A Canadian Perspective of the Economic Issues Associated With Deploying Thorium-Based Fuel Cycles and Breeding in Heavy-Water Reactors

Abstract

To meet future global needs for energy and green technology, it is prudent to identify energy sources and technology that may potentially be economically beneficial. Thorium-based fuels with nuclear technology, such as the Canadian heavy-water reactor, have been proposed as a way to meet those global needs, though economic challenges persist in deploying thorium-based fuels. Therefore, economic strategies to overcome the economic challenges in deploying thorium-based fuels are needed. To identify potential strategies for advancing the deployment of thorium-based fuels, this paper conducts a historical examination of the economics of thorium fuel cycles to identify economic factors that can influence a country’s development of thorium-based fuel cycles. In particular, this paper reviews the economic issues associated with Canada’s experience in deploying thorium-based fuel cycles. The study finds that the existence of natural resources and the associated price, a nuclear fuel cycle’s costs, a country’s international trade balance position and economic growth policies, the profitability of the electrical power and nuclear industry, and the technical and economical characteristics of the nuclear reactor developed in a country may all influence the adoption of a thorium-based fuel cycle. Furthermore, recent advancements in developing thorium-based fuel cycles are suggested as a possible way of bridging the technical and economic gap between near-term and long-term implementation of thorium-based fuel cycles that may overcome current economic challenges.

An overview of thorium as a prospective natural resource for future energy

“…Combinations of thorium and highly enriched uranium have been tested in gas or water-cooled reactors, and several countries such as India, Germany, the UK, France, Japan, Russia, Canada, Brazil, and China have tested the use thorium-based fuels for their Frontiers in Energy Research frontiersin.org reactors (Jiyang et al, 2004;Şahin et al, 2004;Bell et al, 2019;Mendoza España and Bromley, 2019), while some countries like Türkiye are considering it (Demirbaş, 2005). However, the existence of natural resources, the cost of exploiting those resources, a country's international trade balance position, and its economic growth policies, the profitability of the electrical power and nuclear industries are important factors that may help or prevent the adoption of thorium-based nuclear fuel technology, making technical development critical to overcoming economic challenges (Mendoza España and Bromley, 2019).…”

Selective Extraction of Uranium(VI) from Thorium(IV) Using New Unsymmetrical Acidic Phenanthroline Carboxamide Ligands

“…The identification of MSR as one of the potential systems to achieve the Generation-IV goal will promote the development of thorium fuel cycle . Until now, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China, etc., have carried out fundamental research and preliminary small-scale application tests related to the thorium fuel cycle, systematically proving the possibility of using thorium as nuclear fuel in reactors. – THTR-300 (Germany) and Fort St Vrain (USA) have achieved the production of 300 MWe power . India has been working on the thorium fuel cycle due to the large thorium deposit.…”