Thorium

History of thorium Thorium is naturally a radioactive chemical element, which was discovered in 1828 from the Norwegian mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark, and named Thor from Jons Jakob Bezelius, which means the “Norse God of Thunder.” Thorium is the most abundant metal found in earth crust and had been scattered million years ago in the galaxy, with the explosion of meteors known as supernova. Thorium generates radioactive gas products, as radon-20 decay. Other decay by-products of thorium are radium

Thorium, fuel of the Future? By: The Atomic Waffles Throughout history, the availability of a reliable, safe, and efficient source of energy has dictated what humans can and cannot achieve. The use of Thorium as a next generation fuel gives us the opportunity to become a wealthier and a more environmentally conscious species. Thorium also presents us with the ability to do away with virtually every other form of energy production. In a world that is completely dependent on energy, the reliability

This source I decided to choose to write about is Marie Curie’s “On the Discovery of Radium”. This was a firsthand account by Madame Marie Curie herself when she addressed Vasser College on May 14th 1921. Madame Curie, while discussing her past with the discovery of radium, could have talked about the whole history of her experimentation, but broke it down to a very brief account. I will have to say, that even though it was a short and brief writing, it took longer to read due to the lack of my

not get from laboratory suppliers, universities, hospitals, and nuclear agencies, he made himself. David collected household smoke detectors and extracted americium-24. He also got assembled gas mantle covers and pulverized them to get radioactive thorium and took the Geiger counter in to an antique shop where he found a clock with a phial of radium paint left in it. With a little bit of things he had

Introduction: Thorium is a radioactive, solid silvery metal prior to its melting point of melting point of 3300°C. Thorium has an atomic number of 90, placing it two positions behind Uranium, on the periodic table. This is one of the two rare radioactive metals (the other being Uranium) that can be found in high quantities in the earth's crust with the majorly commercial mineral monazite, or it can be rarely found naturally in its oxidized form. Pure thorium looks silvery white and is very delicate

Unlike uranium, thorium is much safer, energy efficient, and abundant (Halper). Thorium has little to no risk of a nuclear meltdown because thorium needs to be paired with plutonium in order to produce electricity, unlike uranium which simply needs itself. If a meltdown were to happen engineers would simply separate the thorium from the plutonium to avoid any sort of disaster. More importantly, one ton of thorium can produce the same amount of energy as 3 tons of

Although thorium nuclear fuel is not new technology, it is a newly appreciated resource. The reason more effort was put into uranium previously is because, “A 1997 international scientific symposium on nuclear fuel cycles concluded that the principal reason thorium had not been used more widely to date is that the ore contains no fissile isotope.” (Thorium Power, 2015, para. 9). A fissile isotope like uranium-238 is more prone to sustaining nuclear chain reactions. Simply put, during the cold war

have been used to support the credibility of an overkill skem (Alroy, 1999) Researcher have used optical and thorium-uranium methods to get ages for rocks with large-animal remains (Alroy,

nuclear power device and process The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is a type of molten salt reactor which will generate electrical power. LFTR’s are a hypothetical and innovative solution to the future of power production which are a viable replacement of the current flawed uranium reactors. Thorium is three times more abundant than uranium (World Nuclear, 2015) which can be used 200 times more efficient than current uranium usage. Thorium also emits alpha particles which is less biologically

3.0- High school audience (education) (Transcript from a talk given at high schools during National Science Week 2018) The future of powering your Xbox/PlayStation We need electricity to do almost everything in our modern lives something you will be well aware of if your house has ever lost power unexpectedly. You can’t watch TV or YouTube, play your PlayStation or Xbox and your parents certainly can’t cook dinner. But as you all probably know most of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels which