The Great Debate©: ‘Safe’ Nuclear Power from Thorium?

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, telegraph.co.uk and Steven Hansen Thorium is touted by many as the future energy source for the world.  Thorium would be used in place of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors: it is abundant on Earth, it has good efficiency, unlike uranium and plutonium is not easily weaponized, and produces much less waste. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in a recent post at The Telegraph penned: Princeling Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin, is spearheading a project for China's National Academy of Sciences with a start-up budget of $350m. The aim is to break free of the archaic pressurized-water reactors fueled by uranium -- originally designed for US submarines in the 1950s -- opting instead for new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima. He has already recruited 140 PhD...