SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future (Macsci) [Hardcover]

Richard Martin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 8, 2012 | ISBN-10: 0230116477 | ISBN-13: 978-0230116474

 A riveting look at how an alternative source of energy is revoluntionising nuclear power, promising a safe and clean future for millions, and why thorium was sidelined at the height of the Cold War
 
In this groundbreaking account of an energy revolution in the making, award-winning science writer Richard Martin introduces us to thorium, a radioactive element and alternative nuclear fuel that is far safer, cleaner, and more abundant than uranium.
 
At the dawn of the Atomic Age, thorium and uranium seemed to be in close competition as the fuel of the future. Uranium, with its ability to undergo fission and produce explosive material for atomic weapons, won out over its more pacific sister element, relegating thorium to the dustbin of science.
 
Now, as we grapple with the perils of nuclear energy and rogue atomic weapons, and mankind confronts the specter of global climate change, thorium is re-emerging as the overlooked energy source as a small group of activists and outsiders is working, with the help of Silicon Valley investors, to build a thorium-power industry.
 
In the first book mainstream book to tackle these issues, Superfuel is a story of rediscovery of a long lost technology that has the power to transform the world's future, and the story of the pacifists, who were sidelined in favour of atomic weapon hawks, but who can wean us off our fossil-fuel addiction and avert the risk of nuclear meltdown for ever.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Besides briefly covering everything technical you need to know about the 90th element on the periodic table, SuperFuel provides engaging detail on the history and likely future of using thorium as a comparatively safe and substantially beneficial nuclear fuel . . . [Martin] makes a solid, convincing case for thorium as a superfuel, not simply to replace uranium, but to reduce the use of much dirtier fuels such as coal . . . With readable presentations like SuperFuel, the path to a better energy future just got a little easier.”—The Washington Times

“Makes the case that thorium, an abundant, safe element that cannot easily be turned into a weapon, should be fuelling our reactors instead of uranium…Martin is at his best when describing the human struggles of the cold-war era that spelled their…convincing.”—New Scientist

“Traces the history of nuclear power development. . . Recommended.”–Choice

 

"Richard Martin has done an exemplary job of exploring a technically demanding subject in a gripping narrative form. The implications of this subject could not be more vital -- for oil prices, energy security, the chances of coping with climate change -- and 'Superfuel' clearly and fairly spells out the reasons for both optimism and for caution. If every technical book were written in this clear and engaging a style, we'd all be a lot better informed! I am very glad to have read this book."--James Fallows, The Atlantic, author of China Airborne

 

"Bringing back to light a long-lost technology that should never have been lost, this fascinating and important biography of thorium also brings us a commodity that’s rare in discussions of energy and climate change: hope."-- Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired

 

"Thorium is the younger sister to uranium, less volatile, slower to self-consume, and as many have contended without success, much better suited as a source of nuclear power than uranium. Superfuel by award-winning science writer Richard Martin tells the Cinderella story of thorium in a fast-paced, insider’s account.  This short, well-written book is a must read for those interested in understanding thorium’s past and its potential to be a clean, renewable energy source for the future."-- Cynthia Kelly, President Atomic Heritage Foundation

 

"Our future energy supplies rely upon hard choices.  Richard Martin educates us on our troubled history with nuclear energy, and even more importantly, how to develop this essential source of 21st century clean energy.  This is the type of book that can make a difference!"  --John Hofmeister, author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies

 

“The story of the slightly radioactive element thorium, a much-touted alternative fuel for nuclear power plants. Abundant in the Earth’s crust, thorium has been used in various industrial processes since its discovery in 1828. Advocates, writes Martin, an award-winning journalist and senior research analyst for Pike Research, a clean energy firm, say the silver-gray element has another possible use: as a cheap, safe energy source with the potential to solve our power crisis.…A lucid overview of a still-developing chapter in the story of nuclear power.” –Kirkus Reviews

 

