The Use of Thorium in Nuclear Energy Generaion

Presented by DR. ALEXANDER CANNARA

The use of nuclear energy has erroneously been charged with being a dangerous process for generating electricity. In reality, a million times fewer people have been killed by nuclear

generators than have been killed by gas, oil and coal fired generators when one includes

all those killed by the by-products (including CO2) exhausted into the atmosphere. Also, CO2 is being absorbed into the oceans causing them to become acidic and this will eventually kill most of the forms of life supported by the seas.

232 Th is essentially non radioactive and has to be modified by the insertion of high speed neutrons into its nucleus for it to become fissile (233 U) so it can create heat for the generation

of steam to generate electricity and also, this heat could also be used to boil water for desalination plants. Because it is not fissile it is impossible for Thorium to create a “melt down”. Another advantage of using Thorium as a basis for nuclear energy generation is that the source of the high- speed neutrons mentioned above can be obtained from the radioactive waste from today’s nuclear fission reactors.

About the speaker

Dr. Alexander Cannara is an electrical engineer, software and networking consultant & educator. He spent 25 years in computer networking - 12 of those managing, developing and delivering technical training. Alex has 15 years of consulting, 7 of those helping hundreds of organizations with network problems & design issues. He has taught courses in engineering, statistics, programming and networking at Stanford, USF, International Technological University, Golden Gate University and Silicon Valley University. Alex has worked with local and national groups on energy and climate issues and on safe nuclear power. He has worked at Ballantine Laboratories, RMC Research, Zilog, Gibbons & Associates, Mitsubishi Semiconductor, AMD, 3Com, Network General, Vitesse, PacketMotion and Xambala. Dr. Cannara holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Mathematical Methods in Educational Research and MS degrees in Plasma Physics and Statistics.