I have blogged about thorium reactors before. They have been studied and experimented with since the 1950s. There are enthusiastic supporters of the use of thorium to produce electricity but the question can be honestly raised about why, after seventy years, there are no thorium power reactors today. A consortium of Utah counties are partnering with a private startup in an attempt to build a commercial thorium reactor.
The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) sent out a request for qualifications in an attempt to find a qualified analyst who could evaluate a proposal for a thorium reactor to product electricity put forward by the Alpha Tech Research Corporation. The promoters of thorium power say that thorium reactors do not produce waste that can be refined to make nuclear weapons, they cannot melt down, and they do not produce waste that is dangerous for thousands of years.
Alpha Tech is looking for a site in Utah to construct a thorium reactor to produce medical isotopes and other isotopes for industrial and research applications. One of the things that make Utah attractive is the fact that there are a lot of locations that are in rural areas but are still close to airports. This is important because some medical isotopes have short half-lives and have to be shipped out quickly after they are created. One of the founders of Alpha Tech said, “We are a young company that is working on a technology that is not only cutting edge, but could have significant impact on the world.” They estimate that thousands of jobs could be created for rural Utah.
Thorium reactors use molten-salts to capture and circulate the heat generated by the thorium reactions. The three elements that are often selected for use in molten-salt reactors are beryllium, lithium and fluorine. Utah happens to be rich in both beryllium and lithium. Utah has extensive salt flats that contain a lot of lithium. One mine in Utah provides eighty five percent of the commercial beryllium in the world.
The mission of the SCIC is to “build essential regional infrastructure elements,” such as pipelines, roads, transmission systems and railroads that are necessary to deliver extracted minerals and power to market. There have been questions raised as to whether or not this mission is consistent with investment in such a speculative venture as that proposed by Alpha Tech. The SCIC has allocated twenty five thousand dollars to review the Alpha Tech proposal and decide if it wants to participate. The SCIC is having trouble finding an analyst to review the proposal and recently extended the deadline for responses to it RFQ.
The SCIC is under investigation by the Utah State Treasurer’s office. There are concerns that the group is not following proper accounting standards. The Treasurer is also a member of the Community Impact Board of Utah (CIB). This board allocates mineral royalties from the federal government to rural counties in Utah. Grants from the CIB are the only source of revenue for the SCIC. The Treasurer has publically raised the question of whether the SCIC has been handing contracts to insiders instead of giving them to the best qualified people. He is also worried that the SCIC is wasting public money in ways that do not provide the public benefit that is the purpose of the SCIC.
Critics of the Alpha Tech project point out that while some of the technologies needed to build thorium reactors have been developed, there is still a lot of technical research and development that will be required to develop the integrated commercial facility that Alpha Tech desires. It has been estimated that it will take at least ten years to design and build a commercial facility. And it will take a great deal more money than is available from a handful of rural counties in Utah.
