Real life version of a Suikoden V character

[KFCrispy]

A person named Kirk *Sorensen* is leading the charge on super-efficient, super-safe, much-cleaner nuclear energy--using Thorium (yes it is named after Thor)!

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/f ... ukes/all/1

I find this really interesting and am wondering why research simply stopped in the 70s. This doesn't explain it well--if research was going so well and funding was terminated or whatever, did the researchers simply keep their mouths shut? Why didn't private companies (and other countries not so sensitive to nuclear energy) turn this into reality? It sounds too good to be true, and only recently we are actually turning starting to use thorium for energy.

[EstrangedIX]

Someone mentioned in the comments that thorium power could be available for a low flat rate like phone plans. Any time you turn something that's cumbersome and expensive into cheap efficient happiness, the people who stand to lose money lobby their asses off and drag it into red tape oblivion so they can keep making profit.

The fact that this article is older made me think of something. I'm probably remembering this completely wrong, but wasn't thorium energy something McCain was taking about during his campaign? Or was that the uranium-thorium combo? I was too busy dealing with medical issues at the time to pay enough attention. And once he cursed us with Palin, changing channels just became an automatic reflex.

[Pyriel]

Nuclear reactors have sickeningly high start-up costs, so private companies can rarely go it alone with these things. And because of the dangers present, the government will usually be deeply involved. Thorium reactions do produce some weapons-grade material. Over 99% of the thorium on Earth is the 232 variety. It's abundant, but it's fertile rather than fissile. Meaning you can't smash it with a neutron and start a fission reaction, but you can turn it into usable fuel. It has to undergo processing to turn it into fissile uranium, which I guess was more expensive and difficult in the fifties than using fissile uranium-235 or processing uranium-238 into something that can sustain a reaction.

There isn't a conspiracy or anything of that nature. India has had a thorium fuel initiative for a while now. From what I've read there are still a lot of problems that haven't been solved, and that's why it hasn't materialized yet. Initially thorium-fuel efforts were set aside for economic and efficiency reasons. When you need a couple of hundred million to get the ball rolling, it's almost impossible to keep multiple lines of research going. All the money went into uranium, and nobody took an interest in thorium again until energy independence and fossil fuel costs became big issues.

[Rooks]

Very interesting article. As for what Pyriel said, yeah, there are a few issues with Thorium, but it is true that overall it would be a much better alternative to Uranium nuclear power. Senator McCain did mention Thorium on the campaign trail, but in the end, both his and Senator Obama's nuclear policies were very similar, so in the end they did not talk too much about energy.

Personally, I am of the camp that believes humans are just incapable of controlling nuclear technology, and am for nuclear disarmament and eventually moving to other forms of energy. Even though the risk of meltdown at a LFTR plant is minimal, it still exists, and even if the spent fuel cannot be directly made into weapons, the techniques used can be a practical lesson to scientists who wish to turn to weapon production. So, in the end, I see LFTR as a step in the right direction, but only that.

Oddly, as Pyriel said, getting the ball rolling is expensive, and no one wants to be the politician to stick their neck out. Though, when the wrecking-ball that is the financial industry had the slightest bit of trouble, we seemed to have found 700 billion+ dollars overnight for them. . . hmm, I wonder who's side the politicians are on?