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<br /><ul><li>India's nuclear power plant in Kudankulam was breached by North Korean hackers looking for information on thorium-based reactors — an alternative to using uranium. <br /></li><li>India is currently the leader in commercialising the use of thorium as a safer and more efficient alternative.<br /></li><li>Use of thorium-based reactors would make North Korea's use of nuclear power less threatening since, unlike uranium, it does not produce plutonium needed to make weapons.<br /></li></ul>India's nuclear power plant in Kudankulam — the largest nuclear power plant in the country — was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/indian-nuclear-plant-hack-is-only-one-small-part-of-a-much-bigger-operation-according-to-a-cybersecurity-expert/articleshow/72033253.cms">recently infiltrated by North Korean hackers</a>. They were after the country's research and data on thorium-based reactors.<br /><br />The hackers had the ability to cause damage, but chose to retrieve data instead.<br /><br />The hackers, speculated to be the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/while-trump-was-meeting-with-kim-jong-un-in-vietnam-north-korean-hackers-reportedly-attacked-targets-in-the-us-and-elsewhere/amp_articleshow/68266372.cms">Lazarus Group</a> — a cyber arm of the North Korean government — were spying on the nuclear power plant to find out how India was developing its thorium technology, according to the Indian government and an analysis by cybersecurity firm Issue Makers Lab.<br /><br /><strong>India's lead on Thorium<br /></strong><br />Thorium can be used to fuel nuclear reactors, just like uranium. Only, it's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/A-forgotten-war-technology-could-safely-power-Earth-for-millions-of-years-Heres-why-we-arent-using-it/articleshow/57347151.cms">safer and more efficient</a> than its counterpart. And since it has a higher concentration than uranium — it also costs less and yields less damage to the environment.<br /><br />India <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/why-is-indiainvesting-in-nuclear-energy-when-the-whole-world-is-experiencing-a-nuclearmeltdown/articleshow/58094501.cms">leads the pack</a> when it comes to commercialising the use of thorium. It aims to fuel 30% of the country's electricity demand using thorium-based reactors by 2050.<br /><br />Even their point of access was an expert on thorium-based reactors, S.A. Bhardwaj — a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).<br /><br /><div type="twitter" handle="issuemakerslab" handlename="IssueMakersLab" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1190542970988253185/2oKl0RiW_normal.jpg" favoritecount="87" retweetcount="61" status="North Korea has been interested in the thorium based nuclear power, which to replace the uranium nuclear power. Ind… https://t.co/g4dUBr3Mkn" createdat="1572680497000" id="1190534411231490049"></div>

<br /><strong>Thorium can't be used to build bombs<br /></strong><br />One of the key benefits of using thorium over uranium is that thorium reactors don't produce plutonium — the element needed to make a nuke. <br /><br />If North Korea were to use thorium instead of uranium, the world would no longer speculate that its use nuclear power is being used to develop weapons.<br /><br />It's also possible to use thorium to breed uranium. This type of reaction also will not create plutonium while making uranium more efficient for energy production.<br /><br />In the past, North Korean hackers have breached the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) and the Belgium nuclear research center, SCK.CEN.<br /><br />They also attacked scholars around the world who published papers on <keyword id="8325278" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="thorium-energy">thorium energy</keyword>.<br /><br />As of today, there aren't any operational thorium reactors in the world, which makes the information all the more valuable since India is hoping to be the first.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/indian-nuclear-plant-hack-is-only-one-small-part-of-a-much-bigger-operation-according-to-a-cybersecurity-expert/articleshow/72033253.cms">Indian nuclear plant hack is only one small part of a much 'bigger' operation, according to a cybersecurity expert</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-confirms-indian-activists-and-journalists-were-hacked-as-nso-claims-its-contractually-prohibited/articleshow/71831583.cms">WhatsApp confirms Indian activists and journalists were hacked as NSO claims it's 'contractually prohibited'</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-hacker-pegasus-spyware-attacked-100-others/articleshow/71851228.cms">The shadowy firm behind WhatsApp hack is involved in 100 other spyware attacks</a><br /><br /><br />

Here's why North Korean hackers attacked India's nuclear power plant

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>TerraPower</span></p><p class="caption">A TerraPower facility.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>TerraPower, an energy company co-founded by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/bill-gates">Bill Gates</a>, builds advanced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nuclear-reactor">nuclear reactors</a>.</li><li>The company is developing a new reactor that uses molten salt instead of water as a coolant. TerraPower believes the design will be safer and more efficient than today's reactors.</li><li>Gates has supported <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nuclear-energy">nuclear energy</a> projects for several years, hoping that improvements in the technology can help curb the effects of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/climate-change">climate change</a>.</li><li>A new laboratory is slated to open next year, and TerraPower chief technology officer John Gilleland said the company plans on having a prototype reactor ready in about 10 years.</li></ul><p>Bill Gates <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-talks-private-nuclear-fission-plant-terrapower-2016-4">sees nuclear energy as a potential solution</a> to lowering carbon dioxide emissions around the world, and he has spent the past decade <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-wants-to-build-a-nuclear-reactor-2010-3">funding new ways to produce the energy</a> in a safe, affordable way.</p><p>About 10 years ago, Gates co-founded a company called <a href="https://terrapower.com/">TerraPower</a> to build new kinds of nuclear reactors.</p><p>TerraPower is developing a line of reactors that use a molten chloride coolant, drawing on a decades-old but still unused invention to lower costs and reduce waste. The most common reactors use light (or regular) water as a coolant. </p><p>Following a <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-new-investments-advanced-nuclear-power-reactors-help-meet">US Department of Energy investment worth $40 million</a> and a partnership with energy provider Southern Company, TerraPower plans on opening a new laboratory next year. Gates' company wants to develop a molten chloride prototype by 2030, and the laboratory will be used to test reactor materials in the meantime.</p><p>John Gilleland, the company's chief technical officer, told Business Insider that molten chloride designs are the "ultimate green reactor."</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"It not only would allow you to produce electricity without carbon emissions, but by shipping the heat directly to some process in an industrial facility, you can provide the necessary heat to cause reactions to occur in industrial processing, or whatever you want to use it for, without carbon emissions," Gilleland said.</span></p><h2><strong>How a molten salt reactor works</strong></h2><p>Nuclear energy grew in prominence after 20th-century scientists figured out how to harness the atom's power, but high costs and safety concerns over dangerous radioactive waste have deterred many countries from investing in it. </p><p>Scientists at <a href="http://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Future-of-Nuclear-Energy-in-a-Carbon-Constrained-World-Executive-Summary.pdf">Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy Initiative</a> say that within the electricity sector, nuclear energy would be the least expensive solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next few decades. But nuclear energy currently accounts for only 11% of the world's electricity, <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today.aspx">according to the World Nuclear Association</a>. </p><p>Nuclear energy is produced when radioactive fuel is put into a reactor to trigger fission - a process in which the nucleus of an atom splits within a reactor core.