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Tree huggers everywhere and left-leaning greens decry the use of uranium and plutonium-based reactors for electricity generation citing weapons proliferation and safety concerns by trotting out examples such as the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents, and the Fukushima catastrophe. They want to see our fields turned into prairies and man returning to ‘nature’, eking out a hunter/gatherer existence, never mind the absurdity of that proposition. Well, I haven’t seen many of these proponents setting up back to nature communes. Let’s face it. Today’s technology has given mankind the most comfortable lifestyle ever, and it is easy for the greenies to disparage nuclear energy while enjoying the benefits derived from its use. It is interesting that none of them provided commercially viable alternatives to save us from ourselves and the toxic wastes industry generates. Citing renewable energy such as wind, wave and solar power simply cannot compete on a cost basis. Will green organizations everywhere help pay for our exorbitant electricity bills if we use those energy sources exclusively? They want us to donate money to them, remember?

There is an alternative – thorium.

Thorium is a radioactive actinide metal three times more abundant than uranium, and is discarded by industries everywhere in rare earths mining. In thermal breeder reactors, thorium 232 is bombarded by slow neutrons to become thorium 233, undergoing two beta decays resulting in fissile uranium 233, which is used as fuel. It is difficult to create a nuclear weapon from thorium reactor byproducts, which limits nuclear proliferation. Reactors using thorium are also safer and perform better because of its higher melting point and thermal conductivity, and lower thermal expansion than current uranium dioxide fuels. Once started up a breeder reactor needs no other fuel except thorium because it creates its own fissile fuel. Thorium reactors also produce less transuranic wastes, ameliorating problems associated with existing uranium reactors. A disadvantage of the thorium fuel cycle is the need to neutron irradiate and process natural thorium before these advantages can be realized. Of course, being a nuclear material, the greens have dumped thorium into the same basket of evil with other fissiles.

So, why didn’t the world embrace thorium as an energy source?

After World War II, uranium-based reactors were built to produce electricity, and were similar to designs that produced material for nuclear weapons. The U.S. did build an experimental molten salt reactor using U-233 created from thorium at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It operated successfully from 1965 to 1969. In 1973, the U.S. government shut down all thorium-related nuclear research, citing that uranium reactors were more efficient, the technology was proven, and generated byproducts could be used to make nuclear weapons. The U.S. government was not concerned with civilian application of thorium and related safety advantages, but production of weapons. Go figure.

However, the tide is turning as governments round the world realize the burden they and future generations will have to carry with continued use of uranium/plutonium reactors, waste disposal and storage, decommissioning and decontamination being top of the list. In 2013, a conference sponsored by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) focused on thorium as an alternative nuclear technology that did not produce nuclear waste. Numerous countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, India, China, Russia, Japan and others are developing liquid fluoride and molten salt thorium reactors. India is developing 62, mostly thorium reactors, to be operational by 2025, and has at least two already online.

Development of thorium-based reactors has become a strategic race as awareness to reduce industrial emissions and the negative impact these have on the global environment has become apparent. It is also a race for commercial competitive advantage as ageing uranium-based reactors are nearing their operational life and electricity operators are looking for viable, environmentally friendly alternatives. The U.S. has acknowledged the mistake it made when it shut down research into thorium reactor technology and is now expending considerable effort to become a market leader. No one is pretending that using thorium reactors will eliminate production of nuclear weapons. The confrontational mindset of governments everywhere will ensure that stockpiling of those things will continue. However, it is hoped that those same governments will take into consideration the needs of their civilian populations as a first priority, and creating weapons a sideline, an inevitable byproduct of our aggressive natures.

Have the tree huggers and greenies embraced this emerging technology as an acceptable alternative to uranium/plutonium reactors? Let’s get real. Greenpeace and other organizations professing to protect our planet from capitalist exploitation are vehemently opposed to thorium reactors, blindly trotting out the same criticism they use against existing nuclear technology. To them, the existence of man is the ultimate Earth pollutant, with themselves the only ones qualified to roam the prairies and forests clad in bearskins. Have they thought how they would kill that bear in order to wear its skin? That would require application of some type of technology…which would start the whole cycle again, wouldn’t it?

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