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IAEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank
Kemeno writes "The International Atomic Energy Agency voted on Friday to form a nuclear fuel bank to help developing countries acquire nuclear fuel without having to enrich uranium themselves. Warren Buffet contributed 50 million dollars to a pool of 150 million with contributions from many different countries. The goal of the program is to provide countries with a source of low-grade enriched uranium suitable for fueling reactors but not for creating nuclear weapons."
This has to be the best addition to the IKEA catalog yet! Grab my tape measure, allen key and let's go shopping!
Can you poison the fuel used in the rods so that it can't be used in weapons at all without starting the enrichment process over from the beginning? I understand that you need 70-90% U-235 for a weapon and only about 3% to run a reactor. But 3% enriched fuel is a better starting point for making a weapon than raw ore, is it not?
1. get clean energy to people in the developing world.
2. getting rid of people who oppose nuclear power in the developed world.
2. build nuclear plants.
3. synthesising gasoline and diesel fuel with nuclear power.
4. no more CO2!!! profit!
Notice: no ?????? mark step.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
So from your sarcastic comment, you believe that it's a good idea for, say, the Somali warlords to have nuclear weapons? Fascinating.
No I think he is saying "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for life."
I don't think any current nuclear powered countries would appreciate their fuel supplies controlled and rationed by a central body.
If this is the best way, lead by example and have your fuel supplies controlled by a third party.
Oh.. you don't want to do that? National security issues? I thought so.
It is pretty hard to eat your own dog food.
I got that part. It was the "only the white man..." part that seemed a little, well, stupid. Of course racist, too, but it was against caucasians so it's OK.
God forbid additional nations develop nuclear weapons: more countries would need to be taken seriously.
We may even need to increase the permanent members of the security council.
(That is how you acquire membership, isn't it?)
government solidly in control
government elected by people
people lack severe ethnic/religion/language/race bias
not about to get blitzkreiged by a neighbor
Once you have reactor grade fuel, you can create plutonium. That only requires an easy chemical separation, so you won't be needing centrifuges.
...and leave a legacy that will improve life in smaller countries, he should champion the development of cheap, abundant, safe nuclear power in the form of the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium and the plants are potentially much smaller and cheaper.
If they are not able to enrich uranium themselves, then they are certainly not able to take care of the spent fuel, which is much harder.
The idea of renting out whole self contained reactors is better, because they can be returned intact.
So the only country that was filthy and retarded enough to use not one, but even two... is telling others that they can't have those same weapons? Sjee, I wonder why.
What are you smoking?
Many developing countries have grids where the lights go out on a regular basis because of a the lack of baseload generation capacity. They are in desperate need of baseload (coal, nuclear, gas or hydro) to stabilize their grids and meet demand. You cannot do this with PV - period. Nuclear is the least environmentally damaging option and the lowest cost low emission technology.
Notably Vietnam and Bangladesh have recently signed agreements with Russia to build two VVER nuclear power plants in each country. Vietnam looks to be about to conclude a contract with Japan for two more reactors.
Hello Nuclear Fuel Bank? My name Borat. I want make withdrawal, benefit my nation Tajikistan.
While PV won't provide baseload, solar thermal can and will - particularly in tropical/subtropical regions with highly predictable sunshine.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Nice to see the fine slashdot tradition of making bold, unsupported statements, declared as absolute truth, is still alive and well.
"to what is essentially a very expensive environment-ruining nuclear-timebomb"
Oh, really? Please, do, provide some actual *science and engineering* based source for this assertion. Before you trot out the old "Chernobyl", do note that *nobody*, except *nobody* is building any plants that are similar to the Chernobyl design, and that modern designs have multiple layers of safety in their designs that Chernobyl lacked. If Nuclear Reactors are so dangerous, so environment ruining, such ticking timebombs, how come in 60 years of nuclear plant operation, Chernobyl is the *one and only* accident which released any significant radioactive material into the environment? Modern plant designs are very safe, and even in the very unlikely event of a meltdown accident, are extremely unlikely to release any significant radioactivity into the environment.
Unlike you, I'll provide a source for my assertions: Ted Rockwell's Nuclear Facts Report. Now, that report is very long, but it's also well supported with bibliography references to many sources, including peer-reviewed studies by professional engineers and scientists.