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In light water reactors, solid fuel sits within cladding, or corrosion-resistant metal that stops radioactive pieces from contaminating the coolant. The water around the cladding helps turn a reaction's heat into steam for turbines, which generate electricity.</span></p><p>TerraPower's liquid chloride design, however, puts uranium fuel and the coolant in the same molten salt, Gilleland said. Fission can heat the salts directly as the mixture flows through the reactor core, and the mixture then goes through heat exchangers to generate heat or electricity, he said.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Light water reactors can't sustain reactions at very high temperatures because the coolant evaporates. With molten chloride, though, TerraPower could operate reactors at much higher temperatures than before. In addition to generating electricity, nuclear technology could be used in high-temperature processes like fertilizer production and oil refinery. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The materials inside light water reactors degrade quickly and need to be replaced roughly every 18 months, as it becomes more difficult to sustain fission with older fuel. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Molten chloride reactors, meanwhile, produce little residual waste and could theoretically run for years without the need to add fuel or get rid of waste.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">TerraPower's design is also less likely to be used in nuclear weapon production because its radioactive fuel is not separated out. </span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>TerraPower</span></p><p class="caption">A rendering of TerraPower's molten chloride nuclear reactor.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2><strong>TerraPower's new reactor was inspired by a 1960s experiment </strong></h2><p>Though TerraPower began working on its newest line of reactors just a few years ago, the design is based on Cold War-era molten salt technology. (TerraPower has also spent the past decade developing a traveling wave reactor, another advanced design.)</p><p>Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee developed a molten salt reactor in the 1960s, but funding came to a halt several years later as scientists raised concerns about corrosion and safety problems associated with the reactor.</p><p><em><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/thorium-molten-salt-reactors-sorensen-lftr-2017-2">A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here's why we aren't using it.</a></em></p><p>Now, with government funding and the support of billionaires like Gates, these reactors have another shot at hitting the market. TerraPower and Southern Company are working on their design with scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, the Electric Power Research Institute, and Vanderbilt University. </p><p>Several other startups are competing with Gates' company to commercialize similar molten salt reactors.</p><p>In April, Florida-based company <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-energy-rick-perry-announces-60-million-us-industry-awards-support-advanced">ThorCon received $400,000</a> from the US Department of Energy for a joint research project with Argonne National Laboratory. ThorCon aims to begin testing a molten salt-fueled fission reactor by 2023.</p><p><a href="https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/us-department-energy-provides-nearly-20-million-domestic-advanced-nuclear-technology">Department of Energy officials have also given $2.1 million</a> to Alabama-based Flibe Energy, which is using thorium instead of uranium.</p><p><span>The molten salt reactor movement extends beyond the US as well. </span><span>Terrestrial Energy, a Canadian company, wants to commercializes the design for its Integral Molten Salt Reactor by the late 2020s<a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IMSR-starts-second-stage-of-Canadian-design-review"></a>. </span><span>And in the UK, Moltex Energy is making a <a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/08/understanding-the-super-safety-of-moltex-nuclear-plant-which-will-be-built-in-canada.html">Stable Salt Reactor</a>, which uses molten salt fuel. Moltex plans on deploying its product at a nuclear reactor site by 2030.</span></p><p>At the same time, some nuclear startups have struggled to make their designs commercially viable. MIT-affiliated Transatomic Power, for example, shut down in September after seven years of operation. The company, founded just after the 2011 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/fukushima">nuclear disaster in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture</a>, had claimed its reactors would produce electricity 75 times more efficiently than light water reactors.</p><p>In a <a href="http://www.transatomicpower.com/open-source/">blog post announcing the shutdown</a>, Transatomic CEO Leslie Dewan acknowledged there had been errors in early analyses and said the company was unable to scale up fast enough. Transatomic Power later open-sourced its intellectual property for other researchers to use.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Rick Wilking</span></p><p class="caption">Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates talks with a colleague before the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. on May 6, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2><strong>Clean energy is in urgent demand, and Gates' startup is at least a decade away from a working prototype</strong></h2><p>Renewable energy use is growing too slowly to prevent dangerous climate change on its own. </p><p><span>If governments don't implement new policies that reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the bulk of the world's energy will still come from fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency's 2018 <a href="https://webstore.iea.org/world-energy-outlook-2018">World Energy Outlook</a>. Solar, wind, and nuclear energy systems are not keeping up with global energy demands, the report said.</span></p><p><span><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-power-fall-rise-united-states-2017-6">'Energy is worth a war': US nuclear supremacy is collapsing, but there's a way to win it back</a></em></span></p><p>About 25% of the world's electricity currently comes from renewable energy sources, according to the World Energy Outlook. The International Energy Agency predicts that the share will rise to 40% by 2040, and nuclear energy can prove to be a vital factor in any changes.  </p><p>For Southern Company and TerraPower, the companies' ambitious plan could produce a new reactor well before 2040. The partners are developing a prototype with the capacity to produce up to 1,100 megawatts of electricity - enough to power about 825,000 homes, <a href="https://www.energy.ca.gov/glossary/ISO_GLOSSARY.PDF">according to the California Energy Commission</a>.<span></span></p><p><span>TerraPower's $20 million laboratory, set to open in Washington state next year, will help researchers ensure the reactor's safety. Gilleland said </span><span></span><span>TerraPower will run tests with depleted uranium, which is not used in fission, to determine which materials can hold molten salt without being damaged by corrosion.</span></p><p><span>Gates, who still serves as TerraPower's chairman, has emphasized that fewer people die in nuclear plant disasters than in coal mine or natural gas accidents. </span><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbq_KdPzjE">During a 2010 speech at MIT</a>, he also </span><span>praised nuclear energy for its potential to benefit countries where solar and wind energy are scarce.</span><span></span><span></span><span></span></p><p><span>"It is infinite. You can filter out of the sea very cheaply enough uranium to run this thing for as long as the sun will shine," Gates said. "I love nuclear."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-high-rate-peanut-allergies-compared-countries-2018-10">Why so many Americans are allergic to peanuts</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A Bill Gates-backed energy company is developing what could be a game-changing nuclear reactor

