Thorium is a metal more abundant in nature than uranium - it is actually a waste-product of rare-earth metal mining and has no current commercial use. Thorium is an efficient fuel source and all thorium has the potential to be used as fuel. Uranium has to be refined before it can be used to produce energy.
Thorium was used in reactors in the early 1960s. It's use was eventually replaced by uranium to meet the growing call for plutonium. Thorium fission does not create the plutonium byproduct of uranium fission, and the waste that is produced by by Thorium fission is far less radiotoxic than that of uranium and plutonium.
What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.
Source (a very good article - I highly recommend reading it in it's entirety)
Are Thorium reactors the answer to alleviating our dependence on fossil fuels? It is suggested that use of thorium could alleviate our complete depedence on fossil fuels in 5 years time. Cleaner, safer, and cheaper... Thorium sounds like the way to go.
Some interesting articles:
- A Nuclear Reactor in Every Home
- Can Thorium Generate Safe and Cheap Nuclear Power?
- Thorium: the element that could power our future
- Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.
Note: I did not find any negative articles about thorium. That doesn't mean there is no down side, just that no one is talking about that yet.
Something else I learned: Thorium was discovered by a Swedish chemist, in 1828.
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