About the Author

Richard Martin was the first to write about thorium in the mainstream press. His feature story in Wired catalyzed the thorium power movement. An award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Time, Fortune, The Atlantic, and The Best Science Writing, Martin is the editorial director of Pike Research, a leading clean-energy firm. He lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and son.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (May 8, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230116477
• ISBN-13: 978-0230116474
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Nuclear

More About the Author

Award-winning science and technology journalist Richard Martin has been covering the energy landscape for nearly two decades. A contributing editor for Wired since 2001, he has written about energy, technology, and international affairs for Time, Fortune, The Atlantic, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He is the former technology producer for ABCNews.com (1997-2000), the technology editor for The Industry Standard (2000-2001), and editor-at-large for Information Week (2005-2008), and since 2011 he has been the editorial director for Pike Research, the leading clean energy research and analysis firm. His work was selected for Best Science Writing of 2004, and his honors include an "Excellence in Feature Writing" award, from the Society for Professional Journalists, for a Seattle Weekly investigative report on Boeing's ties to China.

Martin's writing on the future of energy has taken him around the world. In 1997 he spent three months in Aerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as one of the first Western journalists to report on the last great oil rush of the 20th century, the Caspian Sea oil boom. In Canada's northern Saskatchewan province, Martin descended 600 feet underground for a rare close-up of the world's richest uranium mine. He has travelled across Alaska's forbidding North Slope to report on new horizontal drilling techniques for extracting oil from under the permafrost near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And he spent weeks investigating the strange phenomenon of "super-rust" inside oil tankers, for a Wired feature. In early 2012, reprising a reporting trip he made in the late 1980s, he drove the Gulf Coast to report on America's new petroleum export surge for a cover story for Fortune. Martin's December, 2009 Wired story on thorium catalyzed the thorium power revival.

Educated at Yale and the University of Hong Kong, Richard Martin lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and son.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 69 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "SuperFuel" is a super-story about a super-element! May 8, 2012

By Kirk Sorensen

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The story of thorium as a planetary energy source is almost too incredible to be believed. To think that for almost seventy years we have known about a source of energy that would last longer than the Sun will shine and we haven't exploited it? One has to wonder why.

In this book Rick Martin does a marvelous job telling the amazing and true story of the almost forgotten power of element 90: thorium. During the Manhattan Project thorium was passed over for consideration because it wasn't practical for nuclear weapons, but after the war researchers discovered how thorium and its fissile derivative uranium-233 would be the best fuel for clean and safe nuclear reactors--they just didn't know exactly what form those reactors would take. Then in the 1950s and 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab, Dr. Alvin Weinberg and his team figured out the right way--a revolutionary new kind of reactor that used liquid fluoride salts rather than solid ceramic pellets as a nuclear fuel. No one could believe that such a machine could work, but Weinberg's team actually built and operated two of them very successfully.

But the atomic energy establishment in the United States and around the world wanted a plutonium fast breeder reactor--a reactor totally different in every way from Weinberg's safe fluoride-salt reactor--and they convinced Nixon to make it national policy, which he did in 1971. Then they used that position of strength to cancel all of the research at Oak Ridge in thorium and fluoride salts and they got Weinberg fired as director. Without their leader and their political support, the Oak Ridge team dissolved and disbanded and the notion of a safe, clean, efficient thorium reactor was lost.

Nuclear engineering students don't learn about it today. It's not taught in their schools. You can get an MS or PhD in nuclear engineering and never hear anything about Weinberg's work. I speak from first-hand experience!

Read this book and you'll learn the incredible true story of how energy security and energy independence for the whole world is feasible, possible, and affordable through the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR)!

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars More heat than light; doesn't do justice to the subject June 25, 2012

By Robert Apthorpe

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I looked forward to SuperFuel as an accessible exploration of molten salt breeder reactor technology and history, a comparison-and-contrast between the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) and conventional reactors, a survey of current and past attempts at using thorium in power plants, a summary of the thorium/uranium fuel cycle, and an assessment of the barriers to adoption of LFTR and recommendations for action and change. Unfortunately, the book itself mirrors the history of its subject: SuperFuel has a very promising start, abruptly transitions to an extended disappointing and unproductive era until rediscovering its value at the end. Does it succeed or fail? The answer is complex.