<br />
The global nuclear industry is going through a virtual meltdown on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, according to PTI.<br />
<br />
This is happening even as India is investing heavily in nuclear energy. This collapse of atomic giants offers New Delhi a new opportunity and many in the Indian atomic establishment are silently celebrating this premature death of suitors who were wooing to put tens of atomic plants in India estimated to cost at least USD 150 billion.<br />
<br />
"This atomic meltdown is a blessing in disguise" was how a top government official described the unfolding scenario.<br />
In addition, in these changed circumstances, if the Indian private industry plays its cards right, it could also provide an opportunity to the country to become a hub for low cost suppliers of nuclear technology. A little far-fetched but who knows how energy games get played in the future.<br />
<br />
In a way the diplomatic noose that had been tightened around India's neck to buy super expensive French and American nuclear reactors has on its own been loosened if not shed at all.<br />
<br />
As part of the protracted global negotiations on admitting India back into the nuclear commerce club, a kind of barter deal had happened and India had committed itself to buy French and American reactors, but now that the commercial operations of at least two of the foreign giants is floundering, India need not back down from its commercial commitments.<br />
<br />
India can retain the moral high ground of wanting to buy the French and American reactors but since the companies themselves are in trouble no deals can be inked. India can once again hope to forge its own nuclear path free of shackles of forced imports of untested technologies.<br />
The American atomic giant Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC filed for 'bankruptcy' a week ago, last year the French nuclear giant Areva went through a similar process.<br />
<br />
Both these companies had shown aggressive interest in setting up atomic power plants soon after the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was inked. Both wanted a large chunk of the nuclear commerce worth billions of dollars that India was holding out as a promise once New Delhi was extricated from the atomic dog-house as a consequence of the landmark Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.<br />
All along as negotiations were going on around the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, there was a small but influential group in the Indian nuclear establishment that was most uncomfortable at importing so many different types of reactors.<br />
<br />
This group felt that since India had mastered the making of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR's) the effort should ideally be to multiple this technology while alongside India's futuristic reactors the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor which uses plutonium as its main fuel and the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor that uses thorium as its main fuel could be promoted.<br />
<br />
Jairam Ramesh, the engineer-turned-influential politician in the United Progressive Alliance government, was an early opponent of importing so many different types of reactors.<br />
<br />
Towards mastering the PHWR, India on its own first enhanced the capacity of these reactors from 220 MW to 540 MW by constructing two of them at Tarapur in Maharashtra and then the same reactor has been modified to enhance the capacity to 700 MW with four units already under construction at Kakrapar and Rawatbhatta.<br />
<br />
Among imported reactors India successfully started commercial operation of two 1000 MW units at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu these are made with Russian help. In the Indian nuclear establishment some felt the Russian reactors and the Indian three stage program was more than enough to ensure long term energy security for the country.<br />
<br />
Mastering several different technologies is a complex task and there was a lot of consternation among several senior scientists that if the entire Indo-US civilian nuclear deal were to be implemented then at least three new reactor types would have to mastered.<br />
These included Areva proposing to put six atomic plants each of 1650 MW capacity at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. Westinghouse was wanting to sell at least 6 reactors of 1200 MW each to be put up at Kovadda in Andhra Pradesh -- these were initially proposed to be put up at Mithivirdi in Gujarat but land acquisition issues forced Westinghouse to opt for a different site.<br />
<br />
General Electric was proposing to put a mega nuclear park as well. Each of these three different reactors are very different from each other and an entirely new set of people would have to be trained to safely operate these.<br />
<br />
Typically each new reactor operates for 60 years and then it takes another couple of decades to safely decommission them hence the investment of human resources is a commitment of at least a century.<br />
<br />
With Westinghouse filing for bankruptcy it is highly unlikely that India would order any reactors from them anytime soon. The idea was to order in one go 6 nuclear plants that would be delivered on a 'turnkey' basis. Now that Westinghouse itself says it can only supply the technology for the nuclear island and does not want to undertake any construction activity.<br />
<br />
Despite the fact India has already committed to pay Rs 100 crore to Westinghouse while ordering the AP 1000 reactors. These orders may obviously go into cold storage till Westinghouse and Toshiba its parent company in Japan iron out their differences.<br />
Westinghouse denies that the India project is derailed but experts say expect delays galore.<br />
<br />
Similarly, Areva the French giant that owned all the nuclear technology for the EPR 1650 MW reactor having been almost dissolved and the affairs taken over by 'Electricite de France' or EDF the French electricity utility, these reactors for which quite a bit of ground work was already done at Jaitapur has also been cold shouldered since no buyer government would want to get involved when a messy fight is ongoing in the French public sector companies on ownership of the atomic plants.<br />
<br />
On its own General Electric has been dragging its feet on bidding for reactors in India since its lawyers felt India's nuclear liability law was more 'people friendly' as opposed to the usual global nuclear liability law that is 'industry friendly'.<br />
<br />
In this scenario India is left with no other option but to multiply its indigenous fleet of 700 MW PHWR's and simultaneously expand its collaboration with Russia to buy at least 20 more Russian plants similar in nature but probably more advanced than the reactors operating at Kudankulam.<br />
<br />
After India was admitted into the nuclear fold to allow global nuclear commerce all restrictions at importing uranium have already gone and if India seeks to multiply manifold its own home grown reactors that should not be difficult.<br />
In addition since the co-operation with Russia is blossoming more light water reactors could well be ordered from Russia.<br />
<br />
This sudden change in the wind direction with American and French nuclear companies all doddering has in way brought India back to where it was in 2004 before US President George Bush decided to shake hands and be friends with India in the nuclear power sector.<br />
<br />
At that point India had its PHWR's and the Russian tech but what the country lacked was an assured supply of uranium fuel. India does not have sufficient native resources of uranium and if the nuclear program has to expand then importing uranium was the only option.<br />
<br />
Today the supply of imported uranium fuel is well guaranteed under global law thanks to the atomic embrace but this melt down of nuclear giants has tilted the balance in India's favour.<br />
Now without ever having to officially deny buying expensive French and American reactors, New Delhi can opt to expand its existing fleet of atomic plants on its own terms. This 'meltdown' is making the Indian nuclear establishment smile all the way.