You might bring up Three Mile Island, or Davis-Besse. Three Mile Island was unfortunate, but was only a disaster for the investors who payed for it. It got worse than it should have, but even in that situation, only a very small amount of slightly radioactive (very slightly) steam was released from the plant, but no other radioactive materials or radiation was released. TMI had an actual meltdown, and it wasn't an environmental or public safety disaster.
In the meantime, the nuclear plants being built now have been built with better safety designs than older generation II plants - a TMI type incident, although we can't call it completely impossible, is much more unlikely than it was with the TMI design. The Nuclear Industry has spent many Billions of dollars on R&D to design new, safer plants, and shepherd those new designs through strict regulatory oversight bodies like the NRC to get them approved.
I truly don't believe those new power plants are at all "environment-ruining nuclear-timebombs".
About the waste - the truth is, we should be recycling the spent fuel. The only proper, responsible final 'disposal' for spent nuclear fuel is to seperate out the short lived 'true waste' products from the rest of the fuel, and keep re-using the fuel until it's all converted to short lived waste. We *have* the technology to turn our current nuclear waste, which is radioactive for 100,000+ years into short-lived waste which essentially becomes non-radioactive after about 200 years - I think we *can* safely store the waste for 200 years, but I've never heard anyone who thought we could really store it for 100k+ years.
Sometime, try googling for "Integral Fast Reactor" - it's a fascinating read.
Finally, on your comment, "They should just give them free photovoltaics - you can just set a mini-plant in any of the villages". Really, do you really think a few PV panels in a village is going to provide enough power? For what? Each household can run one or two LED or CFL lights? What if that village needs power for running a water treatment plant, or a desalination plant? What if they want to have businesses and small industry which need enough power to run machinery, commercial refrigeration units, etc? What if the villagers want heat, hot water, and electric stoves in their homes, instead of burning wood or coal for those needs? You think a few PV panels in town and on the roof will provide enough power for all that? What about the big cities? Even the most undeveloped countries usually have at least a Capital city, if not a few others? What about future growth? That small village, as it gets access to clean water and power, might start to
And what do you do during the evening, night, and early morning when there's no or too little sunlight? Oh, right, you burn natural gas. I suppose that's not the worst outcome in the world. I suppose it's better to burn natural gas part of the time, than to burn coal all of the time.
I suppose you could also supplement solar with wind - sun doesn't shine at night, but the wind often blows, so you might be able, with the combination, to get enough power, but it will be expensive power with current technology. Nuclear, even though the plants are expensive (but getting cheaper, at least outside the U.S. and Europe), just provides *so much* power that when you break it down to a per-unit-energy basis, it's actually the least-expensive alternative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism_(Foundation)
The Foundation presents nuclear (atomic) power as a religion, allowing their uncivilized neighbors access to the technology without understanding how it worked. Maintenance is done through ritual and ceremonies.
The original story was published in 1942.
I truly don't believe those new power plants are at all "environment-ruining nuclear-timebombs".
I'm as big a proponent of IFR technology as anyone, but it is head-in-the-sand thinking to expect that waste from this program is going to be recycled any better than we've done for the last 30 years. Practically nobody is doing it today, ain't no way third world countries are going to be the ones that start doing it even half right.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Did anyone else read this as "IKEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank?"
My first thought was, "Man, those stores really do have everything!"
Molten salt solarthermal has enough storage capacity for night load, if it gets close, supplement with pumped storage, if it gets even closer, yes, supplement with natural gas. What the hell is it with this rabid ideological opposition to solar? Do you think it is somehow unamerican or something?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Solar thermal may be cheaper than PV but is still a lot more expensive than nuclear. The Arithmetic adds up to Nuclear
I'm not aware that there is any solar thermal plant in existence that has anything like the 90% capacity factor of nuclear. Andasol 1 and 2 in Spain as I understand it have 7 hours of storage. The most likely scenario for solar thermal is that it is backed up by gas in the immediate future.
So long as the Chinese are now white.
And the Indians.
Of course those are just the two major non "white man" countries with nuclear weapons. Other countries have nuclear power, but not weapons. Brazil and Taiwan to name two.
