coefficient for the salt itself that is negative - but due to the graphite the overall coefficient is positive (or at least not sure to be negative). So this design would not be intrinsically safe and self regulating, though not necessarily unsafe. The simple way to describe the influence of salt expansion is also not correct: In an under-moderated reactor (like the MSBR) removing salt from the core increases reactivity. The simple picture of less fuel salt means less reactivity is true for a small reactor where neutron leakage is important. In an under-moderated large core, less salt could mean better moderation and thus more reactivity. Thus the void coefficient can be positive too - a serious safety concern. So a large negative temperature coefficient is more a restriction to observe, but not a general advantage of a LFTR. At best one could say that it is likely possible meet this requirement, but this comes at a price, like reduced breeding. So this section needs editing - possibly moved outside advantages as a separate section (e.g. reactivity coefficients). The fist thing would be to correct the part on expansion of the salt.--Ulrich67 (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I tend to agree that "Other Uses" should have its own heading instead of appearing under "Advantages". Again the TEAC3 reference is not that great because they are self published presentations. Article submitters should submit sections with good heading classification, in summary form, and specifically referenced. We as editors don't have an obligation to fix every borderline additions. In Wikipedia a section deletion needs no justification other than that section not meeting the published standards of Wikipedia. Also it is not useful for article writers to re-submit deleted section completely unmodified. At least use the talk page to find out what is wrong about it. MegaHasher (talk) 23:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Currently there is a section "Ease of reprocessing". This should better called just reprocessing as reprocessing is not per se easy. If it would be so easy as sometimes claimed, it would likely be used for solid fuel too. --Ulrich67 (talk) 20:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi everybody. I'm new here and no native speaker. Translating LFTR into Polish. I find In solid-fuel reactors, it remains in the fuel and interferes with reactor control. under the Easy to control heading inconsistent with the next sentence. May I suggest to begin the next sentence like "Continuous LFTR salt processing in which Xenon-135 is removed, combined with the low reactivity..." etc? Pliftr (talk) 00:05, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
This section contains a lot of wishful thinking: There is very little reuse of fission products in conventional reprocessing and the liquid salt form does not offer so much advantages. Most of the refs given are just for the properties of the materials. The 2 refs at the end really about use from fission products are rather low/no quality. Just a few weak points: Technetium-99 is actually a type of more problematic long lived waste - not valuable, though there is a very limited use to it. For separation the amount of actinides in the waste does not make a big difference, most of it is already removed in conventional reprocessing. The tricky part is to get the last few ppm out. So this section needs a cleanup or maybe removed altogether, as this is only a small side effect, and quite speculative.--Ulrich67 (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi ShotmanMaslo, I'm new, not a native speaker and translating the LTFR Wiki article to Polish. New also to Wiki. Please tell if I should better use "talk" at the article page or may I ask questions to someone like you? I'd appreciate every advice.
Well, since I am here already see my question:
I find "energy density" term in the "Economy and efficiency" section. It reads "The energy density is millions of times higher than any fossil fuel..." In my opinion such strong claim deserves a link to the Wiki Energy density article. Sadly thorium has only a minor remark there. Try to look also at the Polish version of the article and you will see that more detailed information appears in the table here (I added short English translation)
Fuzja deuter-tryt (fusion) 337 000 000
Rozszczepienie uranu (100% U-235) (U fission) 88 250 000 1 500 000 000 (MJ/L)
Naturalny uran (99,3% U-238, 0,7% U-235) w reaktorze powielającym (fast breeding) 24 000 000
Uran wzbogacony (3,5% U-235) w reaktorze jądrowym (Enriched U in reactor fission) 3 456 000
Naturalny uran (0,7% U-235) w reaktorze jądrowym (natural U in ractor fission) 443 000
It makes good comparison I think. But thorium is absent here as well.
Would you share my opinion that thorium entry should be added to both articles? What are the corresponding MJ per kilogram and MJ per litre values?
Regards Maciek 77.252.246.129 (talk) 16:13, 15 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.252.246.129 (talk) 16:09, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
You can use the article talk page I think. If you find a good reference for thorium energy density, then it should be added, also into the english LFTR article. I have not found specific figures, but it would probably be comparable to U-238 in fast breeder reactors (24 000 000 MJ/L).
Pliftr (talk) 18:03, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Grandiose (talk · contribs) 18:58, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
This article is not ready to be a Good Article, for many reasons. You may wish to peruse WP:What is a Good Article? or look through other articles at WP:GA, but I'll my best to explain what the problems are.
