23 Dec (NucNet): Areva SA of France has signed an agreement with international chemical group Solvay SA of Belgium to develop new applications for thorium, including its possible use as a fuel in nuclear power plants.
Areva said in a statement that the agreement aims to “define the conditions” ensuring the responsible management of thorium. It includes the deployment of a R&D programme to study the use of thorium as a potential fuel in nuclear plants, as a complement to fuels using uranium and plutonium.
Both Solvay and Areva have inventories of thorium in France because of their uranium and rare earth element extraction activities, the statement said.
Olivier Wantz, senior executive vice-president of Areva’s mining business group, said the agreement will allow Areva to offer additional options within the nuclear cycle in the future.
Thorium, a naturally occurring slightly radioactive metal, is more abundant than uranium, and research is being carried out into its potential use in nuclear reactors in a number of countries, notably India, Russia, China, Norway, Canada, the US and Israel.
The thorium fuel cycle has several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle, including thorium's greater abundance, superior physical and nuclear properties, better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation and reduced plutonium and actinide production.
Thorium-based fuels and fuel cycles have been used in the past, but have yet to be commercialised.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, existing estimates of thorium resources total more than 4.5 million tonnes (reserves and additional resources). US mining company US Rare Earths has said deposits of highly concentrated thorium in the US would be large enough to supply the power needs of the entire country for centuries using thorium-fuelled nuclear reactors.
