Thorium Fission Energy--The Next Big Energy Thing?

Thorium is referred to as a "fertile isotope," and is vastly more plentiful than U235. In addition, when it undergoes conversion and subsequent fission, it will not produce plutonium--unlike another fertile isotope, U238.

Michael Anissimov posted a fascinating look at Thorium fission, and other aspects of safer, more advanced fission energy, in this excellent post. Michael provides a great deal of information about advanced fission, and a several links at the bottom of his article. He also provides a visionary's look at the possibilities provided by these new technologies that is inspirational.

Another good source of information about Thorium fission is the Thorium Energy Blog.

If it takes 20 years for politicians and bureaucrats to catch up to the safer new nuclear fission technologies, then that is how long current oil production will need to be maintained. If renewable technologies can continue to increase their share of production, albeit slowly, they will be enormously useful.

Many extreme right wing and extreme left wing persons are hoping for an energy crash that leads to a severe worldwide depression, with accompanying massive human die-off. The apocalyptic vein runs deep in these people, as it does in many religious ultra-fundamentalists of various types. That type of death wish deformity merely makes the work that much harder--for those of us who are trying to keep the progress made by western civilisation going and accelerating.

I am not presently in a position to comment on the immediate prospects for the Thorium economy. I am, however, encouraged by what I am reading on various sites about the potential.

Here is a description of a thorium reactor that operated in Germany in the late 1980s. More are currently under development now.