Why is India
investing in nuclear energy when the whole world is experiencing a nuclear
meltdown?

<p><em><a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng" target="_blank">Policy Horizons Canada</a> worked with futurist and data visualizer <a href="http://www.michellzappa.com/" target="_blank">Michell Zappa</a> of <a href="http://envisioningtech.com/" target="_blank">Envisioning</a> to produce a report called <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/metascan-3-emerging-technologies-0" target="_blank">MetaScan 3: Emerging Technologies</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/emerging-technologies-that-will-change-the-world-2014-4">accompanying infographics</a>. We are reproducing the summary for <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/energy-technology">emerging energy technologies.</a></em></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p><p class="caption">Space-based solar power could be scientifically viable by 2025.</p></div><p></p></div>Below are technologies related to energy under three key areas of accelerating change: Storage, Smart grid and Electricity generation. Energy storage involves new, cost-effective ways of storing energy, either in improved batteries, as new fuels or other ways. A smart grid is a set of technologies that pairs information with moving electricity around, enabling more efficient generation and use of energy. Electricity generation is characterized by technologies that generate power from unused sources and that more efficiently produce electric power or fuels from sources in use today.</p>
<p>We have included predictions based on consultation with experts of when each technology will be scientifically viable (the kind of stuff that Google, governments, and universities develop), mainstream (when VCs and startups widely invest in it), and financially viable (when the technology is generally available on Kickstarter).</p>
<h2>Storage</h2>
<p><strong>Fuel cells:</strong> Unlike batteries, fuel cells require a constant source of fuel and oxygen to run, but they can produce electricity continually for as long as these inputs are supplied. They inherently displace the need for natural gas turbines, and are ideally used for stationary power generation or large passenger vehicles such as buses (especially at energy-dense future iterations of the technology).</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2015; and financially viable in 2016.</p>
<p><strong>Lithium-air batteries:</strong> Advances in materials technology is enabling the advance of high energy Li-air batteries which promise an energy density that rivals gasoline, offering a five-fold increase compared to traditional Li-Ion batteries. By using atmospheric oxygen instead of an internal oxidizer, these batteries could dramatically extend electric vehicle range.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2018; and financially viable in 2020.</p>
<p><strong>Hydrogen energy storage &amp; transport:</strong> Hypothetical evolution of existing power grids, transporting and storing hydrogen instead of electricity. Could be used in combination with various kinds of energy transformation methods, minimizing loss and maximizing storage capacity.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2019; mainstream in 2021; and financially viable in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Thermal storage:</strong> Often accumulated from active solar collector or from combined heat and power plants, and transferred to insulated repositories for use later in various applications, such as space heating, domestic or process water heating.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream in 2024; and financially viable in 2027.</p>
<h2>Smart Grid</h2>
<p><strong>First-generation smart grid: </strong>Electrical meters that record consumption of electric energy in real time while communicating the information back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes. Can be used for remote load-balancing such as disabling non-essential devices at peak usage</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2014; mainstream in 2015; and financially viable in 2016.</p>
<p><strong>Distributed generation: </strong>Generates electricity from many small energy sources instead of large centralized facilities. Centralized power plants offer economies of scale, but waste power during transmission, and are inefficient in rapidly adapting to grid needs.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2021; and financially viable in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Smart energy network:</strong> Speculative global energy &amp; power infrastructure and set of standards which can be used interchangeably. Could theoretically mimic characteristics of the Internet in channeling heat, energy, natural gas (and conceivably hydrogen) from local and distant sources depending on global demand.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2019; mainstream and financially viable in 2020.</p>
<h2>Electricity Generation</h2>
<p><strong>Tidal turbines:</strong> A form of hydropower that converts tidal energy into electricity. Currently used in small scale, with the potential for great expansion.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2015; mainstream and financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Micro stirling engines:</strong> Micrometer sized power generators that transform energy into compression and expansion strokes. Could hypothetically be 3D-printed on the fly and cover entire heat-generating surfaces in order to generate power.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2020; mainstream in 2026; and financially viable in 2027.</p>
<p><strong>Solar panel positioning robots:</strong> Small-scale robots able to re-position solar panels depending on weather conditions. More efficient than attaching each panel to motorized tracking assemblies.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2014; mainstream in 2016; and financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Second-generation biofuels:</strong> New biofuel technologies, such as cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel from microalgae, promise to produce conventional fuel-compatible energy at low or zero greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2016; mainstream in 2017; and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Photovoltaic transparent glass:</strong> Glass with integrated solar cells which converts IR and some visible light into electricity. This means that the power for an entire building can be supplemented using the roof and façade areas.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2020; and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Third-generation biofuels:</strong> Moving beyond today's organisms, 3rd generation biofuels involve genetic modification of organisms to produce new fuels by unconventional means. Examples include direct production of hydrogen from highly efficient algae, and production of energy-dense furans for automotive use.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream in 2024; and financially viable in 2025.</p>
<p><strong>Space-based solar power: </strong>Collecting solar power in space, beamed back as microwaves to the surface. A projected benefit of such a system is much higher collection rates than what is possible on earth. In space, transmission of solar energy is unaffected by the filtering effects of atmospheric gasses.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2025; mainstream in 2027; and financially viable in 2028+.</p>