The thing is it would be nice to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of crazies and unstable countries. Nuclear weapons aren't dangerous, and even can help prevent war, but only when they are in the hands of people who are loathe to use them. So long as they act as nothing but deterrents, they are fine. Not saying we might not be better off without them, but when they play only a deterrence role there's no problem.
Nuclear power, on the other hand, is something good for everyone. Modern reactors are very safe. It is a good way to cheaply supply a lot of energy, and a society needs energy to improve quality of life. Poor countries face many challenges, but energy is one of them and nuclear energy could really help out.
This creates a problem though. If they can turn the energy tools in to weapons, well then you can end up having nuclear arms in the hands of people who would use them out of spite, ignorance, etc. If you don't believe that have a look at the Vice Travel Guide to Liberia. We are talking about places where soldiers sacrificed children and ate their hearts.
Thus you can see while getting them nuclear power would be nice, countries want to make sure they don't get nuclear weapons with it.
I don't particularly mind the US or China having nuclear weapons. I really can't see either ever using them capriciously. I would mind Liberia or Congo having them because all it takes is whatever warlord gets them having an attack of the crazies and a lot of people are going to die.
Perhaps, it's because, the more nations get nuclear weapons, the more likely that an incident will happen which escalates into the end of the world? Everyone on Earth should be worried about nuclear proliferation, not just the U.S. I don't want to debate whether the U.S. was right or wrong to use nuclear weapons to end WWII, because as a rule, I generally like to not take responsibility for the decisions of past generations, or to re-fight old wars. But, as a practical note, I will say this - when only one country, which only used nuclear weapons in a very bad situation, there was no chance for M.A.D. of pretty much all life on Earth. We live in a different world today. Potentially, anyone like N. Korea or Iran could start the war which truly ends all wars (along with 99% of life on the planet).
As for the U.S., we've been reducing our stockpiles. Many of us would love to see a nuclear-weapons free world, but from a practical standpoint, that's probably not going to happen. I would, at least, like to see as little additional weapons being built as possible.
Finally, if someone has to have nuclear weapons, I'd rather see them in the hands of countries which seem like they are run by people who are rational *enough* that they probably won't try to start the nuclear world war (yea, sometimes politics in the U.S. can be a bit irrational, but I don't think *anyone* in the U.S. really wants to see us use nuclear weapons ever again if we don't absolutely have to). I truly worry that Iran with Nuclear Weapons will use them (or at least the threat of them) aggressively instead of defensively - e.g. invade their neighbors and threaten nuclear reprisal if any allies try to come to the defensive aid of the neighboring State.
On the topic of Andasol - Andasol 1 is the first large scale salt storage system now - I'd consider that still experimental. And there is growth potential in my opinion. No doubt that with the current implemented tech, you need gas backup, but that is not a fundamental point against the technology.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Err, perhaps I wasn't clear. I agree that Fast Reactor technology is going to start in more developed places - China and India, I believe, already have plans to build some, here in the U.S. GE-Hitachi recently announced they have reached an agreement with the DoE to build a prototype PRISM plant (PRISM is the commercialized version of IFR, from what I understand).
When I made the statement, "I truly don't believe those new power plants are at all 'environment-ruining nuclear-timebombs'", I wasn't referring to IFR or other "Gen IV" reactors - I was talking about the Gen III plants being proposed for these small developing nations - things like the ABWR, EBWR, AP-1xxx, EPR, etc.
I'm not radily ideologically opposed to solar power. I just think that *right now*, the economics of it currently don't make sense. Also, Solar generally needs very large land-use (although, I think I've seen somewhere that you can do things like graze livestock on land with solar panels (or mirrors in the case of solar thermal), if you raise the panels/mirrors up high enough. People like to make the claim that nuclear is 'too expensive', but on a per-unit basis, the figures I've seen show solar to be 2-3x more expensive than nuclear.
When there is deflation, this is good for the consumer as he or she gets more product per dollar. When there is inflation the opposite is true.
Since we know nuclear fuel has a half-life, the currency these banks base their loans upon is deflating... While this is a bad thing for the bank, with a well supported backing this can only be good for the consumer!
A deflating currency is a great investment, even if only in the short term. And regardless of the demand, it naturally will deflate!
Half-life economics, brilliant!