SuperFuel is essentially an extended work of advocacy journalism, and suffers from many of the problems common to that genre - oversimplification, excessive hyperbole, demonization of the status quo and one's perceived opponents, and selective inclusion and omission of evidence to suit the author's preordained conclusion. These are all forgivable sins to some degree but in SuperFuel Martin has taken what could have been a compelling tale of an exciting technology rediscovered and an inspiring manifesto for energy independence into an intensely negative, repetitive, and error-filled rant against uranium, conventional reactors, and anyone associated with them.

The book is fraught with numerous technical and historical errors which calls into question how much of the technology and history Martin actually understands, thereby rendering much of what he presents as fact suspect. Entirely too much of the book is dedicated to a putative feud between Adm. Rickover and Alvin Weinberg. It would have been helpful to see matters from Rickover's perspective as the architect of the nuclear navy rather than as the cardboard villain Martin presents. Ham-fisted and inaccurate characterization is not only directed at personalities such as Rickover. Martin saves more than enough ire for the current generation of nuclear technologists, managers, and regulators and dishes it out liberally. Some criticism is warranted but again, there's little room in the narrative for nuance, historical perspective, or complexity. More thoughtful consideration could illuminate; we get more dim cardboard villains instead.

Possibly more significant are errors of omission. SuperFuel repeatedly claims the LFTR concept is more economical than conventional reactors for its projected modularity and simplicity of construction, barely admitting that this advantage is shared with small modular reactors (SMRs) of conventional design. The complexity of current reactors is damned for "requir[ing] a complicated network of pipes, valves, and other plumbing that can fail, corrode, or fall prey to operator error." though it is hard to see how this exact criticism is not just as applicable to LFTR with its corrosive fuel salt and its (conveniently unspecified) radiochemical processing plant which relies on incredibly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF) which is so strong it can dissolve glass. The most significant omission is that of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project since IFR addressed many of the same problems as LFTR is intended to solve but has the advantage of being demonstrated in the past two decades, and like Weinberg's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, was canceled after very successful operation. It's clear Martin knew of IFR since he mentions the project's cancellation, though not by name. Taken in total, it's difficult to see these as mere oversights since mention of any of them might challenge the notion that LFTR is the One True Way to clean, sustainable, abundant power.

Martin also has a tendency to make and repeat bold assertions without evidence. Many of his arguments about LFTR's safety and economics hinge on comparing operating power plants against what effectively amounts to "vaporware" which is hardly fair or useful. Is LFTR really safer than a conventional LWR? We can only guess; in some areas yes, in some areas no, in most areas we won't know until we can analyze a completed LFTR design submitted for NRC certification. If history is any guide, most problems won't be found until we build ten and run them for a decade. Either way, bold and definitive claims of safety are premature.

I found myself asking "Really?" after each of Martin's baseless assertions with increasing frequency until I just wanted to give up. This is especially unfortunate since Martin's writing begins to shine near the end when he stops foaming and gets around to making concrete, positive recommendations. Most of his recommendations are sensible and pragmatic; it's a pity it takes so much work to get to them.

Rather than getting a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of LFTR and a fair comparison with competing technologies, we get hand-waving, well-poisoning, and cherry-picking. LFTR and thorium hold great promise but the intense bias in SuperFuel clouds the issue and actively alienates anyone not already convinced of LFTR's superiority, especially those in a position to do more than provide venture capital or agitate on-line. The flaw here is not with LFTR and the thorium-uranium fuel cycle, it's trusting Martin to act as an effective advocate.