<p><strong>Micro-nuclear reactors:</strong> A small, sealed version of a nuclear reactor (approximately a few tens of meters in length) capable of being shipped or flown to a site. Currently able to provide 10 MW of power, plans are for 50 MW capacity in the near future.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream and financially viable in 2023.</p>
<p><strong>Inertial confinement fusion (break-even):</strong> An approach to fusion that relies on the inertia of the fuel mass to provide confinement. To achieve conditions under which inertial confinement is sufficient for efficient thermonuclear burn, a capsule (generally a spherical shell) containing thermonuclear fuel is compressed in an implosion process to conditions of high density and temperature.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Thorium Reactor:</strong> Thorium can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor, allowing it to be used to produce nuclear fuel in a breeder reactor. Some benefits are that thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste and comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2025; mainstream in 2026; and financially viable in 2027.</p>

17 Emerging Energy Technologies That Will Change The World

<p><a href="http://codebreaker.codes/"></div><p></p></div></div>Humanity is in a serious pinch for energy.<p>The world population may balloon to <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html">9 billion people by 2040</a>, up from <a href="https://www.census.gov/popclock/">7.36 billion in 2016</a>, and researchers believe this will translate to a <a href="http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/exec_summ.cfm">48% jump in energy consumption</a>.</p><p>Fossil fuels could slake the world's thirst for energy, but burning more would exacerbate climate change and threaten millions. And it'd be temporary, since known reserves are expected <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=38&amp;t=6">to</a> <a href="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves">run</a> <a href="http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=58&amp;t=8">out</a> within a century or two.</p><p>Meanwhile, renewable energy like <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26712">wind and solar</a>, though key parts of a solution, are no silver bullets - especially if the world is to meet a 2050 deadline set by the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/global-warming-paris-climate-change-accords-earth-day-2016-4">Paris Agreement</a>.</p><p>"You've got to be able to generate energy reliably. You've got to be able to generate energy on demand. And that's what wind and solar can't do, and will never be able to do," Kirk Sorensen, the CTO of nuclear energy startup <a href="http://flibe-energy.com/">Flibe Energy</a>, told Business Insider in <a href="http://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/14/tech/codebreaker-marketplace-and-tech-insider/s02-5-world-building">an episode of our podcast Codebreaker</a>, produced with Marketplace.</p><p>Nuclear reactors fit the bill: They're dense, reliable, emit no carbon, and - contrary to popular belief - are among the <a href="http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/">safest energy sources</a> on Earth. They currently supply <a href="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=nuclear_use">20%</a> of America's energy, but this share may decline by 50% through 2040 as companies take decades-old reactors offline, according to <a href="https://art.inl.gov/INL%20ART%20TDO%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fINL%20ART%20TDO%20Documents%2fAdvanced%20Demonstration%20and%20Test%20%20Reactor%20Options%20Study&amp;FolderCTID=0x0120001B2292E99D90F94582C950FF11E1865C">a July 2016 report</a> released by Idaho National Laboratory.</p><p>Fortunately, a powerful yet relatively unknown solution may have started with a Cold War-era airplane: "The Crusader" NB-36H jet bomber, which flew over two US states with a nuclear reactor in its belly.</p><p>The effort was part of the <a href="https://fas.org/nuke/space/anp-gao1963.pdf">Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program</a>. Although it was ultimately canceled, ANP spawned the development of a radical new type of power plant, called the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/molten-salt-reactor-technology-power-world-millions-years-2016-12">molten-salt reactor</a>.</p><p>Today, engineers like Sorensen are trying to revive the molten-salt reactor, which the US abandoned in the early 1970s, and fuel it with a practically infinite source of carbon-free energy: thorium.</p><h2>A push for nuclear-powered flight</h2><p><div></div></p><p>The US government in 1946 launched ANP as an effort to develop a nuclear-powered jet bomber.</p><p>It was an extreme means to a practical (and deadly) end: Fly at least 15,000 miles without refueling to give the plane a fearsome range of attack, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-powered-aircraft/">according to Scientific American</a>.</p><p>Physicist Alvin Weinberg, who <a href="https://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/wignerpat2.html">invented the most well-known type of nuclear reactor in 1945</a> - the light-water reactor (LWR) - rose to the occasion and began working up a solution as the director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee.</p><p>But Weinberg didn't want to put a LWR into an airplane.</p><p>LWRs, which now provide 100% of America's nuclear energy, rely on solid nuclear fuel, typically one that contains uranium-235. If this "fissile" isotope of uranium is struck by a flying neutron, it can split, release gobs of energy, and shoot out more neutrons. This process is called fission. If there's enough fuel in one place, there will be enough neutrons flying around to self-sustain a fission chain-reaction.</p><p>The problem is that solid fuel is terribly inefficient. In fact, LWRs fission or "burn up" just a few percent of their fuel before it needs to be replaced. This is because waste products slowly accumulate in the fuel, absorb more and more neutrons, and poison the process of fission.</p><p>So Weinberg instead chose to develop an idea he'd heard during the Manhattan Project, which had since become "<a href="http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/2758/">kind of an obsession</a>" for him: a reactor that fissioned its fuel in a fluid of molten salt.</p><p>Molten-salt reactors are unlike any commercial nuclear power plants that exist today. Instead of using solid pellets of nuclear fuel, they dissolve nuclear fuel in a stable, blazing-hot fluid.</p><p>The fluid can dramatically increase the efficiency of nuclear fission by making it easy to remove fission products. This helps it burn up almost all the nuclear fuel and boosts energy output. Such reactors also can't melt down, since the fuel must be heated up to get fission going - cooling it down solidifies the salt and slows fission.</p><p>Weinberg and others knew such efficiency might allow engineers to shrink a reactor to fit inside an airplane. So he and his team at ORNL built a small molten-salt reactor as part of an offshoot program, called the Aircraft Nuclear Experiment (ARE).</p><h2>The birth of the molten-salt reactor</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>By 1954, Weinberg and his team had built a working prototype: a 2.5-megawatt power plant that used a small amount of uranium-235 dissolved in molten salt made of fluorine, sodium, and zirconium.</p><p>It was the first working molten-salt reactor ever built.