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Yeah, that might very well be. But keep in mind that at the moment you are comparing a decades-old nuclear technology to a quite experimental solar one. Just comparing the costs 1:1 is not a realistic picture. I am not saying that you can provide all our electricity needs by solar, but I think it should be part of the mix. Especially with projects like Desertec coming up. Nuclear is just another part of the mix - I am not opposing that. All these discussions, however, seem to end up in a nuclear vs. solar standoff, which is, frankly, bullshit.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The problem is used correctly nuclear power is not a cheap energy source. As nuclear power plants cut corners they find creative ways to ruin the environment
The problem is that the cost of nuclear power is inflated by the regulations that the anti-nuclear lobby imposed upon everybody as a very effective form of sabotaging the nuclear power industry.
Different from all other power systems, you cannot find examples of how the nuclear power plants have ruined the environment by "cutting corners". What they are doing is storing nuclear waste "temporarily" but in a highly secure way at the power station plants, instead of moving them to the non-existent "permanent" waste storage facilities.
The reason why permanent storage facilities do not exist is only because politicians have never agreed on where those facilities should be located and how they would be constructed. each time some proposal comes up it's immediately shot down by the anti-nuclear lobby.
The anti-nuclear lobby is financed by the taxes we, the citizens, pay. There are NGOs all over the world that get tax-exempt status because they are officially "pro-environment" organizations. Perhaps Wikileaks should tell us how much those NGO directors get in salaries (or do you remotely believe that everybody who works for those organizations is a volunteer?)
Do you know who Warren Buffet is or anything about him...?
No sig today...
TFA implies that nuclear fuel costs ~ $2 million/ton. And that 80 tons is needed 'to refuel one reactor'. Both seem awfully high to me. I always thought a reactor contained a few tons of Uranium at most.
Not that old saw again. This program would allow countries to run nuclear power plants without having to develop a hugely expensive supporting industry. The same way African countries currently import cars rather than having to develop a car industry from scratch. It's just another way of bootstrapping the economy.
If they opted for heavy water reactor types like the CANDU then they wouldn't need to enrich uranium in the first place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU
As best I can tell, given the 99% kill everything figure, you are assuming a nuclear war would extinct homo sap sap? I think not. I figure there are some astronomical stuff that can do us, but doing ourselves? Not quite yet.
End of the world stuff is popular with some now and I think the rhetoric should be avoided.. But for most people, say a 2 billion to 6 billion die off (over the next couple centuries) will *look* like the end of the world. But this is more a lack of tech then too much tech, or some sort of nuclear spasm. Hah, people say that when you are dying, it looks like the end of the world. :-) I suppose "saving the world" from the great unwashed dictatorships or whatever is sort of a popular idea, but I am not sure that "the world" is the sort of thing that you "save". But I could buy off on saving Western Civilization. :-)
Not to mention that since these countries will be using fuel from an international pool, there is no reason why that fuel can't be used in Gen IV reactors located in other countries. Sweden for example has sent some "spent" fuel to France for use in the Phenix reactors (I forget which one of the two).
You are a few years too late. North Korea already has nukes for one, Iran is close, Egypt have has been working on it for years, and in Israel it's getting close to having a crazy fascist get the keys to the nuclear bombs let alone Pakistan and a few former Soviet republics.
A country even more batshit crazy than warlords in Africa already has the bomb. Just last week they shelled South Korea to extort more aid money. Cannibalism (like your anecdote above) is reported there as well.
As for the dirt cheap safe reactors - theoretically they could exist but they don't yet. I don't know why people always talk about untried technologies that only exist on paper as "modern reactors". Of course they are safe, you can't get anything safer than something that doesn't exist. I say build prototypes and test them out, but suggest laying off the bullshit about how perfect untried things are.
Breeders were an expensive and pointless dead end as shown many times in the 1970s because it is incredibly difficult to handle the highly radioactive materials with a short half-life produced. Those that wanted to pretend it was not a failure renamed such promising new and unrelated technologies as accelerated thorium reactors to "breeder" to save face.
Give up on the old shit that was shown to be shit and learn about something from the last quarter century instead. You've just been conned by Westinghouse or similar that want to fleece the taxpayer by selling some ancient failed experimental designs they still have on the books.
Water power doesn't just mean hydroelectric, it also includes wave and tidal power. These have very low environmental impact, although getting large amounts of energy out of them is pretty hard.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
By the market place. For example, America imports most of our power plant level uranium, even though we have the supplies and ability to make it here.
