Thorium Energy Generation Pty. Limited
Thorium Energy
Generation Pty. Limited (TEG) is an
Australian Research and Development company dedicated to the
worldwide commercial development of Accelerator Driven
Sub-critical
Thorium
cycle power generation systems and nuclear waste elimination
systems (Thorium
ADS)
in particular and advanced Thorium cycle based
high temperature (more efficient) nuclear power systems in general. The
latter include molten salt and advanced gas cooled concepts. TEG has
forged strong research and business links with the Czech nuclear
industry and other leading European nuclear agencies and
research
facilities.
Thorium
ADS is an essential input into an energy starved world. It is
environmentally friendly, eliminates proliferation and meltdown risks
and removes the spectre of ever increasing high level nuclear waste.
Thorium is important to Australia, which hosts the worls's largest
resource - refer to Government paper.
Background – the world energy crisis and the swing back to nuclear energy:
An alerting statistic is
that there are
now over 3 billion mobile phones on earth; one for every two people.
The world is undergoing a
communication/energy revolution whose rate of change is many
magnitudes larger than anything yet experienced by mankind.
Communication and energy usage are linked simply because all people
are now able to see how the high energy consumers live – and
whatever their culture, it is apparent that they all aspire to high
tech gadgetry, instant information, participation in the popular
fashions and entertainments (increasingly including sporting and
other “circus” events ), leisure, transport, and a high ability
to control the climate within their living space.
However misguided, this has resulted in an unprecedented migration to cities, or in some societies creation of brand new cities. The result is an unprecedented demand for energy consuming devices and transport facilities.
The Western world, apart from France, which can export its nuclear electricity, has been caught unprepared for the escalating global appetite for energy. Perhaps the prime example is the UK, which since the 1970s has closed down its coal mines, consumed the bulk of its share of North Sea oil and gas, and has run down its nuclear power generation sector to the extent that it recently sold the Westinghouse nuclear construction arm to the Japanese Toshiba group.
The unanticipated demand for nuclear new-builds has little to do with the international concerns over greenhouse gas emissions. Most new-builds will be in countries (e. g. China and India) which are also building coal and gas fired power stations as fast as their resources permit.
The degree of miscalculation is rather surprising: even as late as late 2001 respected “think tanks” such as the American Federation of Scientists (AFS) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were underestimating future energy consumption and the resurgence of the nuclear sector. The AFS thought that growth in nuclear power production would be unlikely to reach 2% per annum.
In fact it will exceed 10% per annum for the next few years due to activity by non-OECD countries. This is likely to increase as newer technologies demonstrate the efficacy and economics (plus environmental friendliness) of nuclear power generation when many OECD countries currently opposed to nuclear power generation will change their policies.
In this context the need for more efficient safer and more secure nuclear power generators is urgent. The Thorium cycle must be introduced as early as possible to complement the inevitable upsurge in Uranium installations. Thorium is four times as abundant as Uranium and can eliminate the ghastly end products of the Uranium cycle. Australia possesses the Worlds largest resources of Thorium, mainly in heavy mineral sands.