Industrial
Thorium has been used in specific industrial reactors. But is has also been used in existing Uranium reactors, reducing the quantity of bad waste produced. By now, Thorium is still used in pre-commercial prototypes.
The
biggest industrial utilisation of Thorium has involved in the technology of Pebble Bed Reactor.
In
1967,
the first Thorium reactor, called AVR Arbeitsgemeinschaft
VersuchsReaktor,
was started at Jullich (D). It had a power of 15MWe and
operated
from 1967 to 1988. It was a high temperature reactor which
heated Helium
(He) to a temperature of 990°C.
In
1985,
Germany started the
Thorium-HTR at
Uentrop. This plant called THTR300 had a power of 300 MWe. It was
operated from
1985 to 1989, and was stopped after a mechanical problem which appeared
1 week
after Tchernobyl . Electricity was generated by a gas turbine
where Helium was
introduced at a
temperature of 750°C
The
project
of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) was started at Koeberg near
Cape Town
(ZA) in 1995. The intended power was 165 MWe but the project was
abandoned at
the end of 2010 due to insufficient financial resources.