Likewise, most of all of EU nations import it since they do not have any.
So, the facts destroy your arguments.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While we HAVE participate in multiple wars, please tell us what wars in recent history that US started?
Perhaps we started WWI? Nope. Germany invaded others
Or WWII? Nope. Germany invaded others
Or Korean war? Nope. Communist Korea invaded south.
Or Vietnam? Nope. Communist nam invaded french held nam
Or Desert Storm I? Nope. Iraq invaded Kuwait
Or We started the nightmare in eastern Europe? Nope.
Or Afghanistan? Nope. Afghanistan launched it against the USA when they backed terrorists.
Or Desert Storm II? Well, since technically, there was a on-going war, no. However, I think that is a false. I would have to say that we DID in fact start that.
Of course, on nearly all of the other cases, it was larger nations invading smaller nations and our standing up for them. But, you do not like that. Perhaps you think that Iran should have the right to nuke say the middle east? Perhaps NK has the right to invade or nuke South Korea? Perhaps you feel that Venezuela has the right to tell Columbia and other nations what to do via terrorists so they should be allowed to build nukes?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...yes, because all those third world countries have proven themselves to be politically stable enough to handle the responsibility. Just look at that paragon of responsibility - Pakistan. Surely the world is better off now that there is a nuclear armed nation slowly deteriorating into islamic fascism. It will end well. Really.
This kind of comment would be better aimed at ending the various aid and loan schemes developed countries use to buy off the various dictators-of-the-week. Except in that case absolutely nothing of use would occur in said third world countries. Unless you count mass starvation as useful.
Seriously, it's kind of surprising that a nuclear fuel bank as described didn't already exist.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
by that standard nobody has ever started a war ever.
Did Austria-Hungary start world war 1? Nope. the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist did.
which is of course crap and just an excuse but that's how politics works.
Did the US start the United States occupation of Haiti? Nope. the uppity locals threatened American business interests.
etc etc
there is always an excuse.
Always.
Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian not afghani.
Of course, on nearly all of the other cases, it was larger nations invading smaller nations and our standing up for them.
how noble that sounds.
It even sounds reasonable as long as you ignore how many such situations get totally ignored because it's nations the US gets on with doing it.
Whoever has nuclear weapons (US, Russia, China, France, Pakistan, India, North Korea and presumably Israel, so not really a "white man club") I think it is a good idea to keep this club as small as possible. Not as a mean to dominate other nations, but because proliferation simply causes problems for which we have no solution. The current solution is not ideal but until we find a good way to prevent a nuke to explode in an inhabited area, fighting to keep the number of nukes low is a good thing to do.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...yes, because all those third world countries have proven themselves to be politically stable enough to handle the responsibility.
They're every bit as stable as Pakistan is.
I believe it was more a reference towards imperialism , "The Whiteman's Burden" being fine example of that time.
That is precisely my point.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
For what it's worth, I agree - I think the economics of solar *will* improve over time (I also think the economics of nuclear will improve over time). I also think that there are places in this world, like that Sahara project you mention, and places like Texas, Arizona, NV, CA, etc. where solar makes sense (once the tech is cheap enough). I also often see solar proponents making sort of ridiculous suggestions - like, for example, I live in the Great State of Ohio. As far as I know, the economics of solar don't really make sense for places like Ohio, but because of government "incentives" (read, "subsidies"), there are solar farms popping up around Ohio. We'll see if long term those actually make sense, but my understanding of the economics of solar energy leads me to believe it'll just end up being unreliable, expensive power and largely a waste of taxpayer money.
It's very hard to tell how stable a location will be over the time required for nuclear waste storage
How about the bottom of the ocean? There are vast regions of the abyssal plains that have been unchanged for a billion years or more.
Send a robot to bury 20 cm diameter x 2 meter long cylinders of vitrified waste under a 100 m layer of mud under a 5000 m of ocean, and come tell me about a scenario where that situation could be changed to harm the environment.
He should finance renewable energy. Why give developing countries a legacy technology which produces so much more legacy (and no it does not matter if these are 100 Castors (100t each) per year or only 20. What I cannot understand is how people can be fan of a so much disputed technology which has definitely its problems. Also it cannot be the solution for our total energy needs.