</p><p>Inside the ARE's molten-salt fuel, uranium powered a fission chain-reaction. The atomic heat warmed up an adjacent loop of coolant (made of molten sodium) <a href="http://energyfromthorium.com/2015/06/01/msre-50th-anniversary/">from 1,200 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit</a>. Incoming air cooled the sodium, and pumps returned it to the fluid-fueled reactor core for reheating.</p><p>"The Air Force was delighted by the aircraft reactor experiment," Weinberg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=otQDyt9PeswC&amp;pg=PA106&amp;lpg=PA106&amp;dq=%22Aircraft+Reactor+Test%22+ornl&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=WBR3WOaJ_0&amp;sig=mM4G92oZu6cJMfew8x5qFNJq1jo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjhmoa-34XRAhXI8YMKHdBqC4MQ6AEIODAG#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Aircraft%20Reactor%20Test%22%20ornl&amp;f=false">wrote</a> in his 1994 autobiography, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Nuclear-Era-Times-Technological/dp/1563963582">The First Nuclear Era</a>," since this was hot enough to drive jet engines.</p><p>The Air Force immediately began retrofitting a B-36 jet bomber ("<a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/53184/brief-history-nuclear-airplanes">The Crusader</a>") to carry a nuclear reactor. It also funded ORNL's follow-up molten-salt reactor, called the Aircraft Reactor Test (ART).</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>But the Air Force canceled ART in 1957 to cut ballooning costs - and instead flew a different reactor it had funded in tandem.<p>The reactor, which was not a molten-salt reactor but a light-water reactor, was never connected to the plane's engines, since "The Crusader" was only intended to test radiation shielding. (The Air Force planned to later incorporate it into a purpose-built nuclear bomber called the WS-125.)</p><p>"The Crusader" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160407094332/http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/anp">flew 47 demonstration flights</a> from 1955 through 1957 over New Mexico and Texas. It weighed nearly 18 tons fully-loaded and logged 218 hours of flight, of which the reactor ran for nearly 90 hours. And the crew lived.</p><p>But strapped with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160407094332/http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/anp">high costs of about $7 billion</a> and faced with other priorities, including the creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the space race, President John F. Kennedy canceled all Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion projects in 1961.</p><p>Still, by that time, Weinberg had squeezed in several years' worth of research and $1 billion on molten-salt reactors.</p><p>By 1960, with the government funding the development of commercial nuclear power plants, Weinberg poured all of that knowledge into the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). The MSRE went critical in 1965, produced power for thousands of hours through 1969, and was hailed a success.</p><p>The next stage was to develop MSRE into something called a breeder reactor.</p><h2>The death of Weinberg's dream</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Breeder reactors can create more fuel than they burn through fission, thanks to a process called neutron capture: a "fertile" atom will absorb a neutron from fission, then decay into (and "breed") the fuel. The fuel can then be fissioned to breed more fuel, and so on.</p><p>As long as fertile material is around, this can go on indefinitely. But breeding only works with a few radioactive isotopes, since it requires so many neutrons to work.</p><p>One is uranium-238, a fertile isotope which makes up more than 99% of natural uranium ore. It can be bred into plutonium-239, a fissile weapons material. (This is how the US made most of its nuclear arsenal.)</p><p>Another is thorium, which can be bred into uranium-233 - another fissile fuel, yet one that is very difficult to handle or make into bomb material.</p><p>"Right now we extract thorium inadvertently as a function of rare-earth mining," Sorensen said. "We go looking for neodymium, and other rare-earths - ironically for magnets for things like wind turbines - and we bring up quite a bit of thorium in the process, which right now is treated like a waste."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>But it's no waste.<p>According to "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/SuperFuel-Thorium-Energy-Source-Future/dp/113727834X">SuperFuel</a>," a 2013 book on thorium energy's demise and promise by journalist and author Richard Martin:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Thorium is around four times as abundant as uranium and about as common as lead. Pick up a handful of soil at your local park or ball-field; it contains about 12 parts per million of thorium. The United States has about 440,000 tons of thorium reserves, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency; Australia has the world's largest resources, at about 539,000 tons. Like uranium and plutonium, thorium makes a dense and highly efficient energy source: scoop up a few ounces of sand on certain beaches on the coast of India, it's said, and you'll have enough thorium to power Mumbai for a year."</p><p>Inside a molten-salt breeder reactor, which burns up almost all of its fuel and generates hundreds of times less waste than LWRs, <strong>Weinberg estimated that thorium could meet the world's energy needs for billions of years.</strong></p><p>But the government canceled the MSRE in 1972, Weinberg retired soon after, and he never revived his research.</p><p>The US ultimately favored the LWR design for its nuclear reactors because more of them had been built, the military liked the design for nuclear submarines, and they could also make nuclear weapons material.</p><h2>A push for next-generation nuclear power</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>In the 2000s, Sorensen and others (including China and India) began rediscovering the idea of thorium-fueled molten-salt reactors.</p><p>Sorensen is one of a few entrepreneurs who is trying to revive, modernize, and license his own version of the technology, called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR).</p><p><div></div></p><p>It's been rough. Developing nuclear power plants requires billions of dollars and is very slow, since they have to be proven safe at multiple stages before commercial-scale plants can be built - and the LFTR is unlike anything in service today.</p><p>"Maneuvering the licensing process is a huge challenge. The regulatory framework is not currently streamlined to support these novel innovative technologies," <a href="https://www.inl.gov/article/inl-taps-industry-senior-leader-to-lead-gain-as-the-initiative-continues-to-grow/">Rita Baranwal</a>, a materials engineer at INL, told Business Insider.</p><p>The Department of Energy estimates it may take until 2040 or 2050 to license a full-scale and commercial molten-salt power plant. Meanwhile, America's aging yet vital nuclear power plants aren't getting any younger.</p><p>That's why, this summer, INL tapped Baranwal to direct its new <a href="https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/Home.aspx">Gateway for Accelerating Innovation in Nuclear</a> (GAIN) program, which is a technology accelerator and support system created for small-time nuclear entrepreneurs.</p><p>However it gets built - or whoever builds it - Sorensen is convinced that thorium-fueled molten-salt reactors are the key to solving Earth's energy blues for good.</p><p>"This is something that's going to benefit their future tremendously, it's going to lead to a new age of human success," he said, speaking to the world at large. "And if they want that, they need to be talking to their elected officials and demanding it, in fact, and saying 'we want to see these things happen.' Because only a society that decides to embrace this kind of technology is going to ultimately realize its benefits."