UiB - English News
1.11.2006
Safe nuclear power can avert the energy crisis


Physics Professor Egil Lillestøl is campaigning to build the world’s first safe nuclear power plant in Norway.

Facts/counter-arguments
According to the article alongside, Mr Lillestøl meets few counter-arguments. The following are his replies to some of the arguments he has encountered:

“This isn’t new. Thorium reactors have existed for years”.
Reply: Thorium has been used and is currently used in classical reactors where, among other things, thorium is mixed with uranium fuel to yield a little extra energy at the same time that this cuts down on the amount of plutonium waste that is produced. But this accelerator-driven reactor design is completely new and radically different from all other nuclear power plants found today.

“If it’s so good, wouldn’t someone already have built this kind of reactor a long time ago ?”
Reply: No, quite simply because the technology is completely new. The thorium reactor was under development on the drawing board right up until the EU’s final rejection in 2000. It requires advanced accelerator technology, which has not been developed until recently. Commercially available accelerators have yet to be developed, but it’s simply a matter of time.

“Here in Norway we should concentrate on what we do best: CO2-cleaning”.
Reply: We must of course develop technology for the capture and disposal of CO2, every little contribution to the CO2 account helps. But don’t believe for a second that this will solve the problem of global CO2 emissions. The world’s total annual emissions amount to 28 billion tonnes; it therefore makes very little difference if Norway cleans a few million tonnes per year. While we sit and discuss CO2 cleaning, emissions in Asia alone are increasing by 500 million tonnes per year. And no one over there is planning to spend money on this type of technology. Norway has rich deposits of thorium, and the country now has a unique opportunity to both secure revenues as an energy nation and to help to introduce safe nuclear power technology as a leading provider of development assistance, which would benefit the entire planet without it generating any fear concerning nuclear weapons.

“Recovering thorium is expensive”.
Reply: This is completely and utterly wrong. There is three times more thorium in the ground than uranium. All the raw materials in thorium can be used as fuel, which does not apply to uranium. Financial studies show that a thorium reactor would be more profitable than a uranium reactor.

Facts: Safe nuclear power
•  The greatest problem associated with conventional nuclear power plants is that they use fissile fuels. This means that the fuel is capable of sustaining a nuclear reaction on its own. There is then always a danger of the reaction spinning out of control.

• In an accelerator-driven nuclear reactor based on thorium, the fuel in itself is not fissile.  The thorium would have to be bombarded by a proton beam in order to produce a nuclear reaction. The thorium nuclei which are hit, are converted into uranium-233. The energy which is produced when this uranium is split is enough to drive the particle accelerator and at the same time create a solid energy surplus which can be converted into power. If the proton beam is stopped, the nuclear reaction immediately stops. The reaction cannot therefore spin out of control as in an ordinary nuclear power plant.

• The thorium reactor is also unsuitable for the production of material for nuclear weapons, in contrast to conventional nuclear power plants, mainly because it can only produce small amounts of uranium-232. Uranium-232 is highly radioactive and very difficult to handle. This is not a problem in connection with the small amounts produced in the reactor, but the use of this technology to produce uranium for the production of weapons would not be practicable.

• Nor can the thorium reactor be used to produce plutonium. Plutonium-239 is one of the constituents of the nuclear waste from conventional nuclear power plants, and can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

• The thorium reactor could also provide a solution here, because the proton beam that drives the reaction can be used to transmute plutonium nuclei: when they are bombarded with protons, they transmute into heavier atomic nuclei, which have different properties. This is exactly how uranium-233 is formed when thorium is hit by proton beams in the proposed thorium reactor. It has therefore also been proposed to build new thorium reactors next to the old, more dangerous uranium reactors, so that the plutonium waste can be got rid of simultaneously.
Thorium reactors could solve the current energy crisis and the world’s energy problems for the foreseeable future. This is the opinion of Physics Professor Egil Lillestøl, who travels around Norway with this message, meeting few counter-arguments. So why didn’t we built these reactors a long time ago?

By Lars Holger Ursin

“The technology has not been available until now, and a major initial investment is required in order to test this type of reactor,” says Mr Lillestøl. He has spread information for years about accelerator-driven nuclear reactors which use thorium. And he hopes that Norway will build the first one.

“I’m an optimist, but I believe it’s now or never,” he continues.

The idea behind the reactor is not Mr Lillestøl's, but that of his former colleague and friend from CERN, the Nobel Laureate Carlo Rubbia.

The secret is in the type of fuel
“He is an immensely creative man, one of the most intelligent men I have met. He has always worked on minor and major inventions.” says Mr Lillestøl. One of his major inventions was a new type of reactor that uses thorium as fuel, which is not encumbered with the same major problems as conventional nuclear power technology.

