Polish Reactions Critical for Thorium Power Nuclear Fuel Market

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). In the second half of 2006, Thorium Power Limited (NYSE:THPW ) (McLean, Virginia) led a delegation of leading developers and providers of nuclear fuels and nuclear power plants on a fact finding mission to Poland. This has been followed by discussions with senior Polish government officials and representatives form the Swierk Institute of Atomic Energy in Warsaw regarding the development of the nuclear power infrastructure in the country.

In the country’s 2007 budget submitted to the EU Poland has requested $123 million over a 6-year period specifically for the development of nuclear infrastructure. The scope of the projects would include vetting light water reactors for electrical power generation and process heat for the gasification of coal and conversion of coal into liquid (CTL). The light water and high temperature reactor programs would give strong consideration to using thorium-based fuels. The project also provides for the development of research reactors and expansion of the country’s nuclear research facilities.

Seth Grae, CEO of Thorium Power is bullish about the prospects for his company which has already positioned itself in an inside lane, tracking the vigorous thorium fuel program of the Indian government. “We are encouraged by the progress made by the working group which has been enthusiastically receptive to the concept of thorium-based, non-proliferative, low waste nuclear energy. Additionally Thorium Power has assumed an increasingly vital consultancy and advisory role in the development of the project, and we anticipate formalizing this relationship with a negotiated contract,” he said.

The claimed benefits of thorium fed nuclear energy were summarized by Dennis K. Hays and Andrey Mushakov, both vice presidents of Thorium Power, in the December 2006 edition of the Nuclear Energy Review – “ The seed-and-blanket thorium technology was designed to be fully compatible with existing core rector design and control rod mechanisms and requires no major reactor modifications. At the same time, the fuel technology is expected to provide several significant benefits: (1) Enhanced proliferation resistance of spent fuel, (2) Substantially reduced amount of spent fuel, (3) Significantly decreases long-term radio-toxicity of spent fuel (by an order of magnitude), and (4) Improved fuel performance and safety of reactor operations.

The technology is expected to be cost-competitive with conventional uranium fuel or even less expensive depending on how much of the back-end cost savings could be captured. Additional cost savings could be achieved if the fissile content, such as separated reactor-grade plutonium, were provided for free or a nominal fee by nuclear operators who own most of it and are forced to pay each year ongoing plutonium storage fees to reprocessing facilities that store it for them.”

Thorium Power Inc. designs nuclear fuels, obtains patent protection on these fuels, and coordinates fuel development with commercial entities and governments. The company has been working in Russia with Russian nuclear engineers and scientists for over a decade. The company was formerly Novastar Resources Inc.

In 2005 Westinghouse was commissioned by the DoE to independently evaluate the technical feasibility and potential benefits offered by thorium technology and issued a favorable assessment, recommending proceeding to lead test assemble in testing in an operating 1,000 MW VVER-1000 reactor in Russia and the advantages of using thorium for plutonium incineration in light water reactors was recognized by the IAEA in May 2005.

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