Could Thorium Be An Untapped Energy Source?

Here is the opinion of a couple scientists who are in the camp of using thorium as an energy source:

After studying the feasibility of using thorium, nuclear scientists Ralph W. Moir and Edward Teller suggested that thorium nuclear research should be restarted after a three-decade shutdown and that a small prototype plant should be built.[4][5][6] Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, (LFTR), MSR design, has been or is now being done in India, China, Norway, U.S., Israel and Russia.

What do you think?  Is this viable or dangerous?  Feel free to comment and check back for more updates in regards to sustainable energy news.

thanks to James St. John for the pic



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15 Comments

  1. John Roberts said:

    “When thorium is irradiated, or exposed to radiation to prepare it for use as a fuel in nuclear reactions, the process forms small amounts of uranium-232. That highly radioactive isotope makes any handling of the fuel outside of a large reactor or reprocessing facility incredibly dangerous”

    Reply
  10. Alek Pinke said:

    You don’t irradiate it for use as fuel.

    Flouride thorium use can be achieved using induction heating. the heat produced from the liquid fliuride thorium us higher than the geat introduced. This is the only time it is mildly radioactive.

    Reply
  13. Lionel A. Caballeros said:

    A LFTR reactor would be more friendly than a uranium nuclear reactor in that a large part of the waste that it produces could be recycled back into the reactor. Also the radioactive waste that remains would only be active for 300 years vs the thousands that uranium reactors do. Also a thorium reactor is safer in that it doesn’t use steam to cool it down and therefore not susceptible to a blow out resulting in a containment breach into the atmosphere.

    Reply

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