“If all the ineffective ideas for solving the energy crisis were put together, they would reach the Moon and back,” said Sir David JC McKay, a Briton. physicist, mathematician, Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and chief scientific advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, as reported by Quotes Memo, the University of Cambridge and Business Green, a research company green energy. About 80% of the world's energy needs are met by fossil fuels, according to data from the World Bank, a nonprofit organization. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Fossil fuels release thousands of millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, disrupting ecosystems around the world and contributed to the deaths of seven million people. people every year, say the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and the World Health Organization. The current energy crisis is massive and kills millions of people every year. Nuclear energy is the best option to meet everyone's energy needs without polluting the earth or continually contributing to its amount of greenhouse gases. Nuclear reactors are energy sources that produce electricity when unstable isotopes of heavy elements (i.e. Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, etc.) split , releasing neutrons and enormous amounts of thermal energy. To ensure the reaction is safe and controlled, coolants and neutron moderators are added, usually in the form of water or graphite, along with control rods. It is important to note that the preferred type of nuclear reactor is the thorium molten salt reactor. The Chinese are investing heavily there, according to data from the nonprofit World Nuclear as well as Thorium Energy World and Forbes. Thorium fuel is advantageous for many reasons. The preferred isotope of thorium, 232Th, makes up more than 99 percent of Earth's natural thorium, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health. Additionally, thorium is three times more abundant than uranium. This makes mining and fuel refining much simpler, as thorium mining is three times more efficient than uranium mining and the mined thorium does not need to be enriched in fissile material (material capable of supporting a nuclear fission reaction). Thorium also does not decay into nuclear waste that can be used to make weapons. Thorium nuclear waste remains radioactive only 5% of the time. Uranium nuclear waste remains radioactive. Current uranium reactors use between 95% and 97% 238U, which is radioactive but non-fissile. The remaining 3-5% is 235U, which is fissile. This means that only a tiny fraction of the fuel is used. The remaining 238U is enriched in 239U during the reaction and then becomes 239Pu, which is nuclear waste that can be used in the manufacture of weapons. Thorium does not have this problem. Thorium is not fissile. It transforms into 239Th when joined with another neutron, which then decays into 233U, a fissile isotope of uranium. This process removes 238U and 239U from the equation and ensures that almost all products are safe, fissile material. 233U is used in a fission reactor and splits into even more stable elements. The reactorsthorium eliminates almost all nuclear waste produced and eliminates the possibility that it constitutes the nuclear material for nuclear weapons. Another important detail in the future is the type of reactor. The molten salt reactor uses molten salt as a depressurized coolant and dissolves the nuclear fuel in the coolant salt. This avoids nuclear fusion because the system is already liquid. This also prevents explosions because the coolant is kept at the same pressure as the atmosphere. If the reaction gets too hot, it forces the coolant mixture to expand, which pushes the dissolved fuel particles away from each other, slowing and cooling the engine's reaction. This proved so effective that a control rod (used to dampen feedback) was removed from an MSR while it was operating at full power and the MSR increased its power output by 12.5 %, then stabilized on its own, without any intervention from the operator. Thorium, combined with the many benefits of an MSR, makes for the most optimal nuclear energy system possible. All nuclear power plants proposed here would use TMSR, significantly reducing the quantity and risks associated with nuclear waste. Due to its high efficiency, cleanliness and safety, as well as the overwhelming incompetence of renewable energy sources, TMSR nuclear energy is the best way to meet everyone's energy needs without ever increasing the carbon footprint. An unfortunately common misconception about nuclear power is that it is inefficient. Nuclear power with traditional uranium reactors requires a lot of mining and fuel refining, which reduces efficiency and poses a great health risk to people working with uranium. This is not the case for Thorium reactors. Thorium is three times more common than uranium, and thorium is more efficient to mine than uranium, as noted in a report by Jason Ting of Stanford University. Thorium mining takes place in open pit mines, which do not require ventilation, while uranium mines are closed and have dangerous levels of radon. This means that it is not only more efficient to mine Thorium, but also safer. The energy density of thorium is extraordinary, reaching a whopping 79,420,000 MJ/kg according to What Is Nuclear engineers. The United States Energy Information Administration says that in 2018, total primary energy consumption in the United States per person per year was 309 million British thermal units. This means that a single kilogram of thorium fuel is enough energy to meet all of an American's energy needs for three lifetimes. Thorium reactors are a big improvement over uranium ones, but they are also much better than renewables. According to solar energy company GreenMatch, as of 9/13/19, solar panels have an efficiency of between 15% and 22%. Wind turbines perform considerably better, averaging between 35% and 45%, says Dr. Richard M Andres, professor emeritus at Saint Louis University. Nuclear power comes out on top of the two, with the efficiency of a molten salt reactor ranging between 48% and 59%, making it three to four times more efficient than solar power and up to 168%. more efficient than wind energy. The difference between the efficiencies of nuclear power and wind power may seem insignificant, but a nuclear reactor produces maximum energy at least 91% of the time it is operating, or 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. , with the exceptiona break every two years for refueling, as indicated. by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energies. Wind turbines rely entirely on wind, an energy source that is neither constant nor powerful. Wind turbines produce just average energy output about 40 percent of the time, and they produce little or no energy the other 60 percent, as the nonprofit National Wind Watch reports. The average total capacity factor (percentage of time a wind turbine produces peak power) of wind turbines in 2018 was 37.4%. A solar power plant is no better and only reliably generates peak power for about four hours a day on average, according to Australian company SolarQuotes. This means that a nuclear power plant produces peak power three times more often than a wind turbine and 5.5 times more often than a solar power plant. Simply put, nuclear power plants are extraordinarily efficient, much more so than renewables, due to their high generation capacity factors, high energy density fuel and high operational efficiency. Not only are nuclear power plants incredibly efficient, but they also produce exorbitant amounts of energy. . MSRs have already proven capable of producing at least nine megawatts. MSRs are growing rapidly and there are currently plans to launch a one-gigawatt demonstration plant. California is generally considered the energy leader in the United States and has 4.2 gigawatts of electrical grid storage, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems from the University of Michigan. This means that just four reactors of this size are enough to power California's entire storage network. Not only can they supply California's storage network, but they can also manage California's entire power grid, which has a capacity of 76,414 megawatts according to the California Electricity Profile 2017. A one GWt reactor could provide at least 13 times the capacity of the Californian network. Most nuclear power plants have two reactors, so even if one MSR only meets 4% of the one GWt target, it would still be able to power all of California. Solar doesn't even achieve this goal. As noted in an article by Solar Energy Research and Power analyst Ben Zientara, the average 2018 solar panel produces a maximum of 320 watts of electricity in perfect weather. To meet California's grid capacity, 238,793,750 solar panels would be needed. The largest solar farm in the United States, Solar Star, has a peak output of 579 megawatts, say solar energy companies Alba Energy and SunPower. California's grid would require an additional 131 solar farms the size of Solar Star. Due to the insane amount of solar panels and land required to operate, solar power is not feasible here. Wind power doesn't fare much better. A single wind turbine produces 2.5 to 3 megawatts of energy at its maximum power capacity, according to the European Wind Energy Association. Given that this level of power is only used 37.4% of the time and creates almost no energy 60% of the time, 2.5 to 3 megawatts of energy is much higher than typical output. A wind turbine using these statistics (and generously rounding peak power duration to 40%) will produce on average between 1 and 1.2 megawatts of energy production. This means that approximately 70,000 wind turbines would need to continue running at their typical energy output 100% of the time to achieve the same output as California's grid. This will not happen and.