element90 In reply to IvanRostoff [2013-05-03 14:40:26 +0000 UTC]

Thorium 232 should be the basis of the fuel system for Nuclear power stations as it can be used to produce Uranium 233 which is the most fissile of the Uranium isotopes it will, split 80% of the time if hit by a neutron. The best part about using Thorium is the LTFR or Liquid Thorium Fluoride Reactor which operates at normal atmospheric pressure, the fuel is already molten so meltdown is not a problem. All nuclear power stations currently use solid fuel which is then regarded as waste when only 0.7% of the Uranium has been used, a LFTR can use 100% of its fuel.

There are many advantages of using Thorium, it just needs some investment and much cheaper and smaller power stations will result with greatly reduced waste. In fact the Uranium in the solid fuel can be used in the LFTR so that the so called waste can be used as fuel because after all the Thorium is there only to produce more Uranium 233. The heat produced by a LTFR has at least two very useful applications: de-salinisation of sea water and the production of synthetic hydrocarbons such as methane, petroleum spirit ("petrol" in the UK, "gas" in the US) for cars, diesel for lorries, taxis, buses etc. all from water and carbon dioxide.

So, yes I am a fan of Thorium.

Regarding Mars and Phobos for an other of your comments, those programs were never released to the general public and I stopped development on them when they became the basis for Saturn and Titan which have been released and currently at version 3.0.1 for Linux and Windows. I working on version 4.0.0 which is based on the Qt tool kit instead of Gtkmm so Saturn and Titan will be available for OS X in addition to Linux and Windows.

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ABlipinTime In reply to element90 [2013-08-26 02:48:28 +0000 UTC]

These facts about Thorium sounds too good to be true. Have sources? Then again, I did hear alittle about this some time ago. Why nothing became of it I don't know.

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element90 In reply to Fractamonium [2013-01-16 16:36:21 +0000 UTC]

Thank you. I also have a blog featuring "daily fractals" deep zoom sequences into the Mandelbrot and Cubic Mandelbrot sets, occasional fractal guide posts focusing on a particular fractal type and my fractal software is available for download.

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Fractamonium In reply to element90 [2013-01-16 21:08:34 +0000 UTC]

You are welcome! Nice blog! I didn't see anything about your software!

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element90 In reply to Fractamonium [2013-01-16 23:10:11 +0000 UTC]

Here's the link [link]

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element90 In reply to nic022 [2012-07-30 20:06:40 +0000 UTC]

I spotted it o your wordpress blog.

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nic022 In reply to element90 [2012-07-31 04:58:19 +0000 UTC]

Thank for comment, i also see your wordpress gallery, nice works.

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element90 In reply to NemoNameless [2012-03-03 21:47:21 +0000 UTC]

Work on the new versions is progressing well, I've got most of the features I wanted to include done. I haven't added any new fractal types (yet), in fact the number of fractal types has been reduced as I've replaced 15 of the fractals types with 3 'new' fractal types but the number of possibilities has been greatly increased as those 3 fractals have function parameters (new for version 2.0). The Pickover Popcorn fractals have also been removed because I've added an option for orbit plotting to all fractals except the Lyapunov fractal so the Pickover Popcorn fractals are available using other fractal types with the orbit plotting option enabled.

Also new for version 2.0 is revised import of FractInt colour maps, UF gradients, and Saturn Colour Map (XML) files (new), Saturn can now export UF gradients and Saturn Colour Map files. Additionally Saturn Parameter Files (XML) can be saved and loaded.

There are some colour method changes to be made and I may include some new fractal types.

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NemoNameless In reply to element90 [2012-03-04 20:51:18 +0000 UTC]

It sounds like you've spent a lot of time putting lots of features into your program. It certainly produces quite the array of interesting images as evidenced here. I'll be sure to try it out as soon as the new version comes out.

Any reason why you chose Thorium (element 90) as your DA name? (Just curious )

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element90 In reply to NemoNameless [2012-03-04 22:48:02 +0000 UTC]

Some time ago I came across an article on the potential for nuclear power using Thorium instead of Uranium as a fuel where 100% of the fuel could e used instead of the less than 1% that is currently used in Uranium powered reactors. Thorium is at least 4 times more abundant than Uranium, unlike Uranium they haven't been looking for it as its uses are limited so there is probably more than that. Coming up with good user names can be difficult and looking at my periodic table element 90 seemed to me to be a good name.

For more information on Thorium as an energy source see [link]

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NemoNameless In reply to element90 [2012-03-05 03:12:55 +0000 UTC]

Interesting article, wonder why Thorium reactors aren't more popular already?

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element90 In reply to NemoNameless [2012-03-05 09:06:24 +0000 UTC]

It is because you can't easily (relatively speaking) get weapons grade Uranium or Plutonium from Thorium powered molten salt reactors which was one of the reasons nuclear reactors were developed in the first place civilian use for generating electricity was an offshoot. Because some much time and effort has been invested in the uranium fuel cycle there are vested interests in keeping it that way. As far as molten salt reactors are concerned there are various engineering challenges to overcome which can be solved given the investment, the concept is known to work as the MSR at Oak Ridge National Laboratories (US) work for several years. One of the safety features of the MSR was the ease of shutting it down by draining the contents of the reactor into tanks configured such that the nuclear reaction stops, the feature was used on a weekly basis as they only ran the reactor five days a week it was drained on Friday evening and reloaded Monday morning.

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NemoNameless In reply to element90 [2012-03-05 18:00:59 +0000 UTC]

The MSR sounds really cool. Hope things like that catch on.

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