There are cheaper saver and better working alternatives. Just lets use them.
While the arguments that this system can (and probably) will create economic dependency on the pre-refined uranium supply are indeed valid. I think the major push of this is to take the wind out of the sails of countries like iran that "claim" to be developing this technology for energy purposes. If we offer them a dirt cheap way (research free) to attain nuclear power, but not weapons then suddenly their arguments loose a lot of traction. They can still argue that they want the tech for themselves so that the dependence issue isn't there, but when the research costs involved keep adding up, it looks more and more attractive. So long as the regulated pool of uranium cannot be simply withheld as a further method of sanctions everything is good. As a side note, anything encouraging nuclear power is a step towards reducing carbon emissions especially in the developing world where its growing rapidly.
I agree that we should push forward on all fronts with renewable energy. But Thorium-based LFTR reactors solve most of the problems with nuclear energy, including the two biggest bug bears of them all: nuclear waste and safety. There is practically no waste in LFTR and the fuel is fantastically plentiful compared to Uranium. There are huge Thorium deposits right now. And LFTR reactors are virtually melt-down proof from the get-go. Where uranium reactors "want" to blow up by default, LFTR reactors are amazingly safe. Watch the link and the other Google Tech Day presentations. LFTR reactors have already been tested and they WORK. The military is responsible for taking us down the dead end of using Uranium for power just because it can be used in weapons. LFTR is better technology and can't be used to make bombs. Thorium CAN be the solution for our total energy needs for the foreseeable future, and will be a great adjunct to renewable energy when something like solar finally emerges. You can build lots of solar cells with safe, cheap, clean LFTR power, and then who cares if solar isn't quite as efficient. It can be used in locations that need it most right away.
Odd; Did a nation attack Austria-Hungary or was there a nation that backed those serbs? Because then, yes, that WOULD make them culpable. Oh wait. No. That did NOT happen. It was Austria-Hungary looking for an excuse. However, I do not think that USA was looking to be attacked by AQ AND to have Afghanistan provide them a base from which to attack from. And my guess is that if AQ EVER attacks USA again (or any other NATO nation) FROM pakistan AND pakistan does not turn over these ppl, then I suspect that NATO WILL go into pakistan as well. As to your last comment, well, there are few nations that America does not get along with. Oddly, I think that if somebody attacked Cuba UNPROVOKED, then we might come to their aid. As it is, we are helping vietnam, and yet, just 35 years ago, we lost a war there. Finally, what occupation of Haiti have we done in the last 50 years? After all, we ARE TALKING RECENT HISTORY, not ANCIENT HISTORY. Or are you trying to say our being in haiti today to help them with the earthquake (along with a number of other nations including China and Cuba) is an occupation?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All that is is an argument that maybe North Korea needs to be attacked. You do NOT want to say "Well one crazy country got them so fuck it, let's just give them out to the entire world!"
Who knows? Maybe something like this could help stop that. While there's no doubt NK wanted nukes, it came as part of the energy project. So, provide people with the energy in a way they can't use it to make nukes, maybe they aren't able to try. That's the whole point here.
Just because there is a problem doesn't mean you should throw up your hands and say "Screw it, there's a problem so let's just make it much worse."
Did you even read the second sentence about accelerated thorium? Both articles you link to deal with that and similar technologies instead of the fast breeders the above poster was talking about.
What I'm talking about is mostly based on the problems the French civilian nuclear program encountered with their two fast breeders.
To put things simply handling radioactive materials that are far more active than normal fuel is incredibly difficult and expensive and they tend to make other things that are in close proximity to them for long periods of time radioactive as well (that's what strong neutron sources do). Then many of the materials (eg. Uranium) are very strong, hard and have high melting points so it's bloody hard to crunch up the material and separate the stuff you want from the stuff you don't. That's the stuff the French learned from experience.
So while all this was going on other people thought of ways to do it without all that handling. That's where we come to ideas such as some of the thorium designs - eg. having a pool of molten radioactive material and you throw bits of old uranium fuel rod or expired weapon materials in to get more use out of them.
Fast breeders were a complete dead end and things have moved in other directions since then, possibly even before the fast breeder advocates here that read some propaganda from the 1970s were born.
That we should invade and disarm Pakistan?