</p><p><strong><em>For more on molten salt reactors and solving climate change, listen to the "world building" <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/14/tech/codebreaker-marketplace-and-tech-insider/s02-5-world-building">episode</a> of the <a href="http://codebreaker.codes">Codebreaker</a> podcast from Business Insider and Marketplace. Subscribe to the whole series on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/codebreaker/id1049341702?mt=2">iTunes</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.&#xa0;</em></strong></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/molten-salt-reactor-technology-power-world-millions-years-2016-12">This Cold War-era technology could safely power the world for millions of years</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hoOXhiODE6mtYAnzOSgYhFwj_jwPpGtb" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A Cold War technology designed to make jets fly for days might solve Earth's looming energy crisis

A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here's why we aren't using it

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Fourteen <keyword id="12062407" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="uranium" source="Orion">uranium</keyword> cubes are what remain of <keyword id="12062974" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nazi-germany" source="Orion">Nazi Germany</keyword>'s nuclear arms effort.</li><li>The Nazis had more than 1,000 of these cubes to start, but what happened to most of them remains a mystery.</li><li>Researchers Tim Koeth and Miriam Hiebert have been tracking the history of these cubes.</li></ul><p>On someone's desk, one of the little gray cubes wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To the untrained eye, they look like paperweights.</p><p>"Marie Curie's granddaughter has one. She uses it as a doorstop," Miriam Hiebert, a historian and materials scientist, told Insider.</p><p>The weight of the 2-inch objects might be surprising, though - each is about 5 pounds. That's because they're made of the heaviest element on Earth: uranium.</p><p>The cubes were once part of experimental nuclear reactors the Nazis designed during <keyword id="11938566" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="world-war-ii" source="Orion">World War II</keyword>. As far as researchers know, only 14 cubes remain in the world, out of more than 1,000 used in Nazi Germany's experiments with nuclear weapons. Over 600 were captured and brought back to the US in the 40s. But even after that, what happened to most of the cubes is still unclear.</p><p>Hiebert and Timothy Koeth, a professor of material <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> and engineering at the University of Maryland, are writing a book about the cubes. After years of research, they told Insider they think they know what happened.</p><div type="image" title="a grey cube is balanced on its vertices in a transparent display casing, in green and blue light" height="1333" width="1778" msid="86079218" hostid="261"></div><h2>Small cubes with a long history</h2><p>Koeth describes the cubes as "the only living relic" of Nazi Germany's nuclear effort. </p><p>"They are the motivation for the entire <keyword id="12062973" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="manhattan-project" source="Orion">Manhattan project</keyword>," he said. </p><p>Leading up to the war, Germany was a world leader in physics, and the science of nuclear energy was in its infancy. In 1938, German chemist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1944/hahn/biographical/">Otto Hahn</a> revealed that he'd created fission by blasting neutrons at a uranium core.</p><p>Scientists fleeing Europe, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, alerted the US that Germany could develop an atomic bomb. The arms race was on.</p><p>In its natural form, uranium is not very radioactive. So the cubes aren't very dangerous. But apply a neutron to uranium, specifically the isotope U-235, and it cracks open "like a piñata," as Koeth put it. </p><p>"You smash it open with a neutron, and new elements come out, and also more neutrons," he said. </p><p>To create an explosion, this must happen in a chain reaction: The neutron gets captured by another uranium atom, which splits open, creating more neutrons, and so on. To make that possible, the neutrons need to get slowed down by a substance called a moderator.</p><p>The US used graphite for that, and it worked. Scientists with the Manhattan Project created a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in December 1942. But the leaders of Nazi Germany's nuclear program, Werner Heisenberg and Kurt Diebner, picked heavy water as their moderator: water in which the hydrogen atoms are replaced with deuterium. Cubes of uranium would be dipped into the water.</p><p>The Nazis developed two prototype reactors, the larger of which had 664 uranium cubes strung from a plate and suspended over a pit of heavy water. The smaller reactor used about 400 cubes.</p><div type="image" title="grey cubes are hanging from a silver metal plate above a cylindrical hole in the ground." height="1183" width="1575" msid="86079220" hostid="261"></div><h2>The "Alsos" mission</h2><p>The Allied forces didn't know how far along the Nazi nuclear program was. And they were nervous.</p><p>So in 1943, the Allies launched a secret mission - the codename was "Alsos" - to find out. A team of about a dozen people, including soldiers, scientists, and interpreters, traveled through Italy, France, and Germany searching for traces of the Nazis' nuclear experiments. Then as the war neared its end, the mission's objective shifted to making sure nuclear material (or scientists) wouldn't make it into the hands of the Soviets.</p><p>In April 1945, Allied forces found and captured about 1.6 tons of uranium cubes in southern Germany. Heisenberg, his team, and the larger of Germany's two reactors - neither of which ever worked - had previously been hiding there. Nearly all the cubes were sent back to the US. The Alsos mission never found the smaller reactor. </p><div type="image" title="A black and white picture shows men in uniform around a hole in the ground, one is sitting, in the center of the image is a pile of cubes, in the background are trees." height="1157" width="1542" msid="86079224" hostid="261"></div><h2>Cubes were picked off the pile </h2><p>After the cubes arrived in the US, Hiebert said, their trail went cold. The US was highly secretive about its own nuclear program, so there aren't many public records about the Nazi uranium.</p><p>"We currently know of 14, out of almost 1,000 that existed in total," she said, "so most of them are still unaccounted for."</p><p>But those 14 offer clues about what may have happened to the rest.</p><p>Koeth, who has been an avid collector of nuclear objects since his early teens, has two of the 14. Both were given to him by colleagues. The first was a birthday present about a decade ago, but the giver asked to remain anonymous and Koeth won't reveal how they got the cube.</p><p>It came with a handwritten note that read: "Taken from Germany from nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger."</p><div type="image" title="A note on a small piece of white paper handwritten in black ink reads: &quot;Taken from Germany from nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build gift of Ninninger.