Most of the by-products decay away much more rapidly in thorium reactors and the rest are super easy to detect. This should have recycling easier (let it set for a few years after powering down then recycle it necessary). If each unit fit into a slightly oversized shipping container, safely transporting it doesn't seem more difficult than transporting in nuclear material in the first place. Plus, since waste is going right back into a new containment, it probably doesn't have to be as clean provided you can keep workers safe.
Actually I did a Ph.d. related to chemical separations of nuclear materials. Granted my direct research was narrow on some aspects of solvent extraction related to actinide separation, but I did get a general impression of other areas from hearing stories and presentations at conferences and such. My impression is that you're vastly underestimating the complexities and challenges of those steps. Yes, this is just an appeal authority type argument, but your point is a lot of generalized high level statements without supporting evidence. What you're saying could be true, but from my impression it's more likely to be magical thinking. I'd love it to be true, but just because we want something to be true or it sounds nice doesn't make it more likely. In fact, we should double our due diligence for claims that tell us what we want to hear.
I agree. But, in a molten-salt reactor, the vessel and heat exchangers are equivalent to fuel assemblies. Dispose the vessel and heat exchangers similar to Zr-clad million dollar fuel assemblies.(PWR/BWR reload costs $60-100 million per 12-18 months.)
Material wise Zr clad is way more expensive than stainless 3XX & graphite combined. Even if Ni-alloy is used in disposable MSRs Ni-alloy+graphite will be slightly cheaper. (Base metal costs:
Zr metal: ~$22,700/ton
Ni metal: ~$13,100/ton)
Many actinides have volatile fluorides. Fluoride volatility is a proven process used to enrich uranium for LWRs. Fuel salt can be disposed after recovering U & Pu. Vacuum distillation is physical separation, which can also be used to further recover expensive base salt FLi7Be. No vacuum distillation is necessary if inexpensive salt is used.
