Thorium-232, Based Nuclear Power Plant Is Carbon Free And Produced Minimum Nuclear Waste. World Future Source Of Electricity.

Humanity will face an energy crisis as the world's population rapidly grows. Our numbers will grow from 7.36 Billion today to 9 billion in 2040. This Will increase the global energy consumption to a massive rate.
To meet this additional power consumption we need a sustainable power source appart from fossil fuel, nuclear power , Solar power, wind power, and HydroPower.

To meet this requirement researchers all over the world are going to developed a modern Thorium based Nuclear Power Plant which can produced electric power more efficiently than current Uranium/Plutonium based nuclear power plant.

According to researchers, if we could somehow harvest all the Thorium in the Earth's crust and use it in this way, we could power civilizations for tens of Billions of years.
Thorium based nuclear power plant is a Carbon free power plant and it is much more efficient than traditional nuclear power plant.
In traditional nuclear power plant, we can only convert 7℅ of Uranium/Plutonium atom as heat energy and rest of 93℅ are radioactive waste, which is not reprocessed/ recycled, rather than Polluted our Earth.

But in a Thorium Reactor, when Thorium-232 absorbs neutrons, then it forms a new fuel- uranium-233, that can then sustain the reaction. It can produce enough neutrons to continue turning more Thorium into U-233.
According To the Word Nuclear Association, there are seven types of reactors that can be designed to use Thorium as a Nuclear fuel.

1. Heavy water Reactors(PHWRs)
   2)High temperature gas cooled reactors(HTRs)
   3)Boiling(light) water Reactors
   4)Pressurized(light) water Reactors(PWRs)
2. Fast neutron reactors(FNRs)
   6)Molten salt reactors(MSRs, LFTRs)
   7)Accelerator Driven Reactors(ADRs)

Thorium Reactor contained a loop filled with a molten salt made of fluorine, lithium, and beryllium and zirconium.
The salt carried around dissolved U235 and eventually U-233, making Molten Salt Reactors (MSR). The world's first Reactor to run on U-233 fuel. A second Loop of molten salt cooled the reactor.
In this method Electricity output is better. LFTRs(Liquid Fluride Thorium Reactor) are so hot, operating at roughly 1800 degree Fahrenheit, they can use more advanced heat to Electricity conversions technologies
The excess heat is very useful. It could boil and desalinate Ocean water into drinking water and help generate hydrogen for fuel cells and breakdown organic waste into Biofuels and power industrial processes.
The kindling to start a LFTR is flexible. Burning up old Nuclear Wepons material is possible, since fissile U-233, U-235, or Pu-239 can be used to start the reactor.
LFTR technology is a type of molten salt reactor (MSR) and used the Thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride based, molten, liquid salt for fuel. In typical design, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an an external heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to non radioactive seconadry salt. The secondary salt then transfers its heat to a steam turbine .
The LFTR concept was first investigated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten- Salt Reactor Experiment in the 1960. Though USA did not use Thorium during that time. But recently Japan, China, India, the UK, Candian, Russia, Australian, Private USA have expressed intent to developed and commercialise the technology.
LFTR technology use Thorium that is turned into Uranium rather than Uranium directly, Recieve fuel by pumping without shutdown, use a salt coolant and produce higher operating temperature. These distintict feature give rise to many potential advantage and lots of design challenges.
India's Nuclear scientist expect to complete an experimental fast breeder Nuclear reactor in Kalpakkam by the end of 2017.

The Kalpakkam reactor will generate 500MW of electricity by using the element Thorium-232, instead of Uranium, which is rare in India. The
fast breeder reactors would Revolutionized Nuclear Power because they are capable of generating more Nuclear fuel than they consume, while generating less Nuclear Waste.

Image credit: https://goo.gl/images/daRVqC

Basic Operation Principle of Nuclear Power Plant.:
A nuclear power plant is type of power station that generates Electricity using heat from Fission Nuclear reaction.
These reaction take place in nuclear reactor.
A Nuclear reactor is special apparutus used to perform Nuclear Fission. As the Nuclear Fission is radioactive, the reactor is covered by a protective shield. Splitting up of nuclei of heavy atoms is called as Nuclear Fission, during which huge amount of energy is released.
Nuclear fission is done by bombarding slow moving neutrons on the nuclei of heavy element( Uranium/Plutonium). As the nuclei break up, it releases energy as well as more neutrons which further cause Fission of neighbouring atoms and a chain reaction Continued. This chain reaction is controlled by critical technology, other wise explosion may happens.

A nuclear reactor consist of fuel rods, control rods, and a moderator.
A fuel rod contains round fuel pallets(Uranium+Thorium).
Control rods are of cadmium which absorbs neutrons. They are inserted into reactor and can be moved in or out to control the reaction.
The moderator can be graphite rods or The coolant itself. Moderators slows down the neutrons before they bombard on the fuel rods.

In Pressurised water Reactor(PWR) regular water is used as coolant and it is kept at very high pressure so that it does not boiled. The heated water is transferred through Heat Exchanger where water from secondary coolant Loop is converted into steam.

Thus the secondary Loop is completely free from radioactive stuff. In a PWR, the coolant water itself act as a moderator. Due to these advantages, Pressurised water Reactors are most commonly used.

Steam Turbine:
The generated Steam is passed through a steam turbine, which runs due to pressure of the steam. As the steam is passed through the turbine blades, the pressure of steam gradually decrease and its expands volume.
The steam turbine is coupled to an alternator shaft.

Alternator:
The steam turbine rotates the shaft of an alternator thus generating electrical energy. Electrical output of the alternator is delivered to a step up transformer which delivered to the power to desired place.
Condenser: The steam coming out of the turbine, after completing its work, is then converted back into water in a condenser.The steam is cooled by passing it through a third cold water Loop here.
We need huge amount of water to run a Nuclear Power Plant.

More information:
https://www.google.co.in/amp/amp.dailycaller.com/2017/07/10/india-has-almost-finished-the-worlds-first-advanced-thorium-nuclear-reactor/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle

http://www.electricaleasy.com/2015/09/nuclear-power-plant.html?m=1