Feel free to renominate the article once these issues have been addressed. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:58, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Is there really less activated waste with the LFTR ? The first question here is less than what ? The obvious choice here would be the normal LWR. To me this not at all obvious that the LFTR causes less activation, though it is hard to compare because there is no definite design, but a variety. Usually the LFTR has quite a lot of graphite in the moderator (e.g. about 300 m³ every 4 years in the ORNL MSBR design), then there is the reactor vessel, the whole primary circuit and much of the reprocessing. Recycling the graphite moderator is likely not possible, since the LFTR needs a high quality graphite. So my estimate would be that the graphite alone would be more activated material than with normal LWR operation. Anyway the amount of activated material is more an economic issue - less safety relevant. --Ulrich67 (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Siphon06 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
The CANDU has 12% parasitic captures and almost no H (in stead has D2O), whereas the DMSR has 5%. Therefore the CANDU has much more neutron capture than the DMSR, even though graphite absorbs more than heavy water. Which is proof that there is less activation in the LFTR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.138.2.141 (talk) 12:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
This section needs some cleanup: The argument of more efficient fuel use is repeated several times, with sightly different aspects. There also seems to be NPOV issue, giving too much emphasis to some rather unimportant points (e.g. once the price for the Th is negligible low, the details don't matter any more). The ref. given to show that there are enough natural resources is rather old, and for Bismuth specified in many reprocessing schemes it even states that that there will be a shortage (even by about 2000) - for the whole point it is questionable if we need this point here at all. It is more a reply to earlier text that questioned the availability of Li or Be. The points of efficiency in fuel use and LFTRs are cleaner assumes 100% efficient reprocessing. As far as I found reprocessing is significant less efficient. The last point (from waste to resource) has only a very week source (filbe web page) for the main point - the other refs. are just for more or less obvious details. Finally there is the general problem with the whole "advantages" section: it is not clear what to compare. There are different suggested LFTR designs and different current conventional reactors and fuel cycle options. So it may be better to put the whole economy part outside, and formulate it in a NPOV way with positive and negative aspects in one section, even if it is difficult as most of the available sources are primary sources and thus likely biased.--Ulrich67 (talk) 20:24, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
What all these wiki thorium articles are lacking is the observation that the cost of the fuel is hardly ever the major cost factor in the operating costs of a nuclear power plant; fuel cost is 10%-15% of the operating costs for a Uranium-based plant [2]. Contrast with 50% for coal-based and 90% for a gas-based plant [3]. Even if Thorium fuel were absolutely cost free, it won't make that much of a difference in operating costs... 86.127.138.234 (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
I notice in the above comments that the issue of POV or non-neutrality has come up quite a bit with this article and I would agree that the article is not balanced, in that it advocates the use of the LFTR.
In terms of the layout, the recent GA reviewer has said that the long-list format doesn't work very well. If you look at WP:LAYOUT, then you will see that bullet points are only suitable for lists of short items, unlike in the article at current. Instead, the sections should be divided into groups and each point presented in a paragraph. Moreover an integrated discussion is to be preferred to WP:Pro and con lists.
As the GA reviewer said, per WP:Verifiability, every controversial statement needs a reference. This is pretty much every statement, unless it is patently obvious. This means that almost all of the article requires a citation. There are far too few references provided in the article at the moment. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed at any time.
Unfair as it is, that the LTFR was cancelled for its uselessness in bomb-making, nevertheless a good deal of the LTFR advocacy slights the FBR solution, and this Wikipedia article seems to echo that. In particular, the widespread horror of "long-lived transuranic" products is a persistent feature of fanatically anti-nuclear propaganda, and I see no reason to endorse the idea at all. U-233, while not quite a transuranic, is certainly not naturally-occurring, and is longer lived than Pu-239. The fast neutron breeder Integral Fast Reactor, cancelled in 1994 because it was designed to generate Plutonium, was as meltdown-proof and as self-sustaining as the LFTR. It also consumed, with its fast neutrons, its own transuranic products. The plutonium produced was just as useless for bomb-making as the LFTR's uranium.[1]cite web|website=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html))</ref> DaveyHume (talk) 19:49, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:Linkrot is an issue for many of the references. Citations require details that allow others to verify the statement. Given than weblinks sometimes break, this means providing things like the page's title, date, author, work and publisher. If you use a template like ((cite web)) for web links, then the fields should provide a guide as to what it is necessary to include (not all the fields, but at least some).
A smaller number of high quality external links should be used, avoiding advocacy links.
I have added some tags which reflect these comments and hopefully should provide guidance. Johnfos (talk) 00:18, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
References
The references given for the point slow heatup show data on the specific heat capacity, not much more. However the specific heat capacity is only one point, and the difference is not that big, comparing to a classical LWR reactor: The fuel salt itself may have a slightly higher heat capacity, but there is much more moderator than fuel in both cases - as the LFTR tends to be more compact, expect it to have the smaller capacity. Anyway, the difference and advantage of the LFTR is more in the larger allowed rise in temperature: In a water cooled reactor only limited temperature excursions are allowed before the pressure rises to much. The salt temperature cold rise several 100 K, before immediate catastrophic occurs. The amount of heat that can be absorbed is specific heat capacity * mass * temperature rise. The LFTR wins because of the last factor. So at best this point is unclear and missed a ref. for something else than details. --Ulrich67 (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
There are still some unreliable sources: Slides from talks are usually self published work. In addition they may give a very simplified often exaggerated view with the talk itself missing. In this way videos may be a little better, but still this is not a good source. I don't think we should rely on such sources. At least we should keep them marked as less reliable. The videos are also candidates for future dead links. --Ulrich67 (talk) 22:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Under Advantages there is one Point "Excellent heat transfer". Here the ref. ORNL-TM-2006-12 (currently number 51) does not support the claim that the salt gives better heat transfer than water. It gives the opposite: water being better than molten salt (e.g. lower figure of merit), even for pure Filbe, and more for other salts listed. The comparison is difficult anyway, as water and the salt can hardly work at the same temperature, and the salt may allow for a higher temperature difference. However if the temperature is lowered, the viscosity of the salt increases quite fast and makes heat transfer more difficult at temperature much below 700°C. The direct comparison of thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity is somewhat misleading - viscosity and density are also important factors, this time favoring water. Also the addition of ThF to the salt is expected to have a negative influence (higher viscosity, higher density, less thermal conductivity and lower volumetric heat capacity).--Ulrich67 (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I have finished my Polish version of the LFTR article in the end and uploaded it to the Polish Wiki as "Reaktor torowy na ciekłych fluorkach". This is my first Wiki article. It has been reviewed and is now available for the Polish readers. Please advise if I may add interwiki links
en:Liquid fluoride thorium reactor to the Polish version and
pl:Reaktor torowy na ciekłych fluorkach to the original article?
