Talk:Thorium fuel cycle

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A 2011 MIT study concluded that although there is little in the way of barriers to a thorium fuel cycle, with current or near term light-water reactor designs there is also little incentive for any significant market penetration to occur.

That sentence in the History section doesn't make sense. Where in that 250 page report does it conclude that "there is little incentive for any significant market penetration to occur"? And why would that be the case with "little in the way of barriers to a thorium fuel cycle"?

I propose to clarify or remove this sentence altogether.

Question: this section discussed the U232 decay cycle. The text states U232 decays into dangerous Rn, Bi, and Tl, but included graphic shows decay chain starting with Th232. Is this correct? Is this a typo, or is there a substantial decay path between U232 and Th232? If so, it is not mentioned in text. For me the graphic does not match up with the text. This is confusing. Dwightfowler (talk) 16:58, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The last sentence of that text before the decay formulas says: "232U decays to 228Th where it joins the decay chain of 232Th". And the first formula shows this happens via alpha particle emission. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if I am using the Talk section improperly. I could not find a way to reply to the original post re: the MIT Study on the future of the nuclear fuel cycle.

In Appendix A: of the MIT report, thorium's economic viability in the current and proposed future nuclear fuel streams for light water reactors (LWR) is thoroughly discussed. The reasoning asking with the pros and cons are clearly laid out and discussed.

I argue for its inclusion, but the sections needs to be expanded with several clarifications taken from the MIT report. Dwightfowler (talk) 17:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a list of reactors where any thorium was ever inserted and burned, with no distinction between ongoing use, one time at commissioning, for fuel enhancement, research projects, etc. Is that really useful? It might be better to distinguish at least between primarily thorium-fueled reactors (at this point just prototypes as far as I can tell) and reactors where thorium was used but is not the primary fuel. --Geoffk01 (talk) 02:31, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From the article: "Th-232 is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope U-233 which is the nuclear fuel". --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:10, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To my knowledge, your comment about PRIMARY fuel is correct; we could re-title that table to "List of reactors in which Thorium was experimented with as fuel". It is definitely hard to be both accurate and concise. ---Avatar317^(talk) 20:15, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]