In short, SuperFuel is for true-believers and evangelistas with a tolerance for convenient error and intolerance for dissent, the sort of people who believe those who disagree with them can only be stupid or evil. If you're not already convinced that LFTR is the end-all-be-all power source, SuperFuel has too many obvious rhetorical and technical flaws to sway you; if you're already convinced, SuperFuel will under the best circumstances make you cringe, under the worst, provide you with enough weak talking points and errors to make you insufferable. Or perhaps more insufferable.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading, warts and all May 20, 2012

By Emanuel Cooper

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Please read this book. You may not agree with everything Martin writes (I don't). You may even want to scream at him (I did a couple of times). But this book is a very good opener for a discussion on an important subject that few are familar with. Equally important, if the proponents of the liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) are essentially right this technology offers an important contribution (not a panacea) to solving the energy crisis and aleviating global warming.

This is not exactly a balanced book. Richard Martin is advocating for the thorium-based technology and makes no bones about it. At the same time, he does not ignore the problems of this technology (although to my taste he minimizes some of them, about which more below), and he makes a reasonable effort to be fair to competing views.

The historical chapters are illuminating. If you have wondered how we ended up burning increasing amounts of fossil fuel sixty-odd years after we were hyperbolically promised "electricity too cheap to meter", Martin will show you. The technical chapters are good considering that this is a book for the general public and more detail is available in the blogosphere. The last chapters, which discuss present business activity and future prospects, are up-to-date and present a convincing case for allocating resources to the (re)development of this technology. Success is by no means guaranteed, but at this point I would rather see a couple of billions going into LFTRs than into fusion or (heavens) into "clean" coal.

Now here are things I'm not so crazy about (but you should read the book anyway!). First off, I think Martin does not fully acknowledge the fact that thorium technology, while much "greener" than the uranium/plutonium technology, still generates a lot of fission nuclear waste. It is true that most of these radioactive isotopes are relatively short-lived and will be essentially gone in a few centuries. However, there is still the danger, in an untested design, of an uncontrolled release into the environment. Especially in a high-temperature reactor, some volatile species (xenon, iodine, volatile fluorides of tin and antimony etc.) may be released accidentally if there is a gaseous leak (the author does mention repeatedly how the gaseous Xe-135 isotope will be separated and removed). This brings me to another de-emphasized issue: potential corrosion of metals in contact with hot liquid salts, if any oxygen finds its way in. There may be good technical solutions to this but I didn't see them mentioned in this book and I sure hope the issue is not being pushed under the rug. For these and related reasons I would call LFTR "greenish" at best, not "green" as the cover would have it.

I think Martin appreciates - but I hope the various fire-breathing investors he interviewed do too - that after Fukushima there is little chance for this technology to take off without the buy-in of the environmental community and the wider public. That's why all relevant issues have to be addressed squarely and without PR legerdemain, and in any development plan the safety of the public and the workers has to be - and to be shown to be - truly "Job 1". This is why I object to two ideas that Martin seems to find appealing: (1) small stand-alone reactors, and (2) giving one man (following the model of General Groves in the Manhattan project) absolute authority over the project. The first idea will make inspection more difficult and will increase the chances that skilled personell for performing emergency operations will not be available at all times. (Banks of many modular reactors sharing a site should be OK however.) The second idea was workable in time of war, but is inconsistent with democracy and will cause deep suspicions toward the project. People who care should also watch against the established nuclear industry trying to "greenwash" themselves by sprinkling a little thorium into their conventional fuel rods.

There is much more to say about this book. It is well and persuasively written but not so well edited, and it's not hard to find factual mistakes: potassium has 3 natural isotopes, not one (p.36); most but not all materials expand when heated (p.73); the boiling point of the fluoride salts used by Weinberg must have been way above 680 degrees F (p.129); and the 1960s were obviously Weinberg's, not Weinberger's heyday (p.132). A nuclear engineer would probably have his/her own list.

So, this is not the "perfect" thorium book. But read it anyway. It is well worth a few TV-less evenings.