Technology

Thorium One is involved in various commercial opportunities related to thorium technologies, including:

  • Advanced fuel design
  • Thorium test fuel fabrication
  • Thorium fuel test development
  • Advanced fuel cladding
  • Nuclear waste reprocessing
  • Medical radioisotopes


Below is a description of some of the key technologies, and our involvement.  Please check this page often for updates.

Advanced Fuel Design
Thorium’s chief industrial application potential lies in its ability to be used as nuclear fuel, because it is naturally-occurring fertile material (Please see the Thorium Fuel Characteristics page for details.)  In order for thorium to be used as fuel, there must exist a viable design.  Thorium One’s thesis is that there is an advanced fuel design that does exist, and which Thorium One does have an opportunity to invest in.

This fuel design is for a thorium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel, which Thorium One refers to as “TMOX” (Please see the Thorium Fuel Characteristics page for further details of TMOX.)  Mixed oxide fuel, the existing fuel technology upon which this is based, is well known, and has been actively used by many countries for 30 years.  MOX technology was chiefly developed by EdF of France, but has been used by Japan, UK, Belgium, and others, and more recently, USA, Russia.  New developments are now being undertaken in India and China as well.  The difference between MOX and TMOX is that rather than blending plutonium with reprocessed waste uranium to form the MOX, TMOX would use only thorium oxide, which does not require any reprocessing.

TMOX is designed to be manufactured in existing MOX fuel fabrication facilities.  TMOX is designed to burn in any reactor that is licensed to burn regular MOX.  The advantages of TMOX over standard MOX and standard UOX fuel are described in the Thorium Fuel Characteristics page.

Thorium One entered into an agreement with a company that owns directly 100% of a viable TMOX design.  Under certain conditions, Thorium One can invest directly in the shares of this tightly-held private company.  If Thorium One is successful in raising 17 Million Euro, and obtaining a public listing, and various other conditions, the private company agreed to merge on a 50:50 basis with Thorium One.  Thorium One would be the name of the surviving entity.

Advanced Fuel Cladding
Thorium One has the opportunity to invest in advanced fuel cladding technology.  This fuel cladding is meant to withstand much higher levels of burn-up and fission gas release.  The industry standard cladding is made of zircaloy, which is a zirconium alloy material.  This material can typical only achieve a batch average burn-up of 55,000 MWd/tU (megawatt-days per tonne of uranium).  This advanced cladding has survived past 110,000 MWd/tU so far in testing, and is projected to withstand burn-ups even greater than this.

This is very important complimentary technology to TMOX, owing to thorium’s extremely high energy efficiency.  The reasons are the following:

  • Thorium has increased energy efficiency, allowing it to burn hotter and longer, thereby releasing much more energy;
  • Industry standard zircaloy cladding does not have the physical properties necessary to withstand the heat and pressures of a burn that is longer than 55,000 MWd/tU, as described above;
  • Thorium fuel can be made to burn longer with the addition of increased quantities of plutonium to the mixture – up to 16% Pu – which is much higher than the 7.5% to 10% found in standard MOX;

The results of these factors will be:

  • More waste plutonium can be incinerated, and it can be incinerated in such, so as to leave no remnants of itself, or any other minor actinides in the waste;
  • The increased energy efficiency, and the ability to burn fully, will yield 30 to 40 times as much energy as standard MOX or UOX.

Thorium One has the opportunity to invest in shares of the private tightly-held company that owns the design for this cladding.  The technology requires extensive testing and permitting in order to become commercial.  It is estimated that the capital expenditures would be between $200 and $300 million.  There is ample opportunity for investment.