&quot;" height="1223" width="1630" msid="86079226" hostid="261"></div><p>Robert D. Nininger, it turns out (his name has just one <em>n</em>), was a geologist for the US Atomic Energy Commission in the 50s. Koeth and Hiebert found documents that show he worked with the Manhattan Project. Geologists with the project had the difficult job of sourcing uranium. </p><p>"Just figuring out where to get it from was a huge task,"Hiebert said.</p><p>Koeth's other cube came from a former faculty member at the University of Maryland, who in turn had gotten it from another faculty member, Dick Duffey. During the war, Duffey, a chemical engineer, had worked at a plant in Beverly, Massachusetts, that processed scrap uranium, Koeth said.</p><p>Based on these findings and others, Hiebert and Koeth think most of the Nazi cubes that made it to the US were repurposed and used in America's own nuclear program. But some, they think, got "picked off the pile" and kept as souvenirs.</p><p>As for the 400 cubes from the second reactor, Hiebert and Koeth found some documents suggesting they were sold on the black market to what became the USSR.</p><div type="image" title="a grey cube is balanced on a vertex on a plastic display." height="1503" width="2000" msid="86079229" hostid="261"></div><h2>From a nuclear reactor to counter-proliferation efforts</h2><p>The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory owns another one of the Nazi cubes but doesn't have records documenting its history.</p><p>So two scientists there, Jon Schwantes and Brittany Robertson, recently figured out a new way to date the cube - and other uranium products - more precisely than was previously possible. To do so, they measured the levels of two atoms, protactinium and thorium, that accumulate over time as uranium decays.</p><div type="image" title="A woman wearing a grey shirt holds out a circular plastic container which contains a grey cube encased in padding" height="5499" width="7332" msid="86079231" hostid="261"></div><p>In a presentation last month at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, Schwantes and Robertson revealed that when they applied the method to their lab's cube, the results put it squarely in the expected age range - it dates back to the years Nazi Germany was developing nuclear weapons.</p><p>Today, though, the cube has a different function: "The primary purpose it is used for is training," Schwantes told Insider.</p><p>The national laboratory teaches security personnel how to recognize nuclear and radioactive material on sight. So the cube offers a good training example.</p><p>"I find that really kind of an interesting storyline for this cube - that it was first produced for somebody's nuclear program, and now it's being used for nuclear nonproliferation," Schwantes said.</p>

Over 600 cubes of Nazi uranium made their way to the US after the war. Two scientists are trying to figure out where they are now.

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://thor.marvel.com/">thor.marvel.com</a></p></div>Around fifty years ago, the U.S. chose to develop uranium-based nuclear energy instead of thorium-based energy. Both energy sources provided a ton of power — though theoretically thorium could provide a lot more.</p>
<p>What made the difference, however, were the byproducts. Uranium byproducts could be used for nuclear bombs, a<span>nd that's all Richard Nixon needed to know.</span></p>
<p>Doug L. Hoffman, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Earth-Science-Warming-Humanity/dp/143921154X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1226082886&amp;sr=1-1">The Resilient Earth</a>, writes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In the US, the military was not interested in ‘safe’ atomic reactors, they wanted the enriched uranium and plutonium produced by uranium fueled reactors for use in weapons. The world’s largest consumer of civilian <keyword id="43462" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nuclear-power">nuclear power</keyword> turned its back on thorium because <strong>it did not produce dangerous enough waste products</strong>.</p>
<p>Many argue this was a terrible choice.</p>
<p>Not only is thorium thought to be <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/norway-begins-tests-on-thorium-2012-12">3-4 times more abundant than uranium, cleaner, safer, and vastly more powerful</a>, but it also has byproducts that — rather than killing people — could save lives.</p>
<p>Kirk Sorensen, CEO of Flibe Energy, <a href="http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/kirk-sorensen-global-alternative-to.html">believes the medical isotopes produced</a> from liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) will actually be more valuable than the electricity generated. Furthermore, he says this revenue stream will be sufficient to fund the proliferation of thorium reactors for commercial purposes – that the electricity generated will be, in essence, a secondary product.</p>
<p>The isotopes produced from LFTRs include Bismuth-213 and Molybdenum-99, which <a href="http://energyfromthorium.com/lftr-vs-cancer/">are used to fight cancer</a>. Currently, <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143437-uranium-killed-the-thorium-star-but-now-its-time-for-round-two">over 90% of these isotopes</a> are imported from Canada. Increasing the domestic supply of these isotopes will also help curb their rising cost.</p>
<p>As well, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2011/03/28/rare-earth-elements-and-thorium-power/">Forbes reports</a> that monazite sands, the principal source of thorium, often contain significant amounts of rare earth elements.</p>
<p>China supplies over 95% of the world’s rare earth elements, which have important commercial and military applications in advanced electronics and are in everything from smartphones to drones.</p>
<p>Jim Kennedy, who co-organized the 2012 Thorium Energy Alliance Conference, notes current U.S. government policy towards thorium discourages the domestic production of rare earths elements. Monazite mining companies have to store the radioactive thorium (which they have no use for) they encounter during their quests for rare earth elements.</p>
<p>Kennedy<a href="http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/solve-the-energy-and-rare-earth-crisis-join-the-thorium-bank/17845"> has proposed</a> the creation of a “Thorium Storage and Industrial Products Corporation” which would store the thorium obtained from monazite mines and find end-users for the product, specifically, as an energy source. This “Thorium Bank” <a href="http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/solve-the-energy-and-rare-earth-crisis-join-the-thorium-bank/17845">would require Congressional approval</a> (but not funding!), and would serve as a centralized headquarters for the mass proliferation of thorium energy in the United States.</p>
<p>For now the full benefits of thorium energy are unproven, though countries like China, India and Norway are investing heavily in research and development.</p>
<p>Thorium also carries its own risk of proliferation as a weapon of mass destruction, according to a study from the University of Cambridge. The report indicated that <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/nuclear-weapons-suddenly-easier-with-wonder-fuel/#C8rWdz24wiEAFzsU.99">thorium could be converted </a>to weapons-grade U-233 "using well-known chemical processes that use standard laboratory equipment and are not subject to IAEA safeguards." The researchers note that this would be extremely hard to trace — which makes the development of such a weapons system a potential goal for terrorist organizations, or more likely, an unruly nation-state.</p>

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