Start your new year out on an optimistic note: read "Uranium is So Last Century -- Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke."
It seems that back when nuclear energy was young, the United States experimented with many substances that could generate nuclear energy. We chose Uranium over Thorium because we were locked in a nuclear arms race with Russia and we could use the by-product of Uranium power for bomb-making. With Thorium, there is very little waste and the waste can't be used for bombs and the waste in only dangerous for a few hundred years. In addition, Thorium is plentiful and has no risk of China Syndrome meltdowns when used. We even built working Thorium reactors but the whole idea of using Thorium was forced out in favor of savings on bomb-making through Uranium use.
We read so many depressing articles in energy technology these days. The one linked above reads like a wonderful story... our country's answer to clean, cheap energy has been sitting in a book on a shelf at Oak Ridge, TN for decades, waiting for someone to pursue it.
Come on, let's do it! Let's not end up in 2050 looking back to 2010 wishing we had moved to Thorium. Can you imagine the global changes we'd be living with today if we had pursued this 40 years ago?
Update: Read Kirk Sorensen's Energy from Thorium blog.
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2 comments:
I like your optimism and I most definitely agree!
Holy Cow, the one and only Kirk Sorensen! As long as America's still generating folks like you, my optimism will remain.
Thanks for all your work.
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