Abstract
ur INTRODUCTION Refore the nuclear power was put into mankind's use, some other sources especially fossil fuels like ©il, natural gas, coal etc. Had been used as the only source of energy to provide for the world's rapidly increasing energy demand. What is to be sorry about is '-fcheefc it is getting harder and harder to cover the world's energy consumption by the conventional sources which are as a matter of fact products of millions of years, because the old world has been running out of them, and this forces mankind to find new sources of power in the coming century. One of the most important problems of the present time in both our developing country and in the world suffering from energy bottleneck is to obtain abundant, cheap and safe electrical power. The nuclear power has in time gained attraction, for on the one hand mankind is well conscious now about a future anergy crisis that will be caused by the rapid exhaustion of the conventional energy sources, and on the other, the cost of generating nucleer has been and will be decreased considerably. Uranium based Thermal Reactors plaved i.he major role in the nuclear power generation until -the earth's uranium deposites were recently spotted to be exhausting by the scientific researches. This is the why some raw materials have been needed to be used as new nuclear energy souces. This new raw material in the nuclear energy generation is `THORIUM`. Thorium is existing Naturally 3-4 temis more than uranium is. This element exists only as Th 232 isotopes, and is converted to fissile U 233 through neutron absorbtion in the reactor; which increased the importance of thorium fuel cycles in the present type nuclear reactors and led to more detailed examination of the matter. The advantage of the Thorium Fuel Cycles for us is that Turkey has highly abundant thorium deposits in her land in this issue, you will find a thorough examination of the thorium fuel cycles with various aspects and the importance of using them in the present type nuclear reactors. Levent Erbay