The secret is in the type of fuel: Thorium. Thorium is not itself fissile, and cannot therefore sustain a fission reaction. The chain reaction cannot therefore spin out of control, which is the greatest hazard in conventional nuclear power plants. In addition, the technology cannot be used to manufacture materials for nuclear weapons.

“It is technically possible, but in reality the material that is required is too difficult to handle, making it largely unfeasible. If you are determined to make nuclear weapons, there are simply much easier methods of doing so,” says Mr Lillestøl.

The oil fund x 1000
Mr Lillestøl has therefore proposed that Norway invests the EUR 550 million, which the researchers at CERN believe are needed to build a prototype of an accelerator-driven nuclear reactor based on thorium. At the current exchange rate, that is NOK 4.4 billion, or only NOK 400 million more than the government is investing in the CO2-cleaning plant at Mongstad.

According to Mr Lillestøl, there is another important reason why Norway should make the first decisive investment. The fact is that Norway has the world’s fourth largest deposits of thorium, totalling 180,000 tonnes.  Mr Lillestøl claims that at the current price this can generate a staggering NOK 1.5 million billion in revenues, corresponding to approximately 1,000 times the value of the oil fund.

In many ways, a thorium reactor seems too good to be true, and in a way it is. In fact, no one wants to build the reactor, at least not yet.

French nuclear power bosses turned it down
Carlo Rubbia presented the proposal in person to the EU in the early 1990s. The response was initially good:

“The EU granted a total of EUR 100 million to the project over a five-year period. Many of us in the CERN milieu at that time took it for granted that we would see an operational prototype in four to five years,” says Mr Lillestøl.

When Mr Rubbia felt that there was an adequate research basis for building a prototype, he asked for EUR 500 million to carry this out. He then received the thumbs down.

“The problem is France. They have a very strong nuclear power sector, which is not interested in competition. They would rather continue to develop their own technology," explains Mr Lillestøl. And when the French have made their minds up about something, it is difficult to get anything through the EU.

Personal campaign
Today, the thorium reactor is no longer included in the EU’s energy policy plans. Instead, Europeans wish to take advantage of Norwegian gas, coal and existing nuclear power plants.

Mr Rubbia was very disappointed by the rejection, and shelved the project. He didn’t want to waste his time on politics when he could be carrying out research, so he turned his attention to solar power instead. Mr Lillestøl, however, did not want to give up.

Since 2003, he has personally campaigned to persuade someone to build the prototype that is required in order to convince the world.

“I feel that my expertise has now given me the chance to make the world a slightly better place, for our children and grandchildren. I’m not interested in money or honour. I’m too old for that”, he laughs.

Wants to make Norway a world leader in nuclear power technology
Although Mr Lillestøl is also keen to make the technology available to developing countries, he believes that Norway should make the first decisive investment.

“Mr Rubbia used to joke when I met him: “You’re so rich in Norway. You can make the entire investment on your own!” I believe that if we decide to build this prototype, it could be one of the most important decisions ever in Norwegian foreign policy, along the same lines as when we decided to be masters of our own house for the petroleum industry. At that time, we used expertise from outside Norway and made a concentrated effort to provide education in the area. Within 10-15 years, Norway was a world leader in petroleum technology”, says Mr Lillestøl.

He believes that Norway, by the same method, can become a world leader in safe nuclear power technology.

“I personally know a number of physicists, at CERN among other places, who have said that they would drop whatever they were doing in order to come to Norway to be involved in the building of a prototype, if the funding was in place”, says Mr Lillestøl.

Giving up in six months time
In the last six months the Norwegian authorities have just started to wake up. Mr Lillestøl has participated in open meetings and held lectures in which he has presented his proposal. Teknisk Ukeblad (Technical weekly) has written about the plans several times. The daily press and television have also gradually switched on: the newspaper Verdens Gang recently published a six page feature in its weekend magazine on the thorium reactor. And this week, the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK) is recording its programme Schrødingers katt, which will feature a report about the thorium reactor.

“Wherever I go, people are convinced and enthusiastic,” says Mr Lillestøl. Politically, he is still running up against a wall, however. the Norwegian Progress Party’s (FRP) energy policy spokesperson, Ketil Solvik-Olsen has, however, become involved in the case, and has sent an interpellation to the Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Odd Roger Enoksen. The Minister has so far showed no interest, publicly. If he continues to show no interest, Mr Lillestøl will do the same as Mr Rubbia.

“I shall pursue the matter for another six months. If nothing concrete has started to happen by then, I will give up”, says the Physics Professor. “It’s not the end of the world, it just means that Norway is missing out on a unique opportunity,” he explains.

“I am convinced that thorium reactors will be built. A number of exciting projects are already in progress in India and Russia. My point is that it is a matter of urgency for Norway to get involved in this work, if we are to play a decisive role,” says Mr Lillestøl.