Pliftr (talk) 18:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
I just read through this article, and I wanted to post some feedback. It seems to have a large base of contributors, which is good. However, for how long the article is, it could certainly be more concise. Specifically, each disadvantage listed has one or more counter-arguments listed for how that disadvantage could be overcome. It is really quite tedious to read both subsections of 'Advantages' and then get into the 'Disadvantages' only to be reading a third section of advantages. It certainly does not seem to be written even-handedly. 64.114.134.52 (talk) 22:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
There is this point under Economic advantages. There is a Ref. given - however the contend of this section is not supported by the two Refs. - more of the opposite: corrosion is still an open question and more research and tests are needed. So I Suggest removing this point all together - most of the corrosion problem is already handled better further down under disadvantages (with the same Refs.). The numbers given for the replacement graphite are also of rather limited value. They are rather old cost estimates of the new material only - the bigger issue with graphite replacement is the waste and downtime and provisions needed to do the replacement.--Ulrich67 (talk) 11:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
This point under advantages is a little off topic for the LFTR: It may be possible to use some SNF components as a fuel in a MSR, but not in LFTR as described in this article. Also this is only a still rather vague suggestion with may open points. As the LFTR as a thermal reactor with only marginal negative reactivity coefficients adding extra problematic elements is hard (it may work in small non breeding MSR with better safety) and the buildup of MA is no better (likely even worse because of slightly harder spectrum) than in a LWR. Also the LFTR has very few spare neutrons, and adding waste with MA tends to reduce breeding even further. The real option for transmutation of MA is using a fast MSR , possibly even accelerator driven - this is rather different from a LFTR. So if at all (because this are just plans with may open points) this point should go to the more general MSR article.--Ulrich67 (talk) 08:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
References
This whole article makes no reference to an estimate of the costs per kwh. Surely this is the most important point of any discussion of alternative energy sources!? Let's make that happen! ;-) 129.199.82.143 (talk) 10:50, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Under Advantages there is this point. However for new nuclear designs passive emergency cooling is more or less a requirement. On first sight the high temperatures may help designing a passive cooling - however, the only ref. given for this section essentially only gives crude first ideas and at the end says that more research is needed to validate and understand these things. The need to limit cooling (to prevent uncontrolled salt freezing) and the requirements not to use water and keep oxygen out can actually make passive decay heat cooling more difficult than in a water based system. At least ORNL used a quite intricate active cooling system for the salt storage system of the MSER. So far the given Ref. is more supporting the lack of a proven concept for passive cooling - this is definitely not an advantage. So unless someone finds a good Ref. on this - this point should be deleted or even moved in revised form to difficulties.--Ulrich67 (talk) 18:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The fragment "four times greater abundance in the earth's crust than" appears in the article. This is ambiguous. If it is five times as abundant as, then let's say so. If it is four times as abundant as, then let's say that.
The fragment "20x smaller than" also appears. What the hell is that supposed to mean? 1/20 as large as?
Jack Waugh (talk) 22:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the ambiguity. The sentence could be rewritten like "thorium is four times more abundant than uranium in the earth's crust", but the meaning is still the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.210.21.243 (talk) 13:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
This article is a few years old. Has anyone created a working Thorium reactor since then? Larsumms (talk) 07:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC) Larry Summers
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The lede currently has nothing about the status of development, proof-of-concepts, nor power production projections, so a bit hard for the casual reader to get a "read" on the status of this technology on the "theoretical paper" to "lab experimentation" to "proof-of-concept implementations" to "small-scale production of the nn MW class" to "production reactors" anticipated in 2023.
Obviously, any of that could only be said if info is verifiably sourced. But it does seems the lead could use a good summary of where this tech is on the long-term development path, if such sources exist, even if it is only still theoretical and early lab stage stuff. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
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You may read the criticism on the forum. These were the most criticised claims on Disadvantages:
Someone may want to check those and correct possible errors. —Nikolas Ojala (talk) 18:32, 27 